"Elena—"
"I'm tired, Marco." She sets the plate in the dish rack and turns to face me. Her eyes are bright but she's not crying. Just... done. "I made dinner. We ate. Now I'm going to bed. Isn't that what good little jobs do? Stay where they're told?"
The jab lands. She walks past me toward her bedroom.
"That's not what I want," I say to her retreating back.
She pauses at her doorway. Doesn't turn around. "Then maybe you should figure out what you do want. Because I'm tired of the mixed signals."
Her door closes. Not a slam. Just a quiet, definitive click.
I stand in the kitchen, staring at her closed door. The apartment feels bigger somehow. Emptier.
She's right. I have been giving mixed signals. Touching her when I shouldn't. Looking at her in ways that have nothing to do with protection. Getting jealous when other men come near her.
But Vito's warning echoes in my head. She's family. She's off limits.
I rinse my own plate and put it away. Turn off the lights. Collapse onto the couch.
The thing is, I do know what I want. That's the problem.
An hour later, I'm still awake. Staring at the ceiling. Replaying the conversation. Wondering if I should knock on her door and actually be honest for once.
Then I hear it. Footsteps in the hallway.
She's trying to sneak out again. Bold as brass. Walking right past me like I'm some amateur she can outsmart.
This is sooner than I expected her to try again. Maybe our conversation pushed her to this. Or maybe she's just that desperate to meet whoever she's been contacting.
She's almost to the front door when I flick on the lamp and stand. Cross my arms over my chest.
"No."
She stops. Turns around. And I can see the determination in her eyes even in the dim light.
"Can we not do this?" She crosses her arms too. Hip popped in that defiant way that drives me insane. "You don't get to tell me what to do."
"You're not going."
"I am going." Her voice rises slightly. "You have no right to control my every move. I need to go, you don't understand?—"
"How could I understand when you won't tell me a damn thing?"
"Because you've made it clear you don't actually care!" The words burst out of her. "I'm just a job, remember? So do your job and get out of my way."
"It's not that simple?—"
"It is exactly that simple." She tries to push past me toward the door. "Either you care or you don't. Either I matter to you or I'm just an assignment. You can't have it both ways."
I block her path. She tries to go around me. We dance this stubborn waltz—her trying to get around me, me blocking her path—over and over.
"Elena, stop."
"No! You stop!" She shoves at my chest. Not hard. Just frustrated. "Stop acting like you care when it's convenient and then hiding behind 'it's just business' when things get real. Stoplooking at me the way you do and then telling me I'm off limits. Stop?—"
Her voice cracks. She stops pushing.
We're standing too close. I can see the rapid rise and fall of her chest. The shine in her eyes that might be unshed tears or just anger.
