Her head rests lightly against my shoulder, like maybe she belongs there, and my chest feels like it might split open. I sit perfectly still, fighting the instinct to crush her closer, to bury my face in her hair and breathe her in until she’s all that exists. Instead, I let her decide the distance, let her settle. And when her skin brushes mine—barely, accidentally, devastatingly—it drives me half mad.
I’ve killed for less temptation than this.
But what she doesn’t know, what no one knows, is burning its way up through me, demanding to be said. I’ve carried secrets like chains for years, and I’ve never cared—never trusted anyone enough to set them down. But now…
With her, I want a clean slate.
I want her to know me. Really know me. Not just the scars on my skin or the blood on my hands, but the truth of who I am beneath all of it. The truths that I’ve never spoken out loud because they could be used against me.
I turn my head slightly, just enough to see the soft curve of her cheek, the lashes resting against her skin. She looks so fragile like this, yet her weight against me feels stronger than anything I’ve ever known.
I want to tell her everything.
The secrets only whispered to the dead. The nightmares I’ve woken to with my knife in my hand. The bloodlines and betrayals. What Carlos did. What I became. Who I am. Whose blood runs through my veins.
She deserves that truth. Deserves me stripped bare, no lies, no shadows.
Because if I’m asking her to take this risk with me—tostay, to choose me over escape—then she should know exactly what kind of monster she’s tethering herself to.
I tighten my arm around her just slightly, careful not to break the spell, and breathe her in. Vanilla. Warmth. And the faintest trace of Gardenia. For the first time in my life, the weight of my secrets feels heavier to keep than to give.
"I have a confession to make." I have to clear my throat; it's too rough.
Sophia stirs against me and lifts her head from my shoulder so her eyes can search mine, quiet but expectant, like she already senses something heavy is coming.
"That day," I begin slowly, "in the garden. When you came to me."
Recognition flickers across her face, and I know she remembers.
"I was terrified," I admit. "Because you were too young. Too untouchable. A mafia princess. And me? I was nothing but a soldier—disposable, replaceable. I had no right to even look at you the way I did."
Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak.
"I swore to myself, right then, that one day I’d make myself worthy of you," I continue, the words tearing out of me like they’ve been waiting years. "So I built a kingdom in the shadows, stone by bloody stone. Every move, every risk, every scar—I took them allwith you in mind. So that one day I could sit here and say this to you without shame."
Her eyes widen in disbelief, and something softer shines in them.
"I loved you even then," I tell her. "Even when I wasn’t allowed to. Even when it was the vilest thing I could have done. That one stolen kiss was all I could think about for years. I wanted you. Enough to shape my whole damn life around a plan of how I could one day have you."
"You fooled me," she whispers in a trembling voice. "I thought you hated me."
I lift my hand, brushing the backs of my fingers over her cheek. The softness there almost undoes me.
"I tried," I murmur. "God, I tried. But nobody can hate you, bella mia. It isn’t possible. You’re too beautiful. Too graceful. Too full of light, even when you don’t know it. You walk into a room, and everything stops.Istopped. And I hated myself for it, not you."
Her breath catches, and I let my thumb trace the curve of her jaw.
"I was nothing, Soph—just muscle with a gun. I’d barely finished high school. I was all wrong for you in every way that mattered. And still, I wanted you more than I wanted air."
Her hand is warm against my cheek, small and fierce. She leans in, and the words tumble out: confession, apology, love tangled with doubt. “I had such a crush onyou…” she tells me. “Ever since you became my bodyguard… I thought I loved you when you saved me the first time. I’ve loved you through all those years with Roberto… But some days, I hated you too, Raffael.”
It lands like a punch. I deserved every ounce of that hate. I hated myself too, for not being there, for being a shadow when she needed light. The room narrows to the steady press of her palm and the tremor in her breath.
“And now?” I ask because I need the shape of it. I need the truth, even if it’s messy.
“I don’t know,” she says, utterly honest and terrifying. “I don’t hate you anymore. But I don’t know if I even know what love is. All I know is I’ve been longing for you for years. That I feel safe with you.”
Her eyes are wet and open and full of a kind of frightened hope. It should break me; instead, it awakens something in me—something patient and feral. The corner of my mouth lifts without permission.
