“You feel safe with me,” I repeat, tasting the words like they’re illegal and holy both. “That’s more than most men ever get.” My voice is rough. I reach up, fingers sliding over the curve of her wrist, stalling because the urge to close the distance is an animal inside me.
The thing I’ve buried for years—dangerous, useless, beautiful—answers. “I loved you, too,” I say, not hiding it now. “I still do. I have for a long time.”
Her breath catches like wind through paper. She shifts, searching my face, as if she needs proof I’m not a mirage.
“I don’t know how to be gentle with you yet,” I say, and the confession is a different kind, honest in its own way. “I’m built for other things. But I can learn. I will learn.”
She lets out a shaky sound that might be a laugh or a sob. “Will you promise me one thing?” she asks.
“Name it.”
“Don’t make me choose you because I owe you. Don’t make me choose you because I’m scared. Don’t make me choose you because there’s nowhere else. Make me want you. Don’t let me feel like the only thing standing between you and revenge or power.”
I study her—her freckled temple, the way her lower lip trembles—and my chest does the dumb thing it does when I want to protect something sacred. “I swear,” I say, and I mean it with every splintered, stubborn piece of me. “I’ll only ask for what you can give. I’ll be slow. I’ll be steady. I’ll show up. If you ever tell me to leave, I leave. But if you let me stay, I will spend the rest of my life making sure you have options, not obligations.”
She closes her eyes at that, relief and terror braided together. Her fingers tighten once against my skin and then soften. I lean in because everything in me wants the electricity of her mouth on mine, but I don’t hunt for it. I let her set the pace.
When our lips meet, it’s careful, an exploration, not a conquest. No shouting. No fever. Just two people mapping fault lines and finding something that won’t crumble when pressed gently. Her hands find the back of my neck; mine settle on her waist like an oath. The kiss deepens with consent and slowness, and when we break apart, she’s breathing through her mouth, eyes glossy but steadier.
“You’re not alone,” I tell her softly, forehead resting against hers. “We’ll find out what love means together. One small, honest thing at a time.”
She laughs, a small, broken sound that turns into something like a promise. “One small thing at a time,” she repeats.
I tuck that vow under my ribs beside the queen on my skin and the ledger in my head. I don’t know how to give her back the years she lost, but I know how to spend the rest of my life proving I'm different from the men who took them. Starting tonight.
We sit frozen, staring at each other, caught in the weight of years neither of us can undo. My heart hammers. Her eyes glisten, but she doesn’t look away.
And in that suspended silence, it feels like the whole world narrows down to just this: her hand on my face, my heart in her eyes, and the truth we can’t hide from anymore.
The first roll of thunder crashes overhead, so sudden and violent that Sophia flinches, and I feel her breath stutteragainst me. The spell between us shatters with it, leaving silence thick and pulsing in its wake.
I clear my throat. My hand still cradles her cheek, though I know I should drop it. "There’s more you need to know," I murmur. My voice sounds hoarse, almost lost in the groan of wind pressing against the house.
Lightning flashes, bleaching the room in white. A second later, heavy rain lashes against the windows, loud and relentless, like the sky itself is demanding the truth to be dragged out of me.
"I built something," I say. "First, Omertà Infernale. It was just a whisper then, a shadow organization I pieced together with blood, betrayal, and survival. But it grew. Too big, too fast. So I renamed it. Umbra Arcana."
The name rolls off my tongue like a vow. Her eyes widen, reflecting the flicker of lightning outside. She says nothing, but I see the pulse in her throat jump, feel the tension ripple through her frame.
I don’t stop. I can’t.
"I was adopted, Soph. My childhood…" I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "…it wasn’t happy. You don’t need the details to know it made me what I am. Hard. Scarred. Hungry. I had nothing. Nobody. So I carved something out of the dark."
Rain pelts the roof like a drumbeat, steady, unyielding.
"My company—Umbra Arcana—it’s everything your father’s world pretends not to be. I take the soldiersnobody else wants, the broken ones, the ones with scars that scare polite society, and I make them lethal again. We erase scandals, scrub court records, bribe therapists, and wipe digital traces. For the right price, we make inconvenient exes, whistleblowers, and viral videos disappear like they never existed. And my real passion? A network of assassins—men and women the world doesn’t believe exist." I don’t soften my tone, don’t apologize. She deserves the truth, naked and unvarnished.
Her lips part, her breath catches, but still, she listens.
"Billions," I add, my voice flat. "That’s what sits in my accounts. Billions built on shadows and blood. And I would burn it all to the ground for you."
Another lightning flash. The room plunges into shadow again, and in that dark, I let the last part slip, raw and unguarded. "I was a fool. A complete idiot. Because I thought you were in love with Roberto. And I let myself believe it." My chest tightens, my throat aches. "I checked on you, more times than I’ll admit, but I didn’t see. God, I should have done better."
Thunder splits the sky like an answer to my self-condemnation, rattling the windowpanes. I don’t say the rest, don’t say that I was ready to let her go, that the thought of it nearly destroyed me. That losing her again now would kill me. The words lodge in my chest, unspeakable but scorching hot.
Her tears glisten in the flickering light as she turns her face up to me. "I wished so many times foryou to come," she whispers, her voice breaking. "Rescue me like you did in the alley. But I knew I had no right to wish that. You were always there, though. In my dreams. Always you."
Her tears spill freely now; her voice sounds ragged. My hand trembles as I cup her face again, brushing the wetness from her cheeks with my thumb. "I’m sorry," I rasp. My throat burns with it, but the words keep coming. "So damn sorry. I should’ve come sooner. I should’ve seen it. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you."
