When did anyone last see me as a person?Not a weapon.Not a tool.Not a broken Marine who needs fixing.
Just...a person.
“You don’t have to answer now,” she says quickly, before I can respond.“Think about it tonight.I know I’m asking for something huge.But Shelby, I’m running out of options, and you’re the only person I trust enough even to ask.”
I pull her closer, my forehead resting against hers, as we breathe the same air.Trying to figure out if we’re brave enough—or crazy enough—to actually do this.
“If I do this,” I say quietly, “if I marry you, I’m all in.I don’t do anything halfway.Fake or not, you’ll be mine, and I’ll be yours.I’ll protect you with everything I have.”
Even from myself, if necessary.I keep that last one to myself.
Her heart is pounding against my chest.“Is this a yes?”
“That’s a ‘let-me-think-overnight’, a non-committal answer.I’ll give you my decision tomorrow morning.”I pull back to look at her properly.“This isn’t something I can take lightly.This affects both our families, our futures, everything.”
“I know.”
“But for what it’s worth?”I whisper as something dark and possessive rises in me.It’s a feeling that should scare me, but it doesn’t.At all.So I promise her, “Cesare Dellamare doesn’t deserve to keep breathing.Whether I marry you or not, he touched you without permission.That doesn’t go unpunished in our world.”
The fierce protectiveness in my own voice surprises me.But Serena doesn’t look fazed.She seems relieved.Like she’s been carrying this weight alone for too long, and I’ve just offered to shoulder it.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“Stay tonight,” I hear myself say.“Not for—just stay.Sleep in the guest room.I need to make sure you’re safe tonight.”
She nods, and I lead her to the bedroom I didn’t show her last night.It’s simple and elegant, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering a view of Boston lit up against the night sky.
“There are clothes in the closet if you need them,” I say from the doorway.“Bathroom’s through there.And Serena?”
“Yes?”
“Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever I decide, I promise you that you’re not alone in this anymore.Understand?”
She nods, a spark glinting in her eyes.
I close the door and head back to my own room, but sleep doesn’t come easily.I lie in the dark, thinking about Serena in the guest room down the hall.Thinking about Cesare Dellamare and the way he treated her like she was property that he had just acquired.
Thinking about what it would mean to marry her, to tie myself to another person when I can barely trust myself.
But mostly, I think about the way she touched my face, the way she sees past the broken parts to something worth saving.
Maybe that’s enough.
Maybe that’s more than enough.
By morning, I’ll have my answer.But right now, in the dark, with Serena DiLorenzo sleeping in my apartment, I already know what that answer is going to be.
Because when someone asks you to help them escape a monster, when someone trusts you enough to be vulnerable, when someone sees you as a person rather than a weapon, you say yes.
You say yes, and you figure out the rest as you go.
5
Shelby
The weight of my decision settles in my chest like shrapnel—painful, persistent, impossible to ignore.I stand at the floor-to-ceiling windows of my penthouse living room, nursing a whiskey I don’t taste.I watch the sun set behind the Blue Hills and Boston’s lights come alive, blurring into abstract patterns.The city breathes and moves below, oblivious to the fact that I’ve just agreed to the most strategically sound and personally reckless thing I’ve done since enlisting.
Marriage.To Serena DiLorenzo.
