“I feel nothing,” Valerio says. He’s vacant. “When I was sixteen, I used to imagine her walking up to me. I practiced my reaction. I thought if she apologized, the rot would stop. We all did. Lucian, Cassian… we never looked for her. We wanted her to choose us for once. Now she says it, and it’s just noise. It doesn’t fix my head, Charlotte.”
“Apologies are for the living. She’s been dead to you for a long time.”
He reaches up, his large hands framing my face. His thumbs trace the line of my cheekbones with a focus that’s almostpainful. He’s seeking comfort the only way he knows how—me.
“You’re the only one,” he rasps. “The only person who matters. You’re the only person I’d die to keep.”
The aimless massacres have stopped. He’s still a Morelli—still a dangerous, possessive prick who eavesdrops on my patients and marks my skin—but he’s no longer a serial killer. He’s settled into the same level of functional insanity as his brothers. He’s found a place to put his rage. He’s put it into me.
“Happy birthday, Valerio,” I whisper.
“I’m thirty,” he says, a small, dark huff of a laugh hitting my skin. “I’m thirty, and I’m finally breathing.”
The monster is still there, tucked away in the cage I built for him, but for tonight, he’s just a man who finally found his way home.
“Can I paint you?”
“How did you know that’s your gift?” A small smile tugs at my mouth. “I haven’t even unwrapped the easel yet.”
Valerio raises a brow, his expression flat, unimpressed by the idea of a secret. “You think I don’t have a tracker on you, Charlotte?”
“Where?”
He touches the heavy diamond necklace resting at the base of my throat. “I know where you are to the centimeter. Always. I was watching the dot while you skipped in that arts and crafts store. “
For most, this is a violation. For me, it’s adoration. He can’t fathom a world where I’m not under his watch. It’s the obsession I’ve spent my whole life looking for in the wrong places.
Yes, he doesn’t tell meI love you. And I don’t need him to. Because he shows me every day how I mean the world to him. How every decision he makes, he makes with me in mind. That he’s obsessed with me.
“Good,” I tease. “Then you’ll know exactly where to find me ifI ever decide to run.”
“You won’t run,” he says, and it isn’t a question.
I stand, moving to the corner to drag the heavy equipment over. I help him unwrap the supplies. He handles the brushes, testing the bristles against his thumb.
“Sit,” he commands.
I go to the velvet chair, posing for him. I’ve never been happier. I’ve never felt more settled than I do right now, in this glass cage, being watched by a man who would burn the city down just to keep me in his sight.
The world can call him a monster. But I know the truth. We’re both broken, and in this jagged, insane life we’ve built, we finally fit.
He looks at me with an intensity that feels like a physical touch.
“Don’t move,” he rasps. “I want to capture the way the light hits your throat. I want to see exactly where I’m going to put my teeth later.”
I tilt my head back, exposing myself to him. “I’m not moving, Valerio. I’m right here. Always.”
Epilogue
Valerio
The sound of the city is a dull roar against the glass, but inside the penthouse, it’s silent.
I’m standing in the doorway of the room we finished yesterday. It doesn’t smell like gunpowder or blood. It smells like fresh paint and expensive wool. It’s the perfect room for my child.
Another Morelli. Another soul added to the tally of our rot.
Charlotte is asleep in the center of the bed in the next room, but I can’t stop looking at the monitor in my hand. I have cameras in the nursery. I have cameras in the halls. I have three different tracking frequencies embedded in the jewelry she wears. I know the rhythm of her heart better than I know my own.
