“Stephen…” Her voice softens, the word catching like she isn’t sure whether she’s allowed to say my name anymore. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing of importance.” I step back to give her more space, my body tight with the effort not to reach for her, not to pull her into me, and remind myself she’s still mine.
The foyer of my apartment is quiet, the muted hum of the city seeping through a window, and it feels like the calm before the storm.
I turn and move into the apartment, not waiting for her to follow. I hear her soft footsteps that stop when she makes it just inside the doorway, her attention drifting to my cut-up hands, a slight frown marring her perfect brow.
“What happened to you?” she asks.
I don’t answer. I shut the foyer door, the sound loud in the silent apartment. The image is still burned into my brain—her face tilted toward that Romero bastard, his arm about her shoulders, his gleeful smirk that tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing. I feel it then, that snap inside my chest, the same one that’s been with me my whole life. The one that says if someone threatens what’s mine, dares to touch what doesn’t belong to them, they don’t get a second warning.
“I’m fine,” I say eventually, stripping my jacket off and tossing it aside.
“You’re not,” she replies, sharper now. “Your jaw is bruised?—”
Well, no fight is fair if one punch doesn’t land on me. “I said I’m fine.”
She doesn’t flinch at my tone, but I see the way her shoulders tense. I hate that I did that. I hate even more that part of me wants to pace, wants to burn this feeling out of my system with violence, the way I was taught. It takes effort—real effort—to stay still.
To not let the fury burning within me take hold.
She crosses her arms. “Then talk to me.”
I laugh once, short and bitter. “Talk then?” I cross my arms. “Do you enjoy your little photo shoot with Elio? Quite the friendship considering you’re their lawyer.”
Her jaw tightens, and as if sensing a forthcoming argument, she too crosses her arms. “He sprung it on me without my consent. There was nothing more in it than that.”
“He isn’t being friendly,” I continue, my voice low. “He’s marking territory. Romeros like to do that. You should ask Lucien’s wife how well that went for her when she married into that family.” My laugh is low and lacks amusement. “Elio is showing me he can get close to you whenever he wants and thatyou let him.” Possibly a low blow, but my temper can’t hold back the observation.
Her eyes flash. “He didn’t get close because I wanted him to.”
That should be enough. It isn’t. The fear gnaws anyway, sharp and relentless, because I know how men like Elio think. I know how my father would have thought. And God help me, I know how I’ve thought in the past when something precious is put in front of me like bait, and I can use it to hurt another.
“You should’ve told me you were meeting someone tonight,” I say.
Her head snaps up. “Excuse me?” she scoffs. “I don’t have to tell you what I’m doing every minute of every day. We’re not exclusive, and even then I can do whatever the hell I want.”
There it is—the steel under the silk. The woman who won’t be told what to do, even when the danger is real. I respect it. I want to cage it. Both truths exist, and that terrifies me.
“You don’t get to police me,” she continues. “Not my job. Not my movements. Not my life.”
I scrub a hand down my face, the ache in my jaw grounding me. “That’s not what I’m trying to do, damn it.”
“It feels like it.”
I don’t deny it, because lying won’t help. Perhaps I am trying to cage her, but with my past, my family, and the enemies who continue to circle our family like sharks, what the hell does she expect? “I’m trying to keep you alive.”
Her expression shifts, uncertainty flickering through her anger. “That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? While I understand, perhaps better after today, what you’ve been trying to tell me regarding the Romeros, I doubt they’re going to kill me just to get at you. I’m not anything special.”
“You’re special to me,” I admit. Her eyes widen at my words, but I won’t take them back. They’re true, I do care for her, morethan anyone else ever, and why shouldn’t she know that? Why shouldn’t she know that I’d do anything to keep her safe?
“Those men don’t play by society's rules, Dallen. They don’t care about boundaries, professionalism, or what’s appropriate. They care about leverage and revenge, and they think they have a score to settle with the Morettis.”
She hesitates, and I see the crack in her certainty. “I dropped them,” she says quietly. “As clients. My boss is taking them on, so I’ll not be working with them anymore, not after what I found out earlier today from some intelligence from my father’s office.”
The words hit harder than I expect. Relief slams into my chest, followed immediately by something colder—annoyance. Because it isn’t enough to trust my words, she needs to hear the truth from someone she trusts absolutely.
Her father…
