Because a man like me doesn’t get to want things like that.
Not from a woman like her.
She deserves peace. Light. A life that isn’t shaped by violence or men who learned too early how to break the world to get what they want. If I touched her—reallytouched her—she’d never be able to unlearn what I am. And I won’t drag her down into the dark just to satisfy a hunger I should have killed the moment it began.
So I keep my distance. I keep my hands clean where she’s concerned. I guard her in silence and pretend my presence is nothing but coincidence.
She’ll never know how fiercely I claim her in the privacy of my own mind.
And she’ll never know that the only reason she stays untouched is because I refuse to be the one who stains her.
Suddenly, the idea of my guys escorting her isn’t enough.
“Change of plans.” I flick the cigarette into the gutter without lighting it and head for the steps. “With me.”
Ottavio bites down a smirk and follows.
We reach the subway entrance. I stop at the top of the stairs and look down into the glow of fluorescent lights and tiled walls, listening to the echo of footsteps below. Rose is already gone, swallowed by the tunnels.
“She’s not walking alone anymore,” I say.
Ottavio glances at me. “You sure you want to take that on personally?”
“Yes.”
“No rotation?”
“No,” I repeat. “Me.”
He nods once. No argument. That’s another reason he’s my right arm. He knows when to talk and knows even better when to shut the fuck up.
“Keep me posted on the Bratva situation.”
“Will do, boss.”
The shadows close around me easily. So do the subway doors, two cars after hers.
5
ROSE
The yowling drags me out of sleep like a hook.
It takes a second to place it. High-pitched, angry, insistent. Wasabi’s voice, but louder, sharper, aimed at something specific. I blink at the dark ceiling, heart already picking up speed, and then I hear it again, coming from the front of the apartment.
"Hey," I mumble, pushing myself upright. "What’s wrong with you now, hellspawn?"
The bed is cold without him. He’s planted by the front door, one-eyed glare fixed on the crack beneath it, tail lashing like he’s about to throw hands with the hardwood. He lets out another howl, the kind he reserves for exactly two things: the vacuum cleaner?—
—and Nori.
Thatthought gets my attention.
Nori is the neighborhood stray, black and scarred and perpetually one bad day away from disaster. I feed him when he shows up, patch him up when he’s clearly lost a fight, and pretend I don’t worry about him when he disappears for weeksat a time. Wasabi hates him with the passion of a cat who believes his territory has been pissed on repeatedly.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and pad toward the door, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. The apartment is quiet, too quiet, but that’s normal at this hour. Probably. I tell myself that as I lean down and peer through the peephole.
The hallway is empty.
