Yes to the risk. Yes to the plan. Yes to the fact that we are no longer pretending this is only strategy.
His eyes meet mine and I see the answer he doesn’t say out loud.
Yes.
The doors open to a concrete corridor more honest than the ones above. We move past the locked cages where restaurants keep flour and wine. A rolling gate waits. He pulls the chain and the door rattles up. Cold air from the dock licks my ankles.
Outside, a single truck idles with no driver in sight. A courier service logo peels at the edges. I don’t trust coincidence, but I don’t have time to entertain another option. He checks the cab. Empty. Keys dangle from the ignition like a choice.
“Gift,” he says.
“Marker,” I correct. “We will pay it back with interest.”
We climb in. He drives like he does everything. Controlled. Dangerous only when the road asks for it. I watch the mirror until the tower shrinks to a toy and then I watch the bag in my lap because if I look at his hands I’ll forget how to breathe.
We don’t go back to the restaurant. Eyes will be there now. We cut toward the river where warehouses sit in rows like teeth under a gum. He noses the truck into the shadow of a loading bay and kills the engine. The quiet comes down like a curtain.
My hands shake then. Only for a moment. Adrenaline is a storm and storms pass. He sees it and doesn’t mistake it for weakness. He takes the wrist that trembles and sets my palm to his chest. His heart is steady and hard. Heat presses into my skin. I breathe and the shiver leaves.
“Feel it,” he says. “Still steady.”
It is.
Mine steadies with it.
The silence between us stretches, heavy with what we crossed and what we chose.
“We’re supposed to be enemies,” I say. “Not just rivals. Not optics. Real enemies.”
“I know,” he answers.
“You could’ve taken the drive and left me,” I say. “You did not.”
“I didn’t,” he agrees.
“You could have used me,” I continue. “My name. My position.”
“I chose you,” he says, the words simple and irrevocable. “The rest is logistics.”
Something in my chest cracks open. Not painfully. Honestly.
Luigi reaches behind the seat and pulls a small field kit. He hands me a wipe, and I clean the blade and the line of red that sits faint along my knuckles. He watches my hands as if they are telling him a story he wants to remember.
He wipes a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth with his thumb. I reach for him anyway. One small touch to his jaw. He catches my wrist gently and presses his mouth to the inside of it, the place my pulse gives me away.
I lean forward and kiss his mouth. There is no urgency. It's certain.
His hands come up slowly, framing my face like he is still asking permission even after everything. I open to him because I want to be known by this man and still stand afterward.
The kiss feels like a blessing and a warning.
When we pull apart, he rests his forehead against mine.
“This isn’t a truce,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “This is alignment.”
“And when our houses come for us?” I ask.
