Isabella sits at the small table by the window with her hair braided to one side. She wears my button up shirt instead of the dress. It falls past her hips and makes my chest ache in a way I never thought it would. Her legs are tucked under her like she feels at home. She readsthe clause again, not because she forgot it, but because she likes to know exactly where it might break.
The paper is thick. The ink is black and new. It dries the way contracts always do, like something being decided without mercy.
“Escrow breathes in daylight,” she murmurs, not looking up. “Dual signatures. Auditor list. Penalty tithe. Heir protections with language that can’t be reinterpreted by men who enjoy loopholes.”
“You wrote it to survive them, Miss Valentine,” I say.
“I wrote it to survive you, Moretti,” she answers, and her mouth curves. A small smile. Private. The kind of smile that remembers the island and also remembers the condo where we just fought for our lives and came out choosing tomorrow.
I pour coffee. It’s bad coffee. Cheap and burnt, honest. The kind of coffee a man drinks at dawn because he has work to do and no one is waiting with a silver tray.
She takes hers black, too.
Nothing fancy.
It’s a detail that shouldn’t matter. It does. Details are how you know a person is real and not an idea you’ve been trained to hate.
Outside, the snow starts again. Not heavy. Not a storm. Just a patient fall that makes the alley appear softer than it is. The city is quiet in that way it gets when it’s pretending nothing is wrong.
A dog barks somewhere below the window. Not angry. Just lonely. Isabella pauses like she hears it with her heart instead of her ears.
“You like dogs?” I ask.
She shrugs, but it’s a soft shrug. “I like loyalty that doesn’t come with contracts. Poor thing will freeze in this snow.”
Something in my chest loosens. Because that is what we’re trying to build. A life that doesn’t bite unless it has to.
I lean in the doorway and watch her read.
She’s shaking today.
The bruise on her cheek from her father’s hand is a faint shadow that tries to call itself a lesson. He meant it as one. He meant to remind her who owns her cage.
He doesn’t own her.
He doesn’t get to.
I keep the thought inside my chest, packed tight, because rage makes men sloppy and I can’t afford sloppy. Not tomorrow. Not with the docks waiting like open jaws.
Isabella looks up and catches me watching. Her gaze moves to my shoulder, where the scar sits then back to my face. She sees what I’m doing. She doesn’t call it out. She doesn’t ask for reassurance.
She simply sets the paper down and stands.
Barefoot.
My shirt.
Her braid over one shoulder like rope.
Damn.
She crosses the room and puts her palm on my chest. She does it the way she did in the courier truck, when her hands shook and mine didn’t.
“Still steady?” she asks.
“For you,” I say.
She closes her eyes for one breath. My heartbeat ticks under her palm, calm and hard and alive.
