It has to be enough.
It has to work.
Because if it doesn't, I'm dead. And the Krasniqi clan dies with me. Everything my family built across generations, gone. Absorbed by stronger clans or torn apart by rivals.
The water runs over my face. I tilt my head back, let it wash away the tension that won't actually leave. Let the heat sink into muscles that haven't relaxed in weeks.
My mind drifts.
To Lily.
The past two days have been strained. Careful. She moves through the apartment like she's walking on glass. I can hear it in her footsteps. In the extra space she puts between us.
Because of what I did. The rage I let slip free.
And maybe because of what she's going through. Whatever truth she's hiding behind that practiced lie.
I know she lied. Artan knows she lied. We both heard it, the rehearsed quality of her explanation. The smoothness that comes from repetition.
Someone hurt her.
And she won't tell us who.
I remember the moment Artan told me. The way rage rose in me, instant and violent. The need to find whoever put their hands on her and make them regret it. Make them beg. Make them understand what happens when you touch something that—
No. She doesn't belong to me.
My body reacts before my mind catches up. Heat spreading through me, pooling low. The water running over my skin suddenly feels different. More acute. Every nerve ending aware and hypersensitive.
I think about her voice. Soft. Warm. The way it sounds when she says my name.
I think about the way she smells. Vanilla and honey. The way it lingers after she leaves a room.
I'm hard.
Fully. Aching.
The want hits me like a fist to the gut. Undeniable. Impossible to ignore.
I tilt my head back under the spray. The water is too hot, steam thick in my lungs.
I wrap my hand around myself.
The first stroke pulls a breath from my chest. The second makes my jaw clench. Water slick, heat building fast, pressure coiling tight in my spine.
I think about Lily. About what she'd look like if she were here. Wet hair plastered to her shoulders. Water running between her breasts. Skin flushed from heat. Looking up at me with those blue eyes I can barely see but know are there.
I stroke faster. Pressure building. The frustration of the past weeks, the rage, the helplessness, all of it condensing into this. Into need I can't control. Into want that bypasses thought entirely and goes straight to the body.
Her hands. Her mouth. Her body pressed against mine.
I come hard. Fast. Too fast. Release hitting me like a wave, stealing my breath, wiping my mind clean for one perfect moment.
For a heartbeat there's nothing. Just heat and water and the aftermath. Just the feeling of my pulse slowing, my breathing evening out.
Then reality crashes back.
Shame. Frustration. The awareness that I'm standing in my shower getting off to thoughts of a woman I can barely see. A woman who works for me.
