"Can’t help the way I look," I offer, and she laughs, half-derisive, half-satisfied.
She doesn’t wait for more. The knife finishes its lesson—clean, quick—there’s a soft surrender in him, a collapse that takes all the fight out of the afternoon. She wipes the blade on his shirt as if removing flour from a baker’s hand and lets the body slump. No theatrics, no wasted motion. Efficient.
For a second, I’m stupid with something like awe. A slow, dangerous pride warms my gut.
"Efficient," I say, and the word is short and accurate.
She tilts her head, wipes her fingers, and looks at me with that flat evaluation. "Educational," she answers.
We step from the shadow into the city's noise like we’re returning from a shop. A boy aims a water gun at the pigeons. A woman sells lemons with a laugh. The proprietorat the knife stall is glancing from us to the alley door, confused. I pick up my phone and text Ramón to have him send a cleanup crew. I don't want to take any unnecessary risks. The two men will be missed, but it'll take the Cartel longer to figure out what happened to them if they don't have the bodies.
We walk away with our hands intertwined, our steps the measured kind that don’t invite company. The market swallows us back up, and the city goes on making small noises, unaware, or unwilling to be honest about what it hides.
We hitthe room with the day still on our skin, salt, dust, and the market’s noise trailing us like a stray dog. I lock the door. He checks the window—habit and ritual. We don’t speak until the latch clicks and the world is officially outside.
"El Arquitecto lost two men," I say, toeing off my shoes. "He’ll be looking for them."
"I've sent for a cleanup team, but yeah, sooner or later, they'll figure out they're missing," Stephano answers, rolling his sleeves up, calm as a prayer. "Let's hope they’ll blame it on the locals to buy us more time."
I consider his words, glad for his foresight, and mull over his logic. "That would be a plus."
He smiles, the dangerous kind that sits low in the body. The air heats without moving. I feel him like a magnetfeels true north, an invisible pull that’s more math than choice. I hate that I love that.
He sits on the edge of the bed, legs spread, hands loose on his thighs, looking like temptation and sin. "I’m going to kiss you now," he says, like he’s calling a play. No asking. A line drawn.
My insides turn to something soft and treasonous. "Command suits you," I tell him. "Don’t get used to it."
He crooks a finger. "Come here."
I go because I want to, not because he told me to. That’s what I tell myself, anyway, as I climb into his space and swing a leg over, straddling him. The mattress sighs under the weight of bad ideas.
"Like this?" I ask, pretending it’s a joke.
"Just like that," he breathes, and the sound he makes is not polite. His hands find my hair, fist gently at the roots, and he draws me down, mouth to mine, no warning, no softness first. The kiss lands hot—hungry—like he’s been saving it for a day that kept not coming. He kisses me like it might ransom him from hellfire, like he intends to live through this because of it.
I answer because I’m not a liar, not about this. I tilt my jaw and catch his lower lip, tasting coffee, citrus, and the kind of man who won’t back down even when he should. He pulls; I go, and heat skates down my spine in a cleanline.
"Steph," I say against his mouth, not a warning, not a plea, just his name turned into something reckless.
His hand anchors at my nape, the other braces my hip. He doesn’t rush it. He deepens and then eases, like he’s learning the terrain by heart. My fingers slide to his collar, hook there, and for a second the room narrows to breath and pressure and the drum in my chest that refuses to be civilized.
He breaks just enough to look at me. His eyes are darker than they were in the market, fixed and honest. "Tell me to stop," he says, rough, "and I stop."
I don’t. I kiss him again, slower now, savoring. I’m aware of every point we touch, of the quiet drag of fabric, of the way it feels to be held without being handled. He tastes like the city, salt and sun, and something sweet.
When I finally pull back, we’re both breathing like we ran a flight of stairs. I press my forehead to his, let the world blur and come back.
He holds my face like it’s a recently stolen artifact, his thumbs trace either side of my jaw, and I realize: he’s being careful with me. The mafia boss's hands, built for breaking, are terrified of leaving a mark.
The irony would kill me if it didn’t turn me on so much.
"Don’t," I say, catching his wrist. "I'm not breakable."
A huff of laughter, and the ache in him is almost musical. He shakes his head, presses his lips to my brow, eithera benediction or a warning. "You’re sewn shut in two places."
"Only two," I tell him, and undo a button on his shirt, slow, so he can watch. Then another. I want to see his scars and his tats again.
He catches on fast. There’s a knife-edge hunger in him, but he keeps his hands at my sides, waiting for me to finish undressing him. I drag his shirt off his shoulder with less care than some would call wise, but he gives nothing, not even a wince. The scar at his collarbone is old and silvery; the one bisecting his left bicep is wide and doesn't look like it healed right. I trace both.
