My mouth opens to protest, but I close it again. He’s not asking for permission. There’s no room for negotiation in his tone.
"You really just plan to pretend like we’re a normal couple now?"
He shrugs. "We’re not normal."
That part I can’t deny. The past two days have been too raw, too eventful to be anything less than insane.
"I have to work today," he adds. "Things are already getting loud, I need to stay present, Falco won’t stay quiet for long with his bride gone."
"I was the bride."
"Exactly."
I set the coffee down, an uncomfortable thought surfacing. "Wait…my stuff. From the hotel. Did I lose everything?"
He smiles. "You mean these?"
He gets out of bed—completely unbothered by his nakedness—and strides to the massive walk-in closet, returning with three familiar designer bags and my battered duffel.
My eyes go wide. "You have my stuff?"
He sets them gently at the foot of the bed. "Of course."
"Why?"
He looks at me for a long beat, then walks over and kneels beside the bed, resting his elbows on the mattress. "Because I looked for you. For a month straight we searched, trying to figure out why you vanished from that hospital. I had men in Detroit, Vegas, hell, even fucking Seattle. My men traced you to that hotel and I went in, looking for anything that could lead me to you. It seemed as if those bags were all you had, so of course I kept them."
The breath leaves my lungs in a rush. The room feels smaller now, warmer, suffocating with the weight of his words.
"You searched for me?"
"Relentlessly."
A war wages in my chest—guilt and longing battling it out, and neither side is winning.
"You could’ve moved on."
His brow lifts. "Zara, when will you realize there is no moving on from you? Not in two years, not in a month. I had to makesure you were safe, and when I found out you weren’t, I couldn’t rest."
Goddammit.
He returns to his coffee like he didn’t just throw a live grenade in the middle of my emotional equilibrium. I slide out from under the sheets, grabbing my duffel and unzipping it with trembling fingers.
At the bottom, hidden beneath some folded clothes, is the false bottom still intact.
The flash drive.
I retrieve it from its hiding place and stare at it for a beat, my fingers brushing the edge. I’d hidden it years ago, thinking it was safer in my possession than out in the world. But now? Now everything’s changed.
I glance back at Enzo. This man found me, stole me, married me to protect me. And now he wants to give me everything—including his trust. Maybe I should give him mine.
I turn the drive over in my palm, the metal cool against my skin. It’s lighter than I remember, but it might as well weigh a thousand pounds. Everything I’ve hidden, everything I’ve protected for years—it all sits inside.
My eyes find him again, sitting on the edge of the bed, sipping his coffee. Naked, tattoos like battle scars across his chest and arms, his dark eyes soft when they land on me. There’s something in them that I didn’t expect—not demand or dominance. It’s a look of happiness. It’s care. It’s something terrifying and beautiful all at once.
I close my fingers around the flash drive and take a deep breath.
He looks up when I begin to speak, tilting his head slightly. "I need to give you something," I say softly, crossing the floor until I’m standing right in front of him.
