He hisses through his teeth. "That hurts."
"I know." I don't move my hand. "But you're alive."
"Apparently."
"Don't be glib." My voice cracks. I don't mean for it to, but it does. "You almost died. That bullet almost killed you. And you're standing here making jokes like it doesn't matter."
"Alexandra."
"It matters to me." I look up at him. My vision is blurring and I realize I'm crying.When did I start crying?"You matter to me. So don't stand there and pretend that this," I press harder on thebruise and he winces, "is nothing. Because it's not nothing. It's everything. You're everything."
He stares at me. The wildness in his eyes shifts, changes, becomes something else. Something raw and open and terrified.
"I thought I lost you," he says. The words come out broken. "When Aurelio called and said you were gone, I thought... I couldn't..."
He stops. Swallows. His hands are shaking harder now, visible tremors running through his fingers.
"I've killed a lot of people," he says. "A lot of people, Alexandra. I stopped counting years ago. It's ... it's what I do. What I am. I point and shoot and bodies fall and I don't feel anything. I haven't felt anything in years."
He reaches up and covers my hand with his. Presses it harder against the bruise over his heart.
"But when they told me you were gone, I felt everything. All at once. Every emotion I've been burying for twenty years came flooding back and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. I couldn't think about anything except getting to you." His voice drops. "I would have killed a hundred men to reach you. A thousand. I would have become a gladiator against an army."
"Oh, Leo."
"I'm not a good man. I've never been a good man. But you make me want to be more… a man other than what I am. And the thought of losing you..." He shakes his head. "I can't. I won't. I will destroy anyone who tries to take you from me."
I pull my hand from his chest and cup his face instead. Both hands, holding him steady, forcing him to look at me.
"You found me," I say. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
"Promise me you won't leave. Promise me you won't run. Promise me that whatever happens, whatever we face, you'll stay."
"I promise." I rise on my toes and press my forehead to his. Our breath mingles. Our noses brush. "I promise, Leone. I'm yours. I'm not leaving."
The walls in him break.
I feel it happen. The tension that's been holding him together since the phone call, since the drive back to the compound, since the armory and the assault and the bodies in the hallway. All of it releases at once, like a dam giving way, and he collapses against me.
Not physically. He doesn't fall. But something inside him crumbles, and suddenly his arms are around me and his face is buried in my neck and his whole body is shaking. Not crying. Not exactly. Something deeper than crying. Something that has no name and no sound, tremors running through him like aftershocks.
I hold him.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders and hold on and let him shake apart against me. He's so much bigger than I am. Taller, broader, heavier. But right now he feels fragile. Like if I let go, he'll shatter.
So I don't let go.
The bare bulb flickers overhead. The curtains block out the world. My feet ache from standing and my arms ache from holding and none of it matters because he needs this. He needs me.
And I need him too.
Eventually, the shaking slows. His breathing evens out. He pulls back enough to look at me, and his eyes are red-rimmed and wet and more human than I've ever seen them.
"Sorry," he mutters.
