Breathing hard. Sweating. Neither of us willing to move, to separate, to break the connection we've built.
Her fingers trace lazy patterns on my back. My hand rests on her hip, thumb stroking the soft skin there. The safehouse is quiet around us. our breathing. the settling of two bodies that have finally, finally stopped fighting.
"So," she murmurs. "Officially protected, huh?"
"Officially."
"What does that mean, exactly?"
"It means anyone who touches you answers to the entire Bonaccorso family. It means you're not a guest anymore, not a prisoner, not an asset. You're mine. And what's mine is theirs to protect."
She's quiet. "That's a lot."
"It's everything."
She lifts her head, looking down at me. Her hair falls around her face like a curtain, and her eyes are soft in the dim light.
"I'm not scared," she says. "I should be. I know I should be. But I'm not."
"Good." I reach up and tuck her hair behind her ear. "Because I'm not letting you go. Not now. Not ever."
She smiles. It's small, private, a smile just for me. "That sounds so romantic.”
"It's not. It’s a death threat for anyone who tries to come for you."
She bends down and kisses me. Slow. Deep. A promise of her own.
When she pulls back, she settles against my chest, her cheek over my heart, her hand splayed across my ribs. I wrap my arm around her and hold on.
The bruise on my chest throbs. A dull ache, reminding me how close I came. Two inches. That's what separated life from death. Two inches and a ceramic plate and the stubborn refusal to die before I reached her.
"What else did the Don say?”
"Some stuff about my father."
"What did he say?"
I tell her. The story I never knew. The woman my father loved against orders. The choice he made. The respect Aurelio held for him even while hating the vulnerability he created.
She listens without interrupting. When I finish, she's quiet for a long time.
"You're like him," she finally says.
"I don't know. I barely remember him."
"You don't have to remember him to be like him." Her fingers trace the edge of the bruise, careful not to press. "You made the same choice. Defied the same man. For the same reason."
"I made the choice because I couldn't not make it. There was never another option."
"That's what I mean." She lifts her head again, meeting my eyes. "You didn't weigh the costs. You didn't calculate the risks. You just acted, because the alternative was unthinkable. That's not strategy. That's love."
The word still feels strange in my mouth. Heavy. Foreign. But less so than it did yesterday. Less so than it did an hour ago.
"I'm not good at this," I tell her. "Love. Relationships. Being someone's... person."
"Neither am I."
"You seem to be doing fine."
