"I'm faking it." She grins, a flash of the sharp, defiant woman who called me a coward on the first night. "I've been faking competence my entire life. Eventually you get good at it."
I laugh. The sound surprises me. Rough and unpracticed, coming from somewhere I forgot existed.
She stares at me. "Did you just laugh?"
"Apparently."
"That might be the most terrifying sound I've ever heard. Do it again."
"No."
"Coward."
I flip her onto her back and pin her wrists above her head. She's grinning up at me, unafraid, and the trust in her eyes makes my chest ache.
"Call me that again," I say.
"Coward."
I silence her with my mouth.
Chapter Sixteen: Alexandra
Threedaysatthesafehouse.
Three days of locked doors and takeout containers and Leone's body wrapped around mine every night. Three days of silence from the outside world, punctuated only by Emilio's check-ins and the occasional encrypted message on Leone's phone.
Three days that felt like a held breath.
Now we're back at the compound, and everything is different.
His quarters are ours now. Not by declaration, not by formal announcement. by the slow accumulation of my presence in his space. My clothes hang in his closet beside the row of dark suits. My toothbrush sits next to his in the bathroom. My notes cover half his desk, spreading like ivy across the surface where he used to keep only weapons and intelligence reports.
The first morning back, I woke to find coffee on the nightstand and a folded note beside it.War room at nine. Aurelio wants you there.
Not Leone wants you there.Aurelio.
I'm not a prisoner anymore. I'm not a guest. I'm something else entirely, something that doesn't have a name in the vocabulary of this world. A partner. An equal. The woman who sleeps in the right hand's bed and sits in on strategy meetings and knows more about the enemy's financial infrastructure than anyone else in the building.
The compound has noticed.
Soldiers who used to look through me now nod when I pass. Some of them even speak. Short words, gruff acknowledgments, but words nonetheless. The kitchen staff knows how I take my coffee. The guards outside our door have stopped tensing when I approach.
I'm becoming part of the machinery. Fitting into the spaces between gears, finding my place in the rhythm of violence and loyalty that keeps this organization running.
It should terrify me. Some days it does. But mostly it feels like coming home to a house I didn't know I'd been looking for.
Tonight, the compound is quiet.
Leone is in the shower. I can hear the water running, the occasional shift of movement behind the bathroom door. He's been in meetings all day, coordinating the security overhaul, directing the hunt for whoever remains inside Apex Meridian's network. He came back to our room an hour ago looking like he'd been through a war, which I suppose he has.
I'm curled in the chair by the window, the one I claimed during my first days here, back when I was still pretending this room was a cage instead of a choice. The courtyard below is dark except for the patrol lights, soldiers moving in predictable patterns, the machinery of protection grinding on.
The bathroom door opens.
Leone emerges in a cloud of steam, towel around his waist, water still dripping from his hair. The bruise on his chest has faded to yellow and green, healing slowly, a reminder of how close I came to losing him.
He sees me watching and pauses.
