"Dinner," I say. "Then we talk about New York. Properly. In private."
"Is that an order?"
"It's a request."
She considers me. Then she nods.
"Fine. Dinner. Talking." She pushes off the wall and starts down the corridor, then pauses and looks back over her shoulder. "But after that, I expect you to make good on that table comment."
She walks away before I can respond.
I stand in the corridor, watching her go.Goddamn this woman has me wrapped around her finger like a puppy.Not desire, though there's plenty of that. This runs to my very core. The existence of who I am.
She's going to drive me insane.
She's going to get herself killed.
She's going to save us all.
And God help me, I'm going to follow her wherever she goes.
Chapter Eighteen: Alexandra
Thecompoundhasarhythm I'm starting to recognize.
Morning patrols at six. Shift changes at noon and midnight. The kitchen serves meals at predictable hours, and the corridors clear out in the late afternoon when the soldiers who aren't on duty retreat to their quarters for rest or recreation. There's a pattern to everything, especially with all the changes in surveillance equipment and internalizing systems.
I've been here almost a month now. Strange how quickly captivity became something else. Something that feels, against all logic, like home.
My days have structure. Mornings in the war room with Leone and the intelligence team, combing through data, chasing threads. Giovanni’s name has opened doors we didn't know existed. Old files. Older grudges. People who remember him,who worked with him, who have stories they've been sitting on for twenty years.
Afternoons are different.
"Again," Emilio says.
I square my stance, raise my hands, and throw the punch exactly the way he taught me. It connects with the pad he's holding, a satisfying thwack that reverberates up my arm.
"Better." He shifts the pad to his other hand. "Now combination. Jab, cross, hook."
I throw the combination. It's sloppy, I know it's sloppy, but it's better than it was a week ago. Better than the first day, when I swung so wide Emilio laughed for five straight minutes.
"You're dropping your shoulder on the hook," he says. "Keep it tight. Power comes from rotation, not reach."
"Easy for you to say. You've been doing this your whole life."
"And you've been doing it for six days." He grins, that easy Emilio smile that makes him look nothing like a man who's killed more people than I can count. "Give it time. You're not trying to become a fighter. You're trying to survive long enough for backup to arrive."
That's the goal. Not to turn me into some foolish action hero, but to give me the basics. How to throw a punch that actually hurts. How to break a grip. How to create distance and find an exit. The type of skills that might have helped in that Castillo safehouse, if I'd had them.
I throw the combination again. Tighter this time. The hook lands clean.
"There it is." Emilio drops the pad and rolls his shoulders. "Take five. Hydrate."
I grab the water bottle from the bench and drink deeply. The training room is in the basement, bare concrete and fluorescent lights, equipped with bags and pads and mats that have seen better days. It smells like sweat and rubber and faint chemical, probably the cleaning solution they use to sanitize the equipment.
"Can I ask you something?" I say.
"You just did."
