"You matter to me too," I said. "More than is probably smart. More than I planned for. But that's not changing either."
Julian smiled against my chest. "Good."
We lay together in comfortable silence. Both processing the day. Both grateful to be safe.
I thought about the raid. About Winston's moles feeding information to David Reeves. About Valentino filming outside. About Luca's concerning reaction.
Tomorrow we'd deal with all of it. Tomorrow we'd handle the fallout and plan our next moves and figure out how to neutralize remaining threats.
But tonight, I just held Julian and let myself have this moment of peace.
He fell asleep first. I felt his breathing even out. Felt his body relax completely against mine.
I lay awake watching him. Thinking about trust and responsibility and the weight of protecting someone who mattered this much.
I'd spent years avoiding attachment because it made people vulnerable. Made them weak. Made them compromise themselves in ways that got people killed.
But holding Julian now, feeling the trust he had in me, knowing he'd spent six hours alone and afraid but never doubted I'd come back—
Maybe attachment wasn't weakness. Maybe it was strength. Maybe having someone worth protecting made you fight harder. Think smarter. Work better.
Maybe loving someone wasn't a liability. Maybe it was the thing that made surviving worth it.
I pulled him closer and let myself acknowledge what I'd been avoiding for weeks.
I was in love with Julian Bianchi.
Completely. Irrevocably. Terrifyingly in love.
And that changed everything.
But for once, the change didn't scare me. It just made me more determined to protect what we were building. To keep him safe. To make sure nothing and no one could take this away from us.
I kissed his forehead and closed my eyes.
Tomorrow we'd deal with consequences. Tonight, we were safe.
CHAPTER 13: JULIAN
I WOKE AT3 AM to an empty bed.
Again.
This was the fourth night in a row I'd woken to find Elio gone. Working. Obsessing. Running himself into the ground trying to secure every possible vulnerability.
I pulled on sweatpants and went looking for him.
Found him in his home office—the small room off the living area he rarely used. He was hunched over his laptop, multiple monitors displaying security feeds from Inferno. His face was lit by the blue glow of screens. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. His jaw was covered in several days' worth of stubble. He looked exhausted.
"Elio."
He didn't look up. "Go back to bed."
"Come with me."
"Can't. I'm reviewing new security protocols. The raid exposed weaknesses in our systems. I need to fix them before—"
"Before what? Before another raid that might not even happen?" I moved closer. "You've been working for twenty straight hours. You need sleep."
