I untie her wrists slowly and find faint red lines where the rope had been. Remorse tightens my gut, and I brush the marks with my thumb, my touch lingering. “Did I hurt you?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Good.”
Bringing her hands down to eye level, Evi inspects the rope marks and flexes her fingers, as if to test that everything’s still working fine. Then her gaze snaps up to mine. And her smile lights her eyes. “What else should we try?”
The enthusiasm in her voice tells me she really is alright—better than alright, it would seem. And before I can stop myself, a low chuckle rumbles from my chest.
“For tonight? Nothing. It’s time to sleep.”
Evi’s smile slips as she studies my face more closely, her fingers brushing across my cheek and the pad of her thumbgently touching the corner of my eye, where I feel the bags of exhaustion hanging. “You’ve had a hard week,” she says—always the selfless one, worrying for me when I’m more focused on not pushing her too far.
But she’s right. I’m beat, and I roll onto my side, favoring the one with fresh stitches as I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her back snuggly against me.
Morning comes slowly, golden light spilling across the floorboards and creeping up the edge of the bed. It slides across Evi’s bare shoulder first, as soft as silk, then catches in her hair, gilding her chestnut waves in the early sun.
She’s curled against my side, breathing deep and even, her hand resting just over my ribs. The sheets are tangled around her legs, the mark of our night still written across both of us. I can still see the faint pink rings around her wrists, and my muscles are loose in a way they rarely experience. I doubt anyone will notice the rope marks, they’ve faded so much by this morning. But I still see them, and I’m torn between satisfaction that I left my mark on her and revulsion that I’ve tainted something so pure.
She’s as close to an angel as anyone could find on earth.
And she’s mine.
For a long moment, I just lie there and watch her.
It’s strange, how still I feel. My head’s quiet for once. Usually, by dawn, I’m awake, wired, already thinking about the next fight, the next job, the next potential threat. But now… I don’t want to move.
She looks peaceful, content. Radiant. Like nothing in the world could touch her here. And somehow, that thought makes my chest ache.
I reach out without thinking, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. Her skin is warm beneath my fingers, soft in a way that has no place in my life. Something about Evi is strangely… addicting. I find myself far too easily mesmerized by her beauty, too compelled by her touch.
Teaching her about pleasure, about what it means to trust me, to open herself so completely—it’s a kind of power I didn’t expect to want. Not like this. I’ve always known how to take what I need, how to control, to dominate when I have to. But this is something else entirely. There’s something intoxicating about knowing that she belongs to me so completely. It unleashes in me a sense of possessiveness that I hadn’t expected.
Evi shifts slightly, her body pressing closer, and the faintest sound escapes her—a sigh that’s soft enough to undo me.
I exhale slowly, letting my hand trace the curve of her arm. She’s small, but there’s strength there too, a quiet endurance that reminds me of forged steel. She hides it under shyness and soft words, but I see it now—how determined she is to be good, to please me, to make herself useful in a house full of men who measure worth by what they can destroy.
And I’ll be damned if something about that doesn’t gut me.
Protectiveness is a familiar instinct. It’s practically in my blood. I’ve always been that way with my brothers—especially Raf. But the loyalty I feel for them is backed with a violent edge, a sense that it’s my responsibility to defend our family. I’m thedisposable one, the warm body that has nothing else to offer but my pain and blood.
I take the hits, I do the dirty work, so they don’t have to. That’s what I am. The mad dog of the family. The thought doesn’t sting because it’s the truth. And I would gladly lay down my life for any one of my brothers.
But with Evi… it’s different.
The loyalty I feel toward her doesn’t have the same bite. It’s not born from obligation or blood. It’s something quieter, something I don’t have the right words for. When I look at her, I don’t think about dying for her. I think about living for her. About keeping this small, fragile peace alive in the middle of all the chaos.
It’s a strange tenderness that I’ve never experienced before, a desire to be gentle with her, to protect and encourage that light inside her. I can feel her innocent enthusiasm and unquestioning devotion slipping between the cracks in my armor, and I’m dangerously tempted to let it happen.
Which is why I have to be careful.
Because tenderness like that—it makes a man forget himself.
I can’t let her soft heart and bright eyes make me lose sight of what matters.
Vengeance.
I married Evi because we need her family’s support. They give us leverage. The Tanakas and the Murrays won’t be easy to topple, but now that Evi’s brothers have sworn their loyalty to Raf, we have something we didn’t before, numbers, influence, a foothold in the city again.
