Santi reaches me. He does not ask if I am okay. He grabs my shoulders, his hands gripping me with a bruising, desperate strength. He hauls me to my feet and shoves me backward against the solid timber wall beside the open doorway.
It is the same urgent press he used in the bark shelter before he claimed my mouth. His body corners mine against the rough pine, his shoulders blocking any view of me from the broken doorway.
His chest heaves. His eyes are wild. He scans my face, my neck, my torso, looking for blood that does not belong to the men outside.
"You're uninjured," he breathes. It is not a question. It is a demand for the universe to comply.
"I'm fine," I tell him. I look up into his face. The cold wind blowing through the broken doors swirls around us, but I do notfeel the chill. The heat radiating off his body burns through my frozen skin.
"There was a third man," Santi says, his voice low and rough. "I caught him moving through the trees on the west side. They are down. That was all of them."
He leans closer. His nose brushes the side of my jaw. A harsh, shuddering breath leaves his chest, and I feel the tension in his frame fracture.
"You shot him," Santi whispers against my skin.
"He opened the door," I reply simply. "You told me to shoot."
Santi pulls back just enough to look me in the eyes. Something in his face has come unstrung. In its place is a burning, obsessive intensity. He looks at me like I am the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
"You did not hesitate," he says. There is awe in his tone.
"I told you I wouldn't." I hold his gaze. I refuse to look away. "I manage my own survival, Santi. I always have."
His expression hardens. He steps even closer, crowding into my space until my chest brushes against his winter coat. He lowers his head, his mouth hovering mere inches from mine.
"Before the radio started broadcasting," Santi says, his voice dropping an octave, dangerous with intent. "I asked you a question."
He is demanding his answer. Right here. Right now. With two dead hitmen bleeding out on the porches and a blizzard trying to rip the roof off the cabin. He needs to know. He needs the absolute certainty of my choice.
I look at this man. I look at the blood on his knuckles. I look at the lethal, unforgiving lines of his face. He is a monster to the rest of the world. He is a silent, patient killer who solves problems with hollow-point rounds and cold precision.
But to me, he is the man who stayed awake all night to watch me sleep. He is the man who offered me a way out, knowing itwould gut him to watch me leave. He is the man who just stood between me and a firing squad.
Choosing him is the most dangerous thing I have ever done in my life.
It defies every rule I ever made for myself. It requires trusting someone with the parts of me I spent a decade protecting. If I say yes, I am walking into a mafia war. I am stepping into a world of bulletproof SUVs, compounds, and endless violence.
I know what this costs.
I do it anyway.
"I'm not leaving," I say.
Santi freezes. His body locks down. His dark eyes flare with an intensity that steals the oxygen from my lungs.
"Say it again," he commands. The word leaves him torn from the deepest part of his chest.
"I'm staying," I tell him, my voice ringing clear and steady over the sound of the howling wind. "I’m not your prisoner. I’m not your collateral. I’m yours. That’s my choice."
Santi exhales a ragged breath. The tension holding his frame together shatters. He presses his mouth against my temple.
"Then you’re my only priority," he whispers, his hands sliding from the wall to grip my hips, pulling me flush against his body. The kiss is not violent; it is a profound, desperate relief. The cold of the room vanishes, replaced by the deep, steady heat of his mouth.
I drop the Glock. It hits the wooden floorboards with a thud. I wrap my arms around his neck, burying my fingers in the silver-streaked hair at the nape of his neck.
He groans into my mouth. He kisses me like a man starving, like a man who has wandered a desert a long time and finally found water. He holds me against the storm. He backs me harder against the wall, his frame crowding mine, making it impossible for me to move an inch in any direction.
I kiss him back with just as much ferocity. I bite at his lower lip, tasting the salt of the sweat on his skin. I pull him closer, eliminating the microscopic space between our bodies. I want him to know that I am not fragile. I am not breaking under his obsession. I am matching it.
