Alessio.
The name is a jagged stone in my throat. Every mile I put between us should make it easier to breathe, but the air just gets thinner. My chest aches with a phantom pressure, the memory of his weight pressing me into the mattress, the way he looked at me like I was his entire universe and he was just waiting for me to give him the coordinates.
Running has never been wrong before. It’s how I stayed alive when the world took Curtis. It’s how I stayed one step ahead of everyone who wanted a piece of me. When the fire gets too hot, you get out. When the walls close in, you find a door.
But the exit life I’ve spent a decade building is a hollowed-out shell. The apartments I’ve rented were sterile shells—beige walls and rented furniture that never held my scent. Those coffee shops where nobody knew my name and the grocery stores where I bought exactly enough for one were a life made of blank spaces. It was safe. It was sterile.
And it was lonely as hell.
I pull into a gravel lot off a two-lane highway where a sign for a 24-hour diner flickers in a desperate yellow pulse. EAT, it commands. My body is a wreck, a collection of sore muscles and frayed nerves. Bad coffee and a grease-stained booth are the only things familiar enough to grasp.
The gravel crunches under my boots, a harsh, grounding sound. The air is biting, a sharp slap to my cheeks. Inside, the diner smells of burnt toast and floor wax. It’s nearly empty—just a trucker in the corner and a waitress with a permanent scowl.
I slide into a booth in the back, back to the wall, eyes on the door. Reflex. Habit. Survival.
“Coffee?” the waitress asks.
“Black.” My voice sounds like it’s been dragged over broken glass.
She sets a thick ceramic mug down and pours. The steam rises in a pale ribbon, disappearing into the fluorescent hum of the ceiling lights. I wrap my hands around the mug, desperate for the heat.
I am a runner. For ten years, that has been the cleanest definition of Amara. I run because if I stop, the grief catches up. If I stop, I have to remember the way Curtis looked in that casket, the way the light left his eyes because of a signature on a piece of paper. I spent ten years fueled by hate, and now that the hate is gone, the tank is empty.
The door to the diner creaks open. The bell above it gives a lonely chime.
I don’t look up. I don’t have to. The air in the diner changes, heavy with cedar, cold morning air, and the presence of a man trying very hard not to chase. A heavy, rhythmic footfall echoes on the linoleum. It’s not the pace of someone chasing a fugitive. It’s the steady approach of a man who found me and still has to let me choose.
A shadow falls over the table.
I keep my gaze fixed on the dark swirl of my coffee. My heart hammers against my ribs, trying to break free and leap into the hands of the man standing in front of me.
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t slide into the booth across from me. He doesn't grab my arm. He just stands there, a pillar of quiet strength in a charcoal overcoat, smelling of the winter woods.
“The coffee's terrible,” I say, my voice steady despite the earthquake in my chest.
“I imagine it is,” Alessio replies. His voice is a low rumble, a frequency that vibrates in my very bones.
I finally look up. He looks like hell. There are dark circles under his eyes, and the silver at his temples is more pronounced in the harsh light. He hasn't shaved, a dark shadow of stubble tracing the hard line of his jaw. His eyes aren’t soft. They are raw, exhausted, and fixed on me like he’s afraid one blink will make me disappear
“How did you find me?”
“I checked the gate log,” he says. “Then I remembered you.” He steps closer, crowding the edge of the table. “You told me once, when we were looking at the maps, that if you ever had to disappear, you'd head for the state line via the old highway because the tolls are easier to dodge. You said there was a diner with a yellow sign that served the best pie in the county.”
He remembers. A throwaway comment at three in the morning while we were buried in work. He listened to the woman, not the mission.
“I lied about the pie,” I mutter, looking back at my mug. “It's probably frozen and tastes like cardboard.”
“Probably,” he agrees.
The silence stretches, but it isn't empty. It’s a wire pulled taut between us.
“You're not going to try to stop me?” I ask, the sass returning as a defense. “No handcuffs? No ‘you're mine’ speeches? I thought you were the man who gets what he wants.”
Alessio’s jaw tightens, a dry, harsh sound vibrating in his chest that passes for a laugh. “I could find you,” he says quietly. “That’s the problem. I know how to hunt. I’m trying to learn how not to.”
He finally slides into the booth across from me, leaving the table between us like proof he is trying. He sits with his hands folded on the table, those scarred, capable hands.
“You run because you think that if you stay, you’ll become a target. Or worse, you’ll become someone’s property.”
