Even after he'd finished, even as he softened fully on my tongue, I kept him there. I pressed my face against his hip and breathed through my nose and held on.
Diego resumed stroking my hair. He just stroked and let me stay.
"Take your time," he said, quietly, steadily. "All the time you need."
I believed him. That was the most dangerous thing that had happened all night.
No one had ever offered me that before.
Eventually, jaw aching in a way I'd carry into tomorrow, I let him slip from my mouth. The loss was immediate, a sudden emptiness that threatened to send me spiraling. But Diego was already there, pulling me up, arranging us on the narrow cot. We barely fit, both of us too big for the army surplus frame, but neither of us suggested moving. He wrapped his arm around my waist and held me against him, his chest warm against my back.
"You did so good," he murmured against the back of my neck. "So good, guapo."
The world reassembled slowly: the concrete room, the flickering light, the sounds of the house above us. Reality crept back in, but it brought none of the usual tension. Diego's arm was around me, his breath was steady against my neck, and that word still sat behind my ribs like a coal that would not go out.
We lay like that for a while, his thumb tracing small circles against my hip, neither of us talking. The house above us had gone quiet.
"What happens tomorrow?" I asked, my voice rough.
Diego tightened his arm around me. "Tomorrow I finish what I started with Danior."
"He's good," I said.
"I know." Diego's voice was calm, matter-of-fact. "He's been fighting dirty since we were kids."
I turned in his arms, needing to see his face. "You need to win."
A smile curved his mouth, pulling at the split in his lip. "Planning on it, guapo."
"I mean it," I insisted. "If you lose—"
"I won't." His voice was firm and confident. "But if I did, would you run?"
The question caught me off guard. "What?"
"Would you run?" he repeated. "Take Eight and Lorenzo and get out while you could?"
I thought about it. About the easy escape routes, about how quickly I could move if I had to. About how many people I would need to kill to get us clear.
"No," I said finally. "I wouldn't run."
"That's what I thought." He traced a finger along my jaw. "That's why I need to win. Because you're too stubborn to save yourself."
I couldn’t argue with that assessment. Self-preservation had never been my strong suit.
"Stay," Diego said quietly. "After this, after tomorrow, whatever happens. Stay with me."
Every trained instinct in my body snapped to attention. Stay. The word was a tripwire. Stay meant roots, meant a fixed position, meant someone always knowing where to find you. Staying meant giving Achilles a permanent address. Staying meant Eight growing up in one place long enough to learn that places could be taken away.
"I ruin things," I protested.
"Yeah, so do I." Diego's voice was steady. "I burn bridges, I get people killed, I dragged my whole family into a war they never asked for. You want to compare body counts? We'll be here all night."
"That's different."
"You think I'm asking because I don't know the cost? I know exactly what it costs. I just decided you're worth the price." He held my gaze. "So. Are you in or not?"
I stared at him. The split lip, the bruised jaw, the scraped knuckles. The man who'd punched his own cousin in the face for me and would do it again tomorrow and the day after that, and who was lying here asking me to let him.
