"You destroyed the data." I need him to say it again. I need to establish the undeniable facts of the case. "The ledgers proving the Bellanti money laundering. The sole objective of this entire operation. You smashed it."
"Yes." No hesitation. No regret. Just a flat, brutal admission.
"Matteo is going to kill you."
"Let him try." The muscles twitch in his cheek. "Matteo will understand once I tell him what Rourke said in that tunnel. Until then, I do not care what he thinks. Rourke threatened what is mine. That ended his usefulness as a source."
Mine.The word drops between us like a judge's gavel.
I trace the line of his jaw. The coarse hair of his beard scratches against my fingertips. This is the man who learned at ten that love is a liability. For every year since, he ran every emotion through a probability matrix and called the output strategy. Tonight, the math broke.
"Get up, Costa." I tug on his hair, ignoring his lethal reputation. "You are bleeding on the vintage rug."
He blinks. The sudden shift in my tone throws his tactical brain off balance. He expected a hysterical civilian. He expected tears. He expected me to scream about the violence and the danger.
I am a Kim. We do not do hysterical.
"Natalia." He says my name like a prayer. Like an anchor in a raging storm.
"Up. Now." I step back, breaking his grip on my hips. The sudden loss of contact makes him flinch. A genuine, physical flinch. The sight of it sends a fierce, protective surge straight through my chest.
He rises slowly. His frame towers over me in the dim light. Tonight, his height is just an obstacle to getting him clean. The tactical vest is scored with deep gouges. A tear in the dark fabric of his sleeve reveals the corded muscle of his forearm underneath, streaked with grime from the tunnels.
I grab his wrist, my small hand barely wrapping halfway around the thick joint. I drag the most dangerous strategist in Chicago toward the master bathroom. He follows me with blind obedience.
The bathroom is a cavern of black marble and brushed steel. I flip the switch. The harsh overhead lights reveal the true extent of the carnage. His face is a canvas of violence. Blood soaks the right shoulder of his combat shirt.
"Sit." I point to the edge of the massive sunken tub.
He sits. The thud of his boots echoes off the tile. He tracks every movement with brutal focus. His eyes never leave my face.
I step between his spread knees. I reach for the velcro straps of his tactical vest. He does not try to assist. He simply lets me disarm him. The vest drops to the marble floor with a metallic clatter. Magazines of ammunition, a serrated combat knife, encrypted radios. A small arsenal. I kick it out of the way with my bare foot.
"Arms up."
He obeys. I grab the hem of his ruined combat shirt and pull it over his head.
His chest is exposed. Bare skin pulled tight over heavy slabs of muscle, a faint silver scar above his sternum that I have neverasked about. Bruises are already blooming across his ribs in ugly shades of purple and black. A shallow, jagged cut runs across his left bicep. The blood is still sluggishly oozing from the wound.
"You need stitches." I run a clinical eye over the cut.
"No." His voice is flat. "Just butterfly bandages. Turi keeps a med kit in the bottom drawer of the vanity."
I step over to the massive dual-sink vanity. The bottom drawer slides open on silent runners. A fully stocked trauma kit sits inside. Sterile gauze, saline wash, surgical tape, sutures. The reality of life in the Costa compound. You keep trauma kits next to the luxury shaving cream.
I pull out the supplies and carry them back to him. I grab a thick, white Egyptian cotton towel from the heated rack and run it under the warm water from the faucet.
Stepping back between his knees, I press the warm, wet towel to his chest. The water instantly turns pink.
He hisses. The sudden sting of the hot water against battered skin forces a sharp exhalation through his teeth.
"Don't be a baby." I scrub the drying blood off his collarbone. "You literally escaped a blown-up transit hub tonight. You can handle a wet towel."
A low, rough sound rumbles in his throat. It sounds dangerously close to a laugh. The tension in his shoulders drops by a fraction of an inch.
"You are a menace, Natalia."
"I am a lawyer. We are trained to be menaces." I rinse the towel in the sink, watching the red swirl down the black marble drain. "You should have read the fine print before you hired me."
