His eyes drop to my mouth. He lifts his right hand from my thigh, reaching up to cup the side of my face. His thumb brushes over my cheekbone, smearing a streak of dirt and grease I didn't know was there. The touch is possessive, weighted with years of isolation he just abandoned for me.
"Once those gates open, you are inside," Vincenzo says, his voice low and rough in the quiet car. "There is no civilian life to go back to. You belong with me now."
I look at the lethal, beautiful man sitting beside me. The man who dragged me out of a steel tomb. The man who communicates his devotion through feral protection and terrifying certainty.
I lean my face into his rough palm. I hold his gaze, unflinching.
"Open the gates," I tell him.
8
Vincenzo
The iron gatesof the compound scrape against the wet asphalt. Rain hammers the windshield of the stolen sedan. My hands grip the cracked leather steering wheel. Knuckles tight. The perimeter floodlights cut through the darkness, washing the interior of the car in harsh white light.
Beside me, Imani sits still. My scent wraps around her. Clean linen. Ozone. Faint copper. Underneath it, her own scent bleeds through. Warm amber. Soft musk. It fills the cab of the vehicle. It grounds the frantic, chaotic calculations misfiring in my brain.
She is mine.
The realization is not new. It cemented itself the moment she fought back against the suffocating dark of the vault. But bringing her here changes the variables. The compound is a fortress. It is also a sealed system.
For eight years, I existed inside these limestone walls as a ghost. A machine. A node in the network. I processed the Costa-Bellanti war through encrypted data streams and server logs because human interaction was deafening. Touch was a physical assault on my nervous system.
Now, she is sitting in my passenger seat. She is stepping into the noise.
The sedan tires crunch over the gravel driveway. The restored limestone mansion looms ahead. Stone walls. Twenty-four-seven surveillance. I track the movement of the perimeter guards. Two on the east wall. One near the training yard. They recognize me behind the wheel. They stand down.
I shift the car into park. I kill the engine. The silence in the cab is immediate.
I look at her.
Her dark eyes lock onto mine. No hesitation. No fear. Just that steady, warm presence that short-circuits my operational protocols. She knows what she is walking into. The violence. The blood. The war. She chose it anyway. She chose me.
My hand reaches across the console. My fingers settle against the side of her jaw. Her warmth bleeds into my palm. She is here. She is alive. The quiet contact anchors me.
"You do not leave my side." The words tear out of my throat, harsh and final. "Not for a second. You don't speak to anyone unless I authorize it. No one touches you."
"I'm right here." Her voice is soft. Unshaken. "I'm not going anywhere, Vincenzo."
My chest tightens. I want to lock her away in a room where no one else can even perceive her existence. The thought of my brothers looking at her, assessing her, treating her like a civilian liability—it makes my teeth grind.
I pull my hand back. I push the car door open. The freezing Chicago rain hits my face. It does nothing to cool the raging heat in my blood. I walk around the hood of the vehicle. I rip the passenger door open.
Imani slides out. I catch her waist. My arm locks around her, pulling her flush against my side. The physical contact sends a jolt straight to my core. No noise. No overwhelming pain. Just her. Only her.
We move toward the side entrance of the main house. The steel security door requires a biometric scan. I press my thumb to the reader. The lock disengages with a mechanical thud.
The hallway inside is dimly lit. Hardwood floors. Plaster walls. The faint scent of garlic and roasted meat drifts from the industrial kitchen down the hall. Matteo's domain. It means my brothers are awake. They are always awake.
I do not want to see them. I do not want to explain her. Most of all, I do not want to look at Dominic and know what I am withholding.
The numbers are still screaming in my head. The pattern points somewhere high inside the family, somewhere old. But I will not say it aloud. Not yet. I cannot detonate that bomb until I have irrefutable physical proof.
If I walk into the War Room right now, my silence will betray me. Dominic reads my baseline better than anyone. He will know something is broken.
I bypass the main corridor. I steer Imani toward the concealed stairwell that leads to my quarters. The descent is steep. The air grows cooler, stripped of the domestic smells of the kitchen, replaced by the sterile hum of electronics and purified air.
My space.
