“You never talk about yourself,” she said.
Luca’s jaw tightened a fraction.“That’s usually a sign I’m doing my job right.”
“Humor me,” she said.“I know Mateo’s a driver and Kol’s a ghost with a phone.I know some of what Iron Covenant does.But I don’t know you.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
“I grew up learning what not to trust,” he said simply.“People lied.Promises broke.Hands were heavy.”
Mara stilled.
“I learned early that pain didn’t care if you deserved it,” Luca continued, voice steady, unadorned.“I learned how to take a hit.How to give one.How to survive long enough to make it out.”
“And Iron Covenant?”she asked softly.
“They found me,” he said.“And they saw that not everything about me was fucked up.Trust me, it is hard to tell the difference sometimes.They gave me a code to live by, that resonated with me.Lines that mattered.A way to use what I was without becoming what hurt me.”
Mara’s chest tightened—not with pain this time, but something sharper.
“I’m grateful to them,” Luca finished.“For the life I have now.”He pushed to his feet, conversation clearly done.“You should rest.”
Mara rose with him before she could think better of it.
She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.
Luca froze.
For a heartbeat, he didn’t move at all.
Then, carefully—like the motion itself carried weight—he lifted his arms and returned the hug, loose but real.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”he asked as he stepped back.
She smiled.“Saving me.Protecting me.Feeding me.Letting me kick your ass at chess.Take your pick.”
Something warm flickered across his face.
He didn’t say anything.Just nodded once and turned for the door.
“Luca?”
He stopped and looked back at her over his shoulder.“Yeah?”
“If I decide to stay—with you, with Iron Covenant—what happens to me?”
He didn’t hesitate.“You don’t disappear.You don’t get owned.You don’t get traded.You get protected until you don’t need it anymore.”
“And after?”
“That part,” he said evenly, “you get to decide.”
When the door closed behind him, Mara let out a slow breath.
She’d hugged Mateo without thinking.Kol, too, once.
