Relief hit him hard enough to make his knees feel weak.He didn’t move until she closed the last step between them.
The kiss wasn’t gentle at first.It was urgent, the kind that carried apology and forgiveness in equal measure.He cupped her face, thumbs brushing her jaw as if to anchor himself.She answered by rising onto her toes, hands fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer like she needed to feel that he was solid, that he was here.
Luca groaned softly and lifted her without thinking.She wrapped her legs around his waist, the movement easy, familiar, her laughter a breathless sound against his mouth as he carried her a few steps and pressed her back to the wall.
Right next to the patched board.
She glanced sideways, then back at him, a smile tugging at her mouth.“You know,” she murmured, breath warm against his cheek, “if you keep apologizing like that, you’re going to owe your drywall guy a fortune.”
He huffed a laugh against her neck.“Worth it.”
She kissed him again, slower this time, the tension easing into something warm and sure.“Next time,” she said, “use your words.”
“Deal,” he said, grinning despite himself.
Her fingers traced the edge of the temporary patch.“Still needs fixing.”
“So do I,” he said.
She smiled, rested her forehead against his.“We’ll get there.”
Luca turned and laid her on the table determined to make up for lost time, and show her exactly what she meant to him.
Chapter Twelve
Elias didn’t call meetingsunless something had already shifted.
Luca felt it the moment the message hit his phone—short, encrypted, stripped down to a single word and a timestamp.Now.No context.No escalation markers.Which meant whatever had happened had already moved past panic and into calculation.
That was worse.
He reset the house on instinct, muscle memory taking over where thought would have slowed him down.Doors locked.Internal lights shifted from warm to functional.Screens woke one by one, flooding the living area with muted blues and data streams.Somewhere above him, Kol moved, a quiet presence he felt more than heard, running parallel sweeps that Luca didn’t need explained.Kol never ran them unless something itched under his skin.
By the time Elias arrived with Dominic and Rafael, the table had been cleared, chairs aligned, the space transformed from home into command.The faint smell of plaster dust still lingered near the wall Luca had punched days earlier—a reminder he hadn’t bothered to erase.
Mateo pulled in last.
