He turns and heads down the stairs. "Stay behind me."
I follow him. I have no other choice. The descent is agonizingly slow. Nico clears every landing with military precision. He scans the narrow windows. He listens to the street. He is a predator in his natural habitat, and I am the fragile thing he has decided to hoard.
We reach the lobby. The front doors lead out onto the cold, unforgiving streets of Chicago.
Nico pauses with his hand on the brass handle. He turns his head slightly, his profile sharp against the morning light. "The shoulder."
I blink, thrown off by the sudden shift in topic. "What about it?"
"A bullet grazed the collarbone recently," Nico states the violent fact like he is discussing the weather. "The tissue is scarred. The muscle is tight. You were right about the compensation."
My jaw drops slightly. A mafia enforcer just admitted a physical weakness to me. A man who relies on his lethality just handed me a piece of his vulnerability.
"Why are you telling me that?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
Nico turns fully to face me. The obsession in his eyes is unguarded now. It burns with the intensity of a dying star.
"Because I need you to understand something." Nico takes a step closer. The scent of salt, iron, and sun-baked earth wraps around me again. "I'm compensating. I'm injured. But if anyone comes near you on that street, I will tear them apart with my bare hands, and my shoulder won’t slow me down for a single second."
He pushes the door open. The biting wind of the city rushes into the lobby.
"Let's go to work, Priya."
I walk out into the cold, trailing behind the most dangerous man I have ever met. The rigid boxes of my life are destroyed. The rules are gone. The schedule is meaningless.
I’m in the orbit of a monster.
And heaven help me, for the first time in two years, I don’t feel afraid of the fire. I feel like I am standing behind the man who controls it.
4
NICO
My hand settleson the exact center of her spine. The heat of her body bleeds straight through her winter coat and seeps into my palm. It burns. I’m freezing and she’s burning.
We walk out of the building into the Chicago wind. The street is a tactical grid. Every shadow is a firing lane. Each parked car is a potential explosive package. I scan with the ruthless efficiency ingrained in my bones. My eyes track the sightlines. My brain calculates the distance to cover. But my focus keeps fracturing.
She’s the center of the grid.
Everything else is just a threat to her.
Priya marches toward her compact sedan with stiff, furious strides. She’s trying to project control. She’s failing. The rigid set of her shoulders gives her away. She’s terrified, not of the street, but of the sudden, catastrophic shift in her reality. Me. I’m the shift. I’m the cataclysm.
I already have her key fob from the stairwell.
She spins. Her eyes flash. Her mouth opens, already loaded.
I hit the unlock button on her key fob before she can argue. The headlights flash. I open the passenger door and step back, blocking the wind with my body.
She stares at the empty seat. She stares at me. She’s coiled with the need to push back, to establish dominance in a situation where she has none. I’m not a man who negotiates. My family points me at a problem and I eliminate it. Now, my entire violent existence is pointed solely at keeping her breathing.
She climbs into the passenger seat.
I shut the door. The thud of the metal seals her inside.
Safe. Contained. Mine.
I circle the hood and slide into the driver's seat. The interior is small. Too small for a man my size. My knees bracket the steering column. My broad shoulders press against the door pillar. The enclosed space instantly suffocates me with her essence.
