The room is a masterpiece of paranoia. Six monitors cover the far wall. Surveillance feeds show every angle of the safehouse, the street, the alleys, and my clinic. Deeply invasive, profoundly comforting. He mapped my existence because he could not bear losing me.
A metal desk dominates the center of the room. Tactical gear, encrypted phones, and weapons cover the surface. A corkboard stands in the corner, covered in architectural blueprints, shipping manifests, and photographs of Bellanti soldiers. Red strings connect the targets.
This is his mind. The chaotic, violent landscape he navigates every day.
I step past the desk. I stand in front of the monitors. The bottom right screen shows the smoking ruins of the building adjacent to my clinic. Firetrucks surround the lot. Police tape blocks the street. The outer level of the Bellanti armory is a smoking wreck.
He did that to the outer level in the span of a few hours. He became a monster to buy me one more morning of safety.
Nico stands silently behind me. He doesn't offer excuses. He doesn't apologize for the violence on the screen. He waits for my judgment.
The choice crystallizes. The fear evaporates, replaced by a fierce, undeniable claiming instinct. I am tired of running. I am tired of being afraid of the shadows. Nico Costa is the darkest shadow in Chicago, and he just handed me a way inside.
I reach into my pocket. I pull out the black keycard. I hold it up to the harsh blue light of the monitors. The Costa crest gleams.
I don't have to stay here. I have money. I have a car. I have the intelligence to vanish. I could walk out of this safehouse right now, and he would let me go. He would follow me in the shadows, guarding my door for the rest of my life, but he would never force me to stay.
I choose to stay.
Not because I have nowhere else to go. Not because I’m trapped by circumstances. I stay because this terrifying, tattooed man is the first place that has ever felt like it was built specifically for me. He carved out a fortress in the middle of a war zone just so I could sleep soundly.
I turn around to face him.
Nico stands rigid, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The raw vulnerability on his face is devastating. He looks like a man bracing himself for me to walk away.
I slide the black keycard securely back into the breast pocket of his oversized tactical shirt that I'm wearing. I press my hand flat over the pocket, securing the heavy plastic directly against my beating heart.
I take a deliberate step toward him.
He exhales a ragged, broken breath.
I take another step. I close the distance. I walk right back into his space on my own terms. I slide my arms around his waist, resting my cheek against his scarred skin. His heart thunders wildly against my ear.
"Show me how the cameras work." I murmur the demand against his skin.
Nico's arms wrap around me instantly. He crushes me to his chest. He buries his face in my hair, inhaling me like oxygen. The tension in his muscles finally breaks, replaced by unshakeable possession. The monster is mine. And I’m his.
10
NICO
She steps into my arms.The impact hits harder than any bullet I have taken. Her hands slide up my back, fingertips digging into the bare, sweat-slicked skin of my shoulders. She is not trembling. She is solid. Real. Mine.
The Costa keycard is heavy in her pocket. The plastic rectangle is dangerous to anyone outside the family, a target painted directly on her back, but she took it. She didn’t throw it back in my face. She didn’t run for the door. She stood her ground in the wreckage of my violent life and chose to walk straight into the center of it.
Her scent hits me first.Jasmine. Warm cardamom. It obliterates the metallic tang of fresh blood and the bitter sting of soot clinging to my skin. I bury my face in her neck. Her skin is scorching hot against my cold, dirt-streaked jaw. I drag my nose along the curve of her throat, inhaling the perfection of her.
My arms wrap around her waist. I crush her against me. There is no space left between us. Every line of my body molds against the soft, rich curves of hers. The decades of ice coating my veins shatter. The cold, mechanical thing I built to survive theslaughter of my family dies right here in the hallway of my safehouse.
I lift her. She doesn't hesitate. Her legs wrap tightly around my hips. Her thighs lock me in.
Mine. Finally.
I carry her away from the war room. The surveillance monitors are still blinking with the live feeds of the ruined Bellanti armory. The street outside is crawling with cops and rival hitmen. The Chicago underworld is detonating, and the Costa compound is still bleeding from tonight's breach. I don’t care. The world can burn to ash. Let it burn. I only care about the woman whose legs are locked around my waist.
I walk down the narrow, dimly lit corridor of the safehouse. My boots hit the concrete floor with heavy, measured thuds. I bypass the kitchen. I bypass the bedroom. A bed is too soft for what I need to do to her. A bed is for sleeping. I'm not going to let her sleep.
I reach the heavy steel door disguised at the very back of the unit. This vacant building had been nothing more than dead space until I turned it into a fortress overnight, fortifying every weak point between her and the street. This inner vault is the one room where I store my contingency assets, and it holds the pure, unadulterated truth of what I am.
