I open my eyes. The blue light of the monitors is sharp and unforgiving.
I look at the surveillance feed of her door. The solid oak barrier.
I am a weapon. Weapons do not have homes or warmth. They are kept locked in dark rooms until they are needed to spill blood.
I’m sitting in the room. I’m waiting to spill blood. But the parameters have changed. I am no longer guarding a family legacy. I’m guarding a woman who defied me on a freezing sidewalk.
My phone buzzes on the desk.
I pick it up. A secure text message from Matteo.
Report.
I stare at the glowing letters. I could tell him the truth — that I abandoned the primary vantage point because a civilian walked into my line of sight, that I commandeered a vacant apartment to guard her, that the war just got more complicated because I have a vulnerable weakness sleeping one floor above me.
I type my response.
Position shifted to clinic roof. Visual on loading bay maintained. Perimeter secure.
I hit send. I drop the phone back on the desk.
It is an outright lie. A dangerous one. I am holed up inside the vacant second floor of her apartment building, miles from the clinic roofline, and I have just told him otherwise. Matteo doesn't tolerate blind spots in his operations. Enzo will dissect my shifting geolocation and realize my sightlines are compromised. Santi will simply look at me and know.
Let them.
Let them come. Let them question it. Let the entire Bellanti army march down this street.
I draw my custom 1911 from my shoulder holster. I eject the magazine. I check the brass casings. I slide the magazine backinto the grip with a sharp, satisfying click. I rack the slide. A live round chambers.
I place the sidearm on the desk, beside the monitor displaying her door.
She’s right above me. I can almost feel her heat radiating through the floorboards. I can almost smell the spice on the air.
I don’t know how she sleeps. I don’t know if she curls into a ball to protect herself, or if she sprawls out, claiming the space. I don’t know what she wears. I don’t know the sound of her breath when the armor finally drops.
I will know.
I’ll map every inch of her existence the way I map a battlefield. I will learn her routines and memorize her tells. I will secure the entry points, neutralize threats, and shield her in a fortress of my own design until the rest of the world ceases to exist.
She thinks I’m a monster in the shadows. She thinks I’m a thug who bullied her onto a highway.
She’s wrong.
I’m the only thing standing between her and the fire.
I lean forward, my forearms resting on the dusty wood. I watch the static feed of the empty hallway. Hour after hour. The city sleeps. The traffic dies down. The freezing wind rattles the glass of the window I pried open.
I don’t blink. I don’t waver.
I sit in the dark. I guard my woman.
And for the first time in twenty years, I don’t see my father’s empty chair.
3
PRIYA
Cold air pushesup through the floorboards. The draft is new. My morning routine operates on a precise, unyielding schedule. The alarm goes off at six. The coffee finishes brewing at six-fifteen. The stretching routine targets the stiffness in my left knee from six-thirty to six-forty. Every minute is accounted for. Each variable is controlled. Structure is the only thing standing between me and the memory of shattered glass and fire. The building next to my clinic going up in flames taught me about chaos. Chaos takes everything. Order keeps you alive.
