“That’s right. There’s a place I keep. Far side of the city. Off the books. Secure. You’ll be safe there until I have this contained.”
“A-a place?”
“Yes.”
I shake my head. “What kind of place?”
“The kind of place that keeps you alive.”
A nervous laugh bubbles up my throat. “You want to put me in a bunker?”
“This isn’t funny, Bea.”
“No. It’s not. It’s insane.” My mind is swirling. Before I know it, my spine has straightened. “I’ve been in this apartment for days. I’ve walked the same five rooms in circles. I’ve nearly gone mad. And now you want to ship me to a bunker?”
“You’ll be safe.”
“I don’t feel safe. I feel like a parcel.”
“This isn’t about how you feel.”
“Then what is it about? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you want to shove me in a box and come back when it’s convenient.”
“That’s not what?—”
“I’m not going to a bunker, Raffaele.”
My heart is racing at a thousand miles per minute, but I can’t back down. My body won’t let me.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“The hell I don’t.”
“You’re under myfuckingprotection?—”
“I’m not yourproperty?—”
His sunken eyes go wide. “You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t been losing my mind over what you are to me? You think I don’t know what you’ve become?—”
And just like that my racing pulse stops dead. The pounding in my heart slows to a near glacial speed.
Tears well in my eyes.
“Thentell me.Because from where I’m standing right now, I feel like a thing you’ve claimed. Not someone you?—”
“If anything happens to you?—”
He steps closer.
“If anything happens to the one fucking person I?—”
He stops.
It hangs there.
I can hear his breath. I can hear my own. The rest of the apartment has gone underwater.
“Raffaele.”
