He moves into my peripheral vision — jacket gone, sleeves rolled to the forearms, looking like he hasn't slept and considers it irrelevant. He stops at the kitchen island. "Stop trying to run."
"Stop trying to own me."
The words land flat and final. For a second, neither of us moves.
Then he rounds the island.
I hold my ground. It costs me — every instinct I have urges me to step back, create distance, put something solid between us —but I've spent my whole life refusing to step back from men who expect it. I'm not starting now. Not with him. Not ever.
He stops close enough that I can smell him. Whiskey and dark amber cologne. That same scent from the doorframe, from the stairwell, from every moment he's stood too close and I've let him.
I'm letting him. Again.
"I'm not trying to own you." His voice drops. Not loud — Luca never gets loud. He gets quieter the more he means it, and right now he's barely above a whisper. "I'm trying to keep you alive."
"By taking everything I have."
"By keeping you here." His eyes track my face, slow and deliberate, like he's reading me and finding what I don't want him to. "There's a difference."
"Is there?" I tip my chin up. "Because from where I'm standing, I can't leave, I can't call anyone, and I can't access the internet. The only difference between this and a cell is the thread count."
A muscle ticks in his jaw. Not anger. More complicated than anger.
"The man who slid that photo under your door last night was on my payroll." Flat. Immediate. "I identified him, removed him, and closed the gap within four hours. That's what this looks like when it works."
"You had a mole."
"A compromised asset. Past tense."
"And the next one? The one after that?" Surgeon's voice. Steady. Measured. "You can't guarantee?—"
"No." One step closer. We're close enough now that breathing evenly is a full-time job. "I can't guarantee anything. That's the job. But I can guarantee that right now, in this building, you're the safest person in New York City." His gaze drops to my mouth. Stays there. "Whether you want to be or not."
My pulse betrays me. One hard kick against my ribs that I feel all the way down.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Look at me like that."
He doesn't look away. "Like what?"
Like you're already planning how to take me apart. Like the only reason you haven't is that you're choosing not to, and that choice is getting harder by the second.
"You know what."
The air between us runs out of room. I watch him decide something — watch it move through his eyes and then go still, like a door locking from the inside.
Then his hand comes up.
Slow. Deliberate. Giving me every opportunity to step back.
I don't step back.
His fingers curl around my jaw — not hard, not rough, justcertain— and he tilts my face up and kisses me.
It's not gentle.
