Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Maya
Iknow someone is in the apartment before I reach my bedroom.
The hallway is too quiet.
Not empty. Quiet.
Alex has taken the twins downstairs for hot chocolate after I told him I needed a minute.
Erin wanted to stay. Heath watched me with that guarded concern he gives doors that do not open fast enough.
I made a joke, told them I was fine, and sent them with Alex because they are learning that adults can ask for space without disappearing.
The apartment should be still.
Instead, there is a flutter in the air behind my bedroom door. A faint odor of rain and cold wool. The pressure of another person holding themselves motionless in the dark.
My hand goes to the drawer by the entry table.
The gun is cold when I wrap my fingers around it.
I move down the hall without making a sound, each instinct sharpening at once. The bedroom door is partly open. No light leaks through the gap. No movement. Just that same wrongness in the air, thick enough to taste.
I push the door open with my shoulder.
“Don’t move.”
The command leaves me before I see him clearly.
Stefano stands near the window, half-shadowed by the curtains. Rain darkens the shoulders of his coat. His hair is damp. There are dark circles under his eyes I have never seen before.
He turns toward me slowly.
My gun is aimed at his chest.
For one heartbeat, neither of us moves.
Then his gaze drops to the weapon in my hand and comes back to my face.
“Maya.”
My name leaves him like it hurts.
I should call Raven.
I should tell him to get out.
Instead, I hold the gun steady and stare at the man who walked away from me in Boston without looking back.
“You have exactly five seconds to explain why you are in my bedroom.”
He doesn’t respond.
“You broke into my apartment.”
“Yes.”
“You had someone watching me.”
“Yes.”
“You disappeared after murdering a man in front of me, then decided showing up in the dark would somehow be an improvement?”
“No.”
The answer catches me off guard.
He does not step closer. Does not reach for the gun. He just stands there with his hands at his sides, letting me decide what happens next.
My finger tightens against the trigger.
“You should be afraid of me right now.”
“I am.”
“You do not look afraid.”
“I know what you are capable of.”
The comments wound harder than they should.
I lower the gun by an inch.
Not enough to make him safe. Enough to keep him talking.
“You should have called,” I say.
“I know.”
“You should have told me you were alive.”
“I know.”
“You should have stayed in Boston and let the FBI drag you out in cuffs for murdering a man in front of them.”
His mouth shifts, but no amusement reaches his eyes. “That was unlikely.”
“I am not joking.”
“Neither am I.”
Something inside me snaps.
I set the gun on the dresser before I do something neither of us can take back, cross the room, and hit him.
The sound cracks across the silence.
His head turns with it.
He does not raise a hand. He does not reach for me. He stands there and lets me breathe through the fury shaking my body.
“You do not get to walk into my bedroom after a month and say my name as though you have any right to sound relieved.”
“I do not have that right.”
“No.”
“I know.”
The quiet agreement steals some of the fight from me.
I hate that.
I hate that he is not trying to make himself out to be the victim. I hate that he looks exhausted enough for me to wonder whether he has slept at all. I hate that every fraction of me still recognizes him as home before I can stop it.
“You killed him,” I say.
“Yes.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“You left.”
His gaze drops.
That is the only one that lands visibly.
“Yes,” he says again, more softly.
I fold my arms over my chest because I do not trust them at my sides. “Why are you here?”
His eyes lift to mine.
“I received a report.”
My stomach drops.
Of course he did.
“You had someone watching me.”
“Yes.”
“You have no respect for boundaries.”
“I have very little respect for boundaries where your safety is concerned.”
“That is not romantic, Stefano.”
“I was not trying to be romantic.”
“Then what were you trying to be?”
His silence lingers too long.
Honest, I realize.
He is trying to be honest.
“I was trying to make sure no one came after you,” he says. “Leon had men who were not caught. Some disappeared. Some have money. Others have reasons to be stupid. I needed to know you and the children were protected, and I came here because I wanted to see that for myself.”
“You could have told me.”
“Yes.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it remains true.”
My laugh comes out sharp. “Do you know what the worst part is? You are standing here acting like you understand what you did, and maybe you do. Maybe you really do. But you still decided it was better to leave than allow me to choose whether I wanted you in my life after.”
He looks at me for a long moment. Then he takes off his coat and lays it over the chair by the window.
“I thought you deserved a life that didn't include me.”
The words are so quiet they nearly miss me.
I stare at him.
“What?”
“I thought if I stayed, you would keep trying to make sense of what I did.
You would tell yourself you could forgive it because you wanted to believe I was better than I am.
You would keep choosing me because you are loyal to people who hurt you.
I didn't want to become another man you had to survive, and I didn't trust myself to stay without making that choice for you.”
My throat clenches.
“You do not get to decide that for me.”
“No.”
“Then why did you?”
His hands still.
For the first time since he arrived, Stefano looks uncertain.
Not weak. Never that. Though stripped of the certainty that usually makes every decision feel inevitable.
“Because I was afraid,” he says.
The room seems to lose sound.
I have heard Stefano threaten men without raising his voice.
I have watched him walk into rooms that belonged to other people and make them his with one look.
I have watched him hold a gun beneath a table while someone touched me, watched him kill a man because he believed the world was safer without him.
I have never heard him admit fear.
“Afraid of what?” I ask.
His gaze stays on mine.
“That if you looked at me long enough after Boston, you would see exactly what I am.”
I should say I already know.
I should say that was the whole problem.
Instead, I feel something inside me soften against my will.
“I did see,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“And I still wanted you to stay.”
The words leave me before I can stop them.
Stefano’s face changes.
Barely.
But I see it.
The control he wears so easily fractures at the edges. His eyes darken. His mouth parts once before he closes it again, like he is afraid any answer will break the room open further.
I hate him for making me say it first. I hate myself more for needing him to hear it.
“I was angry,” I continue. “I am still angry. I do not know if I will ever stop being angry about Leon. You took something from me. You took the chance to see him answer for Alice. You took the choice, and you did it because you thought your version of love mattered more than mine.”
“It didn't.”
“No.”
“It does not.”
His voice is rougher now.
“I should have trusted you to hate me and stayed anyway.”
The room goes still.
He takes one step closer.
Then stops.
“I am sorry,” he says.
Not I am sorry you are upset.
Not I am sorry you misunderstood.
Just the words.
Simple. Bare. More frightening than any threat he has ever given me.
My eyes burn.
I look away because I cannot let him see how close I am to breaking.
“You do not get forgiveness because you finally said the right thing.”
“I know.”
“You do not get to touch me because you came back.”
“I know.”
“And you do not get to disappear again because the conversation becomes difficult.”
His face tightens.
“I will not.”
“You cannot promise that.”
“I can.”
“You didn't last time.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“You were protecting yourself from watching me hate you.”
The truth cuts through him.
I see it.
His gaze drops to the floor between us.
“Yes,” he says.
The word is almost too quiet to hear.
I swallow.
There are a thousand things I should say. About the test in the bathroom drawer. About the two lines that have changed everything. About how his child may already be growing inside me while we stand here bleeding at each other in the dark.
But I cannot say it yet.
Not while every nerve in my body is still caught between relief and rage.
Stefano looks up again. “Do you hate me?”
The question lands low.
I stare at him.
He is not asking for reassurance. He is asking because he thinks he deserves the answer.
Part of me wants to give it to him.
It would be easier.
“Yes,” I say.
His face does not change.
“Sometimes,” I add.
Something passes through his eyes.
Pain. Relief. Both.
“But I loved you anyway,” I whisper. “That was the worst part.”
The words hang between us.
Stefano goes completely still.
I should stop talking.
I do not.
“I loved you when I knew better. I loved you when you were impossible. I loved you when I was lying to myself about it because admitting it felt like turning into every woman who ever let a dangerous man convince her that love was worth being afraid.”
His breath catches.
“And then you left,” I say. “You left me standing over Leon’s body with no chance to decide whether you were someone I could keep loving.”
“Maya.”
“No. You asked.”
He takes another step toward me.
This time, I do not move back.
“I love you,” he says.
No performance. No smirk. No command.
The words are low and wrecked.
“I have loved you since the first moment you looked at me from that stage like you were trying to decide whether I was a threat or a problem you could survive.” His hand lifts, stopping near my face without touching.
“I loved you when you hated me. I loved you when you stood in my house and made demands no one else would have survived making.”
My eyes close.