CHAPTER 23 #2
He drops the sponge and takes my right hand in his.
He spends a long, excruciatingly silent minute washing every single finger individually.
When he gets to my index finger—the one that pulled the trigger—he stops.
He rubs his thumb over the pad of the finger, his eyes darkening to a shade of pitch.
He brings my hand up to his mouth and presses a firm, deliberate kiss directly to that specific fingertip.
The heat of his lips is a shocking contrast to the cool water running over us.
"This finger saved my life," he says, his voice a low, lethal purr. "Don't ever be ashamed of it."
I stare at his bruised knuckles interlaced with my small, pale hand. He isn't disgusted by what I did. He’s fucking proud of it. The audacity of this man to bless the hand that committed murder. That’s the most terrifying part of all of this.
Leon drops my hand and cups my face. His hands are massive, fully framing my jaw, his thumbs stroking right over my sharp cheekbones.
He forces me to maintain eye contact, physically blocking me from drifting back into the dissociated void.
He wipes a stream of water away from my eye with his thumb.
"Stay with me. Don't go back there."
I can smell the salt and musk of his skin bleeding through the wet clothes. He can see right through the mask.
"They left you for dead," he says, his voice a guttural vibration cutting straight through the white noise of the shower. "I’m the only one who stayed." He leans in until our foreheads touch. We are breathing the exact same humid air. "You belong in the dark with me now."
The absolute unhinged reality is that he’s right. Trenton and the Bureau didn't just burn my file; they handed me a death sentence. There is no badge waiting for me. There is nowhere left to go but down.
The last miserable scrap of my defensive bullshit just crumbles.
I let out a ragged, ugly breath and slump forward entirely.
I bury my face deep in the crook of his neck, my nose smashing against the wet, heavy collar of his shirt.
I throw my arms around his waist and hold onto him with the absolute feral desperation of a drowning woman.
I fist my hands into the back of his wet shirt, bunching the expensive fabric under my nails.
I finally let the tears go. They come out silent and hot, mixing instantly with the shower water.
"Help me," I choke out against his skin.
"I have you. I have you," he murmurs.
He wraps his massive arms around me, crushing me tight against his chest. He holds me so hard I can barely inflate my lungs, and for the first time in my entire goddamn life, being trapped feels like safety instead of a cage.
He buries his face in my wet hair. He gently rocks me back and forth, just a tiny, rhythmic motion in the middle of this absolute shitstorm.
"Breathe with me, Alessia. Just breathe."
I press my ear to his chest and listen to the steady, slow thud of his heart. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. His heart isn't even racing. He just watched a man get his brain blown out and his pulse is at a resting fucking sixty. He is built for this violently dark world. Maybe I am too.
Once the worst of my pathetic tremors finally dial down into a dull, heavy exhaustion, Leon reaches around me and grabs the brass handles.
He twists them hard. The water cuts off, dying with a final, echoing gurgle down the drain.
The sudden silence is jarring. It smells intensely of wet stone and our shared, jagged breathing.
A few droplets fall from the showerhead, ticking like a clock against the tile floor. We just stand there for a long minute.
He steps out of the shower first, his ruined leather shoes loudly squelching on the marble.
He grabs a massive, plush black towel off the heated rack and turns back.
He wraps it around my shoulders, tucking the ends in tight across my chest. He rubs my arms and shoulders vigorously through the thick cotton, his movements firm, forcing the circulation back into my frozen skin.
He uses a dry corner of the towel to quickly pat the water off my face.
"You’re going to sleep now," he states.
It’s not a suggestion. I’m so deeply tired my bones feel like lead.
Without waiting for me to walk, he just scoops me up bridal style.
His soaked clothes drip dark patches of water all over the light marble floor as he carries me out of the steam-filled bathroom and into the dim, freezing air of the master bedroom.
I rest my temple against the wet, cold collar of his shirt.
I should care that we’re ruining the floors, but I don't. The city lights flicker through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting long, sharp shadows across the room.
He lays me down gently on the edge of the sprawling bed.
The dark silk sheets feel like literal ice against my bare legs, but he immediately hauls a heavy duvet over me, tucking the edges tightly around my shoulders to trap the heat.
He doesn't go change his dripping clothes.
Instead, this terrifying, ruthless syndicate boss drops down onto one knee right on the hardwood floor beside the bed.
He positions himself physically lower than me.
I stare at him. Why the fuck is he kneeling?
He shouldn't kneel for anyone. He reaches out and brushes a damp, tangled lock of hair out of my eyes.
"Stay under the covers," he orders softly.
He pulls my right hand out from under the duvet and presses a firm, bruising kiss right to the back of my knuckles. He grips my hand so hard his own knuckles turn white. He looks me dead in the eye, and his gaze promises nothing but fire and a ridiculous amount of blood.
"I protect what is mine, Alessia. And you are mine," he says, his voice devoid of any hesitation. "Let them come. I’ll be the last thing they ever see."
He’s literally vowing to slaughter federal agents for me. And the most unhinged part is, I’m going to let him.
A massive, leaden wave of exhaustion finally drags me under. My eyelids flutter and snap shut. I drift off to the sound of his slow, even breathing. My fingers twitch once in my sleep, and he instantly tightens his hold on my hand, clamping down like a vice.
My hair is wet, the silk pillowcase is getting damp, and I still have soap under my fingernails.