Chapter 45 #2
He was pacing. When I turned, he stopped, curiosity etched on his face.
“Well?”
I took a breath, thinking.
Romano was everything to me. We’d built it from nothing. No money, no clients, just a desire to protect. But we’d made it work. And without it, I wouldn’t be the man I am today.
And I wouldn’t have found the love I’d finally deserved.
Loving Cora was like the moon loving the tides. No matter the distance, she felt my pull. No matter how much I told myself she deserved calmer seas, she kept coming back, chasing the gravity between us like the only truth that mattered.
And maybe that’s why I never trusted it.
The moon can’t touch the water without stirring it, raising it, risking a storm.
I didn’t want to flood her world. But Cora…
she braved the waves. She braved me. And now…
I couldn’t imagine a world where I didn’t let her win every argument, where I didn’t finally crash into her, no matter the cost.
I nodded, stealing one final breath. “Where do I sign?”
Arthur’s face shifted into a toxic cocktail of relief and greed. “I knew I liked you.” He slid the paper forward, the scratch of the page deafening.
The pen clicked in my fingers, cold and metallic, heavier than it should have been.
I lowered it to the paper.
Then… I stopped.
Arthur’s gaze flickered, suspicion etched across his face.
“You going to write your name, or just admire the paper?” His tone was steel.
Footsteps echoed behind me, deliberate.
“I’d rather admire this.”
Arthur turned as Oscar filled my peripheral vision.
He looked like he’d crawled back from the dead, blood-soaked shirt, eyes locked on the man at the table.
Arthur’s face twisted. “What the hell—”
Oscar moved. He tore the gun from Arthur’s hand, shoved him to the ground, elbow pressing into his neck.
Arthur strained, panicked. “You’re ruining everything—”
“Ruining?” Oscar’s voice cracked like a whip. “I threw away everything I had for you. Betrayed the only person who had my back. And for what?” He pressed the gun harder to Arthur’s temple. “So you could put a bullet in me when I was no longer useful?”
Arthur’s lips curled into a snarl, but beneath it flickered uncertainty. Red-faced, barely breathing, Oscar’s hold on him tightened.
Oscar laughed, bitter and hopeless. “Nice try.”
Bones in Arthur’s nose crunched as they met Oscar’s fist.
A second later, his head drooped and his body went limp. Not dead. I knew because it was the same technique we trained our guys to use. Relief washed over me.
Oscar heaved, hands on his knees. “His pocket. For Cora, it’s in his pocket.”
I yanked the folded note from Arthur’s jacket, straightening. Behind me, Oscar was still crouched, sweat dripping, breathing hard. The roof went quiet — just us catching up to the moment.
I looked at him.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I sighed.
Then he lifted those sorry eyes. Barely.
In that tiny glance, like a six-year-old caught with blood on his knuckles, he sighed back.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Throat bobbed.
“I know,” he said.
Two barely-there syllables. But they landed like a confession, a surrender, a plea he wasn’t allowed to make. Not “I’m sorry.” Not “I didn’t mean to.” Not even “please.”
Just I know.
Like a child who realised there was no coming back from the punch he threw.
Something in me, old and loyal and already breaking, went very, very still.
Because he was right.
He knew.
And I did too.
Whatever we’d been before—brothers, partners, family—I felt it fracture clean down the middle. No shouting. No dramatics. Just the quiet snap of something that wouldn’t mend.
I turned away before the rest of me could feel it.
I rose on shaky legs, syringe in hand, and strode towards Cora.
My heart nearly fell when I saw her on the ground, eyes sad and vacant. Scared more than anything.
I rushed to her side, crouching beside her, cradling her upright. I tugged the cap off with my teeth and steadied my hands.
“Squeeze my hand as hard as you need. This might hurt.”
Cora scrunched her face as the needle punctured her skin, the bones in my hand crunched under her grip, but I’d happily crush them myself if it meant she was okay.
Once it was empty I tossed it away, keeping her upright, brushing hair from her face.
Slowly, her eyes brightened, flecks of gold shining up at me.
Her head rested in the crook of my arm, eyes locked with mine with the last of her tears. “When’s it my turn to save you, huh?” She asked, voice still as broken as she looked. But for a moment, there was a hint of a smile.
Hello, Angel.
“You saved me the moment we met.” I pulled back slightly, noses brushing. “On the porch. I knew it right then.”
She chuckled, eyes glinting with something happier. “That I was nearly going to be the death of you?”
“That you were going to be my reason to really live.”
Until Cora, I’d been living for everyone but me.
Carrying others’ weight, chasing their problems, letting their needs drown mine.
She showed up, messy, stubborn, impossible to ignore, and without knowing it, taught me how to hold my scars without letting them hold me.
She made me fight for something that was mine. For someone who saw me as worth saving.
Until her… I was the tide, pulled by forces I couldn’t control. She… she was the moon. She was the steady pull I couldn’t deny, the light that drew me in and taught me how to come home.
Without her, I was lost in the dark. With her, I finally understood what it meant to be whole.
Her face tugged with a smile, but it was laced with that charm that made me never want to leave her side. “I’ll have to remind you of that more often, then.”
I laughed, feeling the weight of everything melt just a little. “I’m counting on it. Keeps me on my toes.”
Her smile softened, and she tucked her hand into mine. “Good. Because you’re stuck with me now.”
“Stuck isn’t the worst fate,” I said, pulling her a little closer. “Especially when it’s you.”
Her smile softened further, and with a playful tilt of her head, she added breathlessly, “Hey… can we circle back to the whole ‘I love you’ thing?”
My chest tightened in that good way, a slow grin spreading across my face. “Yeah? What about it?”
She leaned in, eyes sparkling. “Just making sure you meant it. You know, adrenaline and all that.”
I laughed quietly, brushing her hair back from her face. “I meant every word. Because I love you.”
As if there’s a universe where I don’t.
We stayed like that for a moment, the world shrinking until it was just us. I pressed my forehead to hers, breathing her in like a vow, and whispered, “To the moon and back.”