Chapter 12
twelve
Vincenzo
Iknow I should hate myself for acting like this.
That thought arrives early and stays useless.
It gets ignored while I lean against Nikolaj’s marble counter, drinking coffee in his kitchen like I haven’t spent eight years bleeding from his absence and another several days letting him drag me back to life by the throat.
I know exactly how this looks. Worse, I know exactly what I’m doing.
I’m pushing. Testing. Leaning into every glance and every filthy little opening because I can feel the effect I’m having on him.
Some weak, starving part of me wants to stand in that warmth for one more minute before sense returns and throws me out into the cold again.
He still hasn’t told me to leave.
That is the problem.
If Nikolaj truly wanted me gone, I’d be gone.
There is nothing vague about him when he decides something.
He doesn’t hedge or imply; he removes. The fact that I’m still here, coffee cooling at my elbow while dawn brightens the windows and he stands in front of me naked, annoyed, and visibly affected, is its own answer.
Not a simple one, or the one I want. But an answer all the same.
And because I have always been at my most reckless when he gives me even an inch, I push my luck.
He’s leaning one hip against the opposite side of the island now, coffee in one hand, eyes on me over the rim of the cup with that infuriatingly stoic face he’s grown into.
The years have made him quieter on the surface—less likely to snap first and speak second—but I know him too well to miss the tension held in the line of his shoulders or the way his gaze keeps cutting lower when he thinks I won’t notice.
He’s trying to look unaffected, and he’s failing. Spectacularly, by Nikolaj standards, which means only someone who knew the younger version of him well enough to track every twitch would catch it. Unfortunately for both of us, that someone is me.
“So,” I say, letting my voice go lazy because I know exactly what that does to him, “we’ve established your guards are shit, your second is a traitor, and you still haven’t thrown me out. That feels significant.”
His eyes narrow over the cup. “It feels early.”
“Ah, but that’s not a denial.”
“You talk too much before breakfast.”
“You used to like that.”
His mouth shifts, not quite a smile, not quite irritation. It stirs something stupidly fond in me anyway. “I used to enjoy punching you, too. Timing matters.”
I let my gaze drag slowly over him because if he’s going to stand there looking like every violent prayer I’ve ever answered wrong, I reserve the right to be obvious about it.
His body catches the morning in obscene ways, all broad shoulders, heavy muscle, and tattooed authority wrapped around a man who once came apart under my mouth and now glares at me as if he might again if I annoy him correctly.
“Timing rarely stopped us,” I murmur.
His throat works once around a swallow that has nothing to do with coffee. His eyes dip to my mouth before he can stop them, then lift again with fresh annoyance, as if he’s angry I noticed and angrier that he did it in the first place.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” he says.
I widen my eyes innocently. “Breathing?”
“Existing.”
“That seems harsh. I’m very good at it.”
He sets the coffee down then, slowly enough that the control in the movement reads like a threat. “You’re fucking insufferable.”
I smile. “And yet you’re still standing naked in front of me while I disrespect your kitchen.”
That earns me a look so direct and dangerous it nearly feels like a hand. “Do you ever hear yourself?”
“Usually only when I’m being charming.”
He pushes off the counter before I can get another word out. The movement is quick enough that by the time I process the fact that he’s crossing the small space between us, he’s already there. One big hand wraps around my wrist and pins it to the marble behind me.
His body crowds mine with the kind of effortless physical dominance that was always easier for him than it was for me. Even when we were younger and closer in size, Nikolaj had a way of using space that made it feel as though walls and air alike had chosen his side.
Now, older, heavier, and broader in every direction that matters, he does not have to work for the effect. He simply stands too close, and suddenly I’m aware of everything.
The heat of him. The way one hand can trap my wrist without strain. The fact that I’m leaning back against marble, while he looms over me with all the terrible calm of a man who knows exactly how much stronger he is and has no need to perform it loudly.
“Nikolaj,” I say, and the name comes out lower than intended.
His eyes flash because no matter how many pieces are still falling back into place, that remains his weakest point, and I remain enough of a bastard to use it.
“Don’t start,” he says.
“Start what?”
“This.”
I tip my head slightly. “You’ll have to be more specific. There’s a lot of this.”
His grip tightens just enough to remind me who’s controlling the current arrangement. “You’re acting like a brat,” he says.
The word hits me so hard I nearly laugh. No one in this world would dare say that to me—no one except him, and even then, only in private. The fact that he says it now, after everything, with all that rough disbelief and old familiarity threaded through it, makes my stomach tighten.
I know better than to show that fully.
So, I pout instead.
It’s instinctive and ridiculous, and I hate myself for how naturally it happens.
My lower lip pushes forward a fraction, my brows lift in false offense, and I know exactly what I look like because I have used this face on him before to terrible effect.
He used to lose patience with it in under ten seconds. Sometimes less.
This time, he stares at me in silence for one long beat, and then something awful and pleased curls at the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, fuck off,” I mutter.
“There it is,” he says, voice gone rougher. “That fucking face.”
I try for dignity. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Liar.”
His hand leaves my wrist just long enough for me to almost think I’ve won something. Then it comes back to catch me by the jaw instead, thumb pressing lightly at one corner of my mouth, not cruel but absolutely in control.
I freeze under the contact. The room seems to narrow down to his hand, my breath, and the low, dangerous heat in his eyes.
“You pout when you want your way,” he says quietly. “I remember how it used to make me want to bend you over the nearest surface and remind you what that mouth was for.”
The words slide through me like slow poison.
My own breath catches; there’s no point pretending otherwise. Nikolaj sees it and looks indecently satisfied with himself, which would be unbearable if it didn’t also make him look exactly like the worst parts of my favorite memories.
“You’re degrading me at six a.m.,” I say, and my voice is not nearly as steady as I’d like.
He makes a low sound that might almost be a laugh. “You’re the one who showed up in my kitchen acting like a spoiled prince.”
“I’m not a prince.”
“No, I suppose you’re worse.” The thumb at my mouth drags once, brief and possessive enough to make my knees feel dangerously theoretical. “Look at you—King of the Five Families and still making that face because I called you what you are.”
There is no safe response to that. Not with his hand still on my face, and my body remembering every dangerous thing it used to do under this exact tone of voice.
So, I do the only remotely intelligent thing left.
I step back.
It costs me because he doesn’t move to stop me at first, and the absence of his hand feels immediate and offensive. I smooth my shirt unnecessarily and aim for cool amusement while my pulse still ricochets off every rib I possess.
“Well,” I say. “I see your social skills remain catastrophic.”
He raises a brow. “Leaving already?”
The question is too neutral to be casual. That alone nearly undoes me. I force a smile anyway. “I do, against all evidence, possess a little dignity.”
His brows lift. “Debatable.”
“Yes, well.” I move around the island before I can do something embarrassing like climb him again. “I’ve intruded enough for one morning.”
He doesn’t answer, and that silence is dangerous because it gives me room to imagine things I have no business imagining. That he wants me to stay and is trying not to ask. That his stillness means as much as his old fire used to. I know better than to trust silence.
Silence is where men like us hide our worst impulses and call it control, so I head for the door.
The walk from the kitchen toward the entry foyer is not long enough to steady my breathing or my pride.
Leaving now is wise and necessary. I have already had more than I came for simply by being allowed into his morning.
I came to see him about business and got my answer.
He let me in, answered me, then put his hands on me and called me a brat with enough remembered heat to make my whole body ache.
That should be enough.
I reach the door but don’t even make it to the handle.
One second, I’m moving, and the next, I’m slammed back against the wood so hard the impact knocks the air out of me in a sharp, involuntary sound. Nikolaj’s hand is at my throat again, controlling the line of me while his other palm braces flat beside my head.
The force of him against me is immediate and breathtaking. I barely have time to open my mouth before his lips are on mine.
This kiss is different from the one in the gym. That one had been confirmation, collision, and recovered instinct erupting out of both of us at once.
This is angrier, less about remembering the map, and more about punishing me for trying to leave with even a shred of composure intact.
He kisses me like I’ve earned it by being unbearable, and he resents every second of how much he still wants to do this. I answer him instantly, because apparently, I learned nothing from the first collapse.
My back presses into the door as his body pins me there. The sound I make into his mouth is embarrassing and impossible to stop, and he swallows it down like he remembers exactly how.
When he pulls back, it’s only far enough to breathe. His forehead almost touches mine, and the hand at my throat remains there, fingers spread.
“Don’t show up here uninvited again,” he says.
The sentence hits me like cold water.
For a second, I just stare at him, trying to reconcile the kiss with the words. Trying not to let my face show how quickly my heart can still break on command.
“Wh-what?” I say, quieter now.
He closes his eyes for one brief moment, jaw tightening. When he opens them again, all that kingly control is back, though not enough to hide what it’s costing him.
“We’re not heirs anymore,” he says. “This isn’t Vintermoor. We’re not boys climbing through windows and pretending the world can’t touch us if we’re quiet enough. We’re kings now, and if you keep showing up in my house, people will get the wrong idea.”
I almost laugh at the absurdity of that. The wrong idea. As if there is any idea more dangerous than the right one. “And what is the wrong idea, exactly?”
His gaze hardens. “Don’t.”
“What?” I ask softly, because I want to hear him say it, because I’m a masochist where he’s concerned and always have been. “That you once loved me?”
The silence that follows is not denial; it’s worse. It’s memory, fury, and grief all colliding behind his eyes.
“I know I loved you,” he starts. “I know that now. I know I loved my enemy enough that they tried to rip it out of me and failed. I know I would’ve chosen you over blood, over duty, over everything they built me for. I know that, Vincenzo.”
Hearing it spoken aloud in that tone, factual and stunned and almost disbelieving even now, splits right through the middle of me.
He sees it and curses softly under his breath, as if hurting me with the truth offends him even while he keeps doing it.
“But knowing it isn’t the same as…” He breaks off, jaw tightening. “I need time with it. I need time to understand what it means for us now. I need time to come to terms with the fact that the only man I ever…” He stops again, breathing hard, then forces it out differently. “I need time.”
The heartbreak is so immediate and familiar it almost makes me laugh.
Of course.
Of course, losing him again would be this. Not memory wiped clean and hatred in his eyes this time, but honesty. A request. A boundary drawn by the same man whose mouth still tastes like he’s mine.
I look at him for a long moment, at the strain around his eyes, at the control it’s costing him to say this instead of something easier or crueler, and all the fight in me goes strangely quiet.
Because he’s right. I know what it cost him to come this far. To dig through files and watch himself loving me on screens and paper. To kiss me and still choose sense where we’ve always chosen fire.
And the awful thing is, part of me is proud of him for it even while it feels like something in my chest is being broken open all over again.
“So, you want me to stay away,” I say.
His mouth flattens. “For now.”
“For now,” I repeat.
“Yes.”
The word is careful. Brutal because it is careful.
I nod once. “Fine,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel. “I’ll stay away.”
His eyes close briefly, as if relief hurts. When they open again, they’re darker. Softer too, though he’d probably rather bite his own tongue than admit it.
“Vincenzo—”
I shake my head. “No. Don’t.”
I know what comes next if I let him keep talking. Some apology he doesn’t owe me, or reassurance that makes it worse, not better. I can’t be handed hope like that and be expected to survive it politely.
I push him away and step back; he doesn’t reach for me. That’s the final mercy, and also the cruelest.
I smooth my shirt for a second time just to have something to do with my hands, then I open the door and stop, but I don’t turn back fully.
“Take all the time you need, Nikolaj,” I say. “But I can’t hold onto hope for another eight years. I won’t.”
I leave before the rest of my heart catches up and begs him not to make me do this twice.
Only when I get back to my car do I let my face slip. Only then do I let myself feel the clean, familiar agony of obeying him when every inch of me wanted to stay and force him to kiss me again until he forgot why he asked for distance in the first place.
But that would’ve been for me, not for him. And for all the monstrous things I’ve become, I still know the difference.
Stay away, he said.
So I will.