Chapter Fourteen Alexandra
Claudio drops us at the curb and doesn't come in.
He and Emilio have work to do. Cleanup. Cover stories.
The logistical aftermath that follows violence.
He catches Leone's eye in the rearview and something passes between them.
Not words. Not even a nod. acknowledgment.
Then he's gone, taillights disappearing around the corner, and Leone and I are alone.
He unlocks the door with a key from his pocket. The hinges creak. The air inside is stale, closed-up, the smell of a space that hasn't been used in months. He hits a switch and a single bare bulb flickers to life overhead, harsh and yellow.
I step inside. He follows. Closes the door. Locks it. Deadbolt, chain, a third lock I don't recognize. His hands move through the motions automatically, muscle memory taking over while the rest of him runs on fumes.
The safehouse is small. Like… way smaller than the apartment I used to stay in.
Two rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen that's really a counter with a hot plate and a mini fridge.
The walls are bare concrete, painted white sometime in the last decade but yellowing now.
One window in the main room, covered with a heavy blackout curtain.
One bed, pushed against the wall. A couch that's seen better days. A table with two chairs.
It's nothing like the compound. No marble, no crystal, no orchids. four walls and a roof and a door that triple locks from the inside.
It's perfect.
He hasn't spoken since we got in the car. Not a word. Just held my hand and stared out the window and breathed in that slow, controlled way that tells me he's holding himself together through sheer force of will.
I watch him now as he moves through the safehouse. Checking corners. Testing the window latch. Opening the bathroom door and scanning inside before closing it again. He's still in tactical mode. Still clearing rooms, assessing threats, running protocols. His body doesn't know the mission is over.
I stand in the middle of the room and let him work. There's nothing I can say that will bring him down faster than his own exhaustion. So I wait.
He finishes his sweep and stops by the window, pulling the curtain aside an inch to scan the street below. The light from outside cuts a thin line across his face. Blood and sweat and something else. Something hollow.
"We're clear," he says. His voice is rough. Scraped raw.
"Okay."
He lets the curtain fall. Turns to face me. And I see it. The tremor in his hands that he's been hiding since the car. The way his jaw is locked so tight the muscle jumps beneath the skin. The wildness in his eyes that hasn't faded, that's still running hot even though the fight is over.
He's not okay. He's very far from okay.
I cross to him slowly. Not rushing. Giving him time to realize that I’m here. I’m okay. I’m alive. It's the way you approach a wounded animal. Careful. Deliberate. Showing your hands.
I stop in front of him. Close enough to touch but not touching yet.
"Hey," I say softly.
He blinks. Focuses on me like he's seeing me for the first time since the rescue. The wildness in his eyes flickers, wavers, and underneath it I see exhaustion so profound it makes my chest ache.
"Hey," he says back.
I reach up and touch his face. My fingers find his jaw, the rough scrape of stubble, the hard line of bone beneath skin. He flinches. barely. A tiny involuntary jerk, like he forgot what gentle contact feels like.
"Let me help you," I say. "Okay?"
He doesn't answer. But he doesn't pull away either.
I start with the vest.
The Kevlar is heavy, heavier than I expected.
I find the velcro straps at his sides and pull them loose, one by one, the ripping sound loud in the quiet room.
The front plate is cracked down the middle, a spiderweb of fractures radiating from a central impact point.
I run my fingers over it and feel the dent where the bullet hit.
Two inches higher and it would have missed the plate entirely. Two inches higher and he'd be dead.
I swallow hard and lift the vest over his head. He helps, raising his arms, ducking through the neck hole. The vest hits the floor with a heavy thud.
Underneath, his shirt is soaked. Sweat and blood, some of it his, most of it not. The fabric is stuck to his skin in places, dried stiff with things I don't want to think about. I grip the hem and pull it up, and he raises his arms again, and the shirt joins the vest on the floor.
The bruise takes my breath away.
It covers most of his chest. Deep purple at the center, fading to red and yellow at the edges, spreading across his sternum like a dark flower blooming under his skin.
The impact point is obvious. A circle of black and blue directly over his heart, where the bullet hit the plate and the plate hit him and the only thing between Leone Costa and death was two inches.
I press my hand to it. Flat. Feeling the heat of the bruise, the steady thump of his heart beneath my palm.
He hisses through his teeth. "That hurts."
"I know." I don't move my hand. "But you're alive."
"Apparently."
"Don't be glib." My voice cracks. I don't mean for it to, but it does. "You almost died. That bullet almost killed you. And you're standing here making jokes like it doesn't matter."
"Alexandra."
"It matters to me." I look up at him. My vision is blurring and I realize I'm crying. When did I start crying? "You matter to me. So don't stand there and pretend that this," I press harder on the bruise and he winces, "is nothing. Because it's not nothing. It's everything. You're everything."
He stares at me. The wildness in his eyes shifts, changes, becomes something else. Something raw and open and terrified.
"I thought I lost you," he says. The words come out broken. "When Aurelio called and said you were gone, I thought... I couldn't..."
He stops. Swallows. His hands are shaking harder now, visible tremors running through his fingers.
"I've killed a lot of people," he says. "A lot of people, Alexandra. I stopped counting years ago. It's ... it's what I do. What I am. I point and shoot and bodies fall and I don't feel anything. I haven't felt anything in years."
He reaches up and covers my hand with his. Presses it harder against the bruise over his heart.
"But when they told me you were gone, I felt everything.
All at once. Every emotion I've been burying for twenty years came flooding back and I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't see. I couldn't think about anything except getting to you.
" His voice drops. "I would have killed a hundred men to reach you.
A thousand. I would have become a gladiator against an army. "
"Oh, Leo."
"I'm not a good man. I've never been a good man. But you make me want to be more… a man other than what I am. And the thought of losing you..." He shakes his head. "I can't. I won't. I will destroy anyone who tries to take you from me."
I pull my hand from his chest and cup his face instead. Both hands, holding him steady, forcing him to look at me.
"You found me," I say. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
"Promise me you won't leave. Promise me you won't run. Promise me that whatever happens, whatever we face, you'll stay."
"I promise." I rise on my toes and press my forehead to his. Our breath mingles. Our noses brush. "I promise, Leone. I'm yours. I'm not leaving."
The walls in him break.
I feel it happen. The tension that's been holding him together since the phone call, since the drive back to the compound, since the armory and the assault and the bodies in the hallway. All of it releases at once, like a dam giving way, and he collapses against me.
Not physically. He doesn't fall. But something inside him crumbles, and suddenly his arms are around me and his face is buried in my neck and his whole body is shaking.
Not crying. Not exactly. Something deeper than crying.
Something that has no name and no sound, tremors running through him like aftershocks.
I hold him.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders and hold on and let him shake apart against me. He's so much bigger than I am. Taller, broader, heavier. But right now he feels fragile. Like if I let go, he'll shatter.
So I don't let go.
The bare bulb flickers overhead. The curtains block out the world. My feet ache from standing and my arms ache from holding and none of it matters because he needs this. He needs me.
And I need him too.
Eventually, the shaking slows. His breathing evens out. He pulls back enough to look at me, and his eyes are red-rimmed and wet and more human than I've ever seen them.
"Sorry," he mutters.
"Don't you dare apologize."
"I'm not usually..."
"I know." I reach up and wipe my thumb across his cheek, catching a tear he probably doesn't know he shed. "I know you're not. That's why this matters."
He catches my hand. Brings it to his mouth. Presses a kiss to my palm, soft and warm, and closes his eyes.
"Come on," I say. "Sit down before you fall down."
I lead him to the bed. He follows without resistance, which tells me how far gone he really is.
Leone Costa does not get led anywhere. He goes where he wants, when he wants, and everyone else ads.
But right now he lets me pull him across the room and push him down onto the mattress and he doesn't argue.
I kneel in front of him and unlace his boots. Black tactical, caked with dust and something darker. Blood, I realize. I pull them off one at a time and set them aside. His socks follow. Then I stand and unbuckle his belt, sliding it free from the loops, coiling it on the floor beside the boots.
He watches me work. His eyes track my movements, heavy-lidded, exhaustion dragging at him.
"Lie down," I tell him.