CHAPTER 26
"You take the bedroom," Alessio said.
Sofia stood beneath the commandant suite's low stone arch and watched him solve proximity by removing himself from it.
"Where will you sleep?"
"The sitting room."
"The sitting room has three exterior windows."
"Reinforced."
"Marco's report identified the old island window grid in the compromised archive index."
"The shutters are steel."
"And the security protocol requires the principal protected party and command authority to remain inside the hardened interior during a storm closure. I read it on the launch."
His gray-green eyes narrowed. "You read the entire island protocol?"
"It was twelve pages."
"Of course you did."
The bedroom behind them was spare and expensive.
A wide bed faced an old fireplace converted to gas.
Two leather chairs sat beneath a recessed light.
The only window was a narrow military opening covered by an interior steel panel.
A private bath and dressing room completed the hardened space.
No second bed. No decorative couch large enough to pretend otherwise.
Alessio set his travel bag beside the door. "I will remain outside until the storm passes."
"That increases the security risk."
"It preserves your comfort."
"Do not decide which discomfort I prefer."
He became very still.
Sofia felt the argument from the night before moving beneath the words. Elena's file. Her own withheld suspicion. Control disguised as care. Independence sharpened until accepting help felt like defeat.
She had spent years resisting rooms designed by men who expected her to fit their purpose. Now Alessio was offering distance so completely that it became another unilateral decision.
"Stay," she said.
His gaze moved to the bed, then back to her. "Sofia."
"Inside the room. That is all I am asking."
"The bed is the only place to sleep."
"It is unusually large."
"Size is not the relevant issue."
"You slept within twenty feet of me at Crown House."
"With a wall around the alcove."
"A partial wall."
"Enough of one."
The answer carried the roughness of restraint, not refusal. Heat moved through her despite the cold rain still damp at her hairline.
She folded her arms. "You may stay in the room. Staying is not consent to anything else."
"I know."
"Do you?"
The question was unfair after the wedding night and the kiss he had stopped. She asked it anyway because she needed the answer again.
Alessio met her eyes. "Yes."
No offense. No pressure. No performance of wounded masculinity.
Sofia turned toward the dressing room before he could see how much the simplicity affected her.
The caretaker had brought a small selection of emergency clothes kept for Commission guests.
Sofia found a soft black sweater, drawstring trousers, and a white cotton nightshirt still folded in paper.
Alessio changed in the bathroom while she used the dressing room.
They emerged at nearly the same time, stripped of formal armor in a way the marriage had not yet required.
He wore dark lounge trousers and a charcoal shirt with the sleeves pushed to his forearms. Without a jacket, holster, and tie, he appeared no less dangerous. Only more human. The pale scar across his palm showed when he adjusted the cuff.
Sofia became aware that she was wearing a nightshirt reaching mid-thigh and nothing about the situation could be negotiated through tailoring.
Alessio looked at her once.
Then deliberately looked toward the fireplace.
"You can look," she said.
His attention returned slowly. "Is that permission or a challenge?"
"An observation. You were trying so hard not to look that it became more noticeable than looking."
"I am attempting not to make you regret asking me to stay."
"You make restraint sound punitive."
"Tonight it may be."
The honesty drew heat lower in her body.
She crossed to the bed and pulled back the coverlet. "Choose a side."
"I sleep near the door."
"Naturally."
He placed his pistol on the bedside table within reach, then reconsidered and locked it in the drawer. Sofia noticed.
"You do not have to disarm."
"I am not disarmed."
"Visible weapon distinction again?"
"You are learning."
They lay down with more than three feet between them.
The storm filled the space silence might have occupied. Wind moved around the fort in long, low pressure. Rain struck the hidden steel panel. Somewhere below, the generator changed pitch. Alessio lay on his back, one arm over the blanket, his face turned toward the ceiling.
Sofia turned off the lamp.
Darkness erased the measured distance but not awareness.
She could hear his breathing. Too slow, too deliberate. The breathing of a man imitating sleep for the comfort of someone who had already accused him of lying about it.
"You are awake," she said.
"So are you."
"I was testing you."
"Poorly."
"You have not slept properly since Dock Nine."
He said nothing.
"Was it better before?"
"No."
The answer surprised her.
"How long?"
"Years."
"Because of Elena?"
"Because sleep removes control over what returns."
Sofia stared into the dark. "And what returns?"
"Things I did not stop."
"Your father pushed you out of a bullet's path. You could not stop that."
"I was supposed to protect him."
"You were his son."
"I was his successor."
"Both can be true."
The words belonged to their argument, returned without sharpness.
Alessio's breathing changed.
"You should sleep," he said.
"That is not an answer."
"It is two in the morning."
"Time does not improve avoidance."
"You sound like Vescari."
The name cut through the darkness.
Sofia rolled onto her side, turning away from him. "He taught me language. That does not mean every sentence belongs to him."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
Again, no pressure. No accusation.
She closed her eyes.
Sleep came without permission.
In the dream, she stood inside Crown House while women she could not see carried pieces of her away.
Her Bellandi files disappeared first. Then her office sign.
Then the dark suits she had chosen herself.
Someone replaced her name on every door with WIFE OF THE DON.
Her father watched from one corridor. Emilio watched from another.
Alessio stood at the end of the hall, reaching for her, but each step she took toward him erased another part of her body until only the wedding ring remained suspended in air.
Sofia woke without a sound.
The room was black except for the thin emergency light above the door. Her heart struck too fast. The nightshirt had twisted around her legs. One hand clutched the blanket where Alessio should have been.
He was not beside her.
He sat in the leather chair near the bed, fully awake, elbows on his knees.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"You stopped breathing."
"Dream."
He did not ask for details. "Do you want the light?"
"No."
"Water?"
"No."
"Me to leave?"
The question opened something inside her.
He had moved to the chair because she slept restlessly. He had stayed awake because he believed vigilance was the only thing love could safely become. And still he asked whether his absence would comfort her.
Sofia pushed the twisted blanket away.
"Come back to bed."
Alessio did not move immediately. "Are you awake enough to choose that?"
"Yes."
He returned to the mattress, leaving space between them.
Too much space.
Sofia reached across it, found his hand in the dark, and brought it to her waist.