Chapter 2 - Tomas
I watch from the doorway as she slides it behind her back, bare feet silent on the hardwood. My shirt hangs to her mid-thigh, the white cotton making her look deceptively innocent. Like she's not currently stealing my cutlery.
"Planning to stab me, prosecutor?" I keep my voice conversational, but my body's already calculating distances, angles, the three different ways I could disarm her before she could scream.
She spins, the knife clattering to the floor between us. Even caught, her chin lifts in defiance. "I was making breakfast."
"With the knife hidden behind your back?" I step into the kitchen, noting how she shifts her weight to her back foot. Ready to run. Smart. Useless, but smart. "That's an interesting cooking technique."
"I needed it for the bacon."
"The bacon that's still in the freezer?" I move past her to the coffee maker, deliberately giving her my back. Let her think I'm not threatened. Let her think she has options. "Two sugars, splash of cream, hint of cinnamon."
Her sharp intake of breath is worth the risk. "What?"
I pour her coffee exactly how she likes it, then turn to hand it to her. "Your coffee order. I noticed it yesterday."
She stares at the mug like it might bite her. "You were watching me."
"I watch everyone." I lean against the counter, maintaining distance. Give her space to process what this means. "It's a professional habit. In my line of work, the smallest detail can mean the difference between walking away or bleeding out."
"Your line of work." She takes the coffee with trembling fingers, and I catch the way her pulse flutters at her throat. "You mean being a criminal."
"I mean surviving in a world where everyone wants you dead." The words come out harder than intended, carrying the weight of the Santos threat hanging over my head. If they knew she was here, they'd use her to get to me. Another reason to keep her close.
She sets down the coffee without drinking it. "I need to leave."
"No, you don't."
"You can't keep me here." The blanket she'd wrapped around herself drops as she stands straighter. My shirt rides up, revealing more of those long, pale legs. I force my gaze to stay on her face. "This is kidnapping."
"This is survival." I don't move from my position, let her have the illusion of freedom. "The storm's getting worse. Won't break for days, like I told you. You leave now, you die. Simple math."
She crosses to the window, stares out at the white wall of snow still falling. Her reflection catches in the glass: lost and beautiful. The thought comes unbidden, unwanted. I push it down.
"I have a life," she says quietly. "A job. People will notice I'm missing."
"Will they?" I move closer but not too close. "You came here alone, told no one where you were going. Your car's buried under ten feet of snow. Cell towers are down." Each word closes another door. "Right now, counselor, you don't exist outside these walls."
She turns to face me, and there's fire in her eyes now. The vulnerability of sleep has burned away, leaving the woman who's been relentlessly hunting my family. "Your radio then. You must have one."
"In the study." I gesture toward the hallway, knowing exactly what she'll find.
She practically runs, bare feet silent on the hardwood. I follow at a leisurely pace, counting the seconds until…
"It's gutted." She's standing at my desk, holding the old radio, wires hanging like entrails. Behind her, my philosophy books line the shelf: Aurelius, Seneca, Machiavelli. Tools for understanding power, control, survival. "You bastard. The radio's completely gutted."
"Has been for months, actually." I lean against the doorframe, watching her process this. "This place is meant for disappearing, not communicating."
"Then how do you—"
"Burner phones when needed. All dead now with the towers down." I let my gaze travel over her deliberately, possessively. "Seems fate has a sense of humor. Delivering my enemy to my door, gift-wrapped in a blizzard."
The gutted radio drops from her hands. "The landline then."
"Cut. Trees took down the lines yesterday."
"Your car keys. I'll take my chances with the roads."
"Missing. Funny thing about keys—they tend to disappear when they're not needed." I push off from the doorframe, move into the room. She backs up instinctively, but there's nowhere to go. The desk presses against her thighs. "You're out of options, prosecutor."
The sound she makes is pure frustration. She tries to dart around me, but I shift, blocking her path. We're close now, close enough that I can smell the lingering warmth of sleep on her skin, see the rapid rise and fall of her chest beneath my shirt.
"Move," she demands.
"No."
She tries to push past me. I catch her wrists, gentle but firm, and suddenly we're pressed together, her back against the desk, my body caging her in. Her pulse hammers against my fingers, rabbit-quick and telling.
"Let me go," she whispers, but her body tells a different story. She's not pulling away. If anything, she's leaning in, drawn by the same gravity I'm fighting.
"You heard me last night. At least three days before the roads clear." My voice drops, rough with restraint. "Maybe longer. You want to survive? You stay here. You want to die? Keep fighting me."
"You can't—"
"I can." I release her wrists but don't step back. Let her feel the cage of my presence without the excuse of physical restraint. "You walked into my territory. That makes you my responsibility until those roads clear. My rules. My protection."
Her chin lifts, defiance in every line of her body despite being trapped between me and the desk. "I'm not your anything."
"Wrong." The word comes out like a growl. "Until this storm passes, you're mine to keep alive. Whether you like it or not."
She holds my gaze for three heartbeats, then ducks under my arm with surprising agility, heading for the front door.
I let her go, curious to see how far she'll take this.
She yanks it open, and arctic wind slams into the cabin.
Snow swirls inside, immediately coating the floor.
The bleak chill is violent, invasive, stealing breath and thought.
She stands there, my shirt whipping around her thighs, staring into the white nothing beyond my porch. One step. That's all she manages before I'm behind her, my body surrounding hers against the doorframe, chest pressed to her back, arms braced on either side.
"You'll die in twenty minutes," I say against her ear, noting how she shivers, and not from the cold. "Fifteen if you're lucky. Is that what you want? To freeze to death rather than accept my hospitality?"
I reach around her, pull the door closed with enough force to rattle the frame.
The sudden silence is deafening. She's still pinned between my body and the door, my heat seeping into her frozen skin.
I can feel her heart racing, smell the mix of fear and something else, something that makes my cock stir against my will.
She turns in the cage of my arms, back pressed against the door. We're close, too close. I can see her pupils dilating despite her defiance, watch the way her lips part slightly, unconsciously.
"I'll find a way out," she says, but her voice lacks conviction.
"You're welcome to try." I step back, gesture toward the kitchen. "But first, breakfast. Can't have you dying of starvation before hypothermia gets a chance."
Back in the kitchen, she retrieves the knife from the floor, sets it on the counter with deliberate calm.
I pull eggs from the refrigerator, bacon from the freezer.
The knife moves through the bacon in clean, efficient strokes.
She doesn't know the blade in my hand has tasted blood, that these domestic gestures are a thin veneer over a lifetime of violence.
"This is insane," she mutters, perching on a barstool. "I'm having breakfast with a Rosetti criminal."
"An alleged criminal." I crack eggs into a bowl with more force than necessary. "Innocent until proven guilty, right? Isn't that your whole thing?"
"Don't." Her voice turns sharp. "Don't pretend you're anything other than what you are. An enabler. A thug who helps your cousins destroy lives."
My hands still on the whisk. The satellite phone in my pocket buzzes. Probably checking in. I ignore it. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I? I've been tracking your family's crimes.
Money laundering, extortion, murder." She leans forward, pressing her point.
"You're the one who cleans up their messes, aren't you?
The enforcer. The one who makes problems disappear.
You already told me Dom found my investigation amusing. That Leonardo wanted me dead."
The eggs sizzle as I pour them into the pan, giving me an excuse not to look at her. She's not wrong. But she's not entirely right either. She doesn't know Leo's temper got someone killed, about the Santos son who drew a gun first, about the blood I'm wearing to protect my hot-headed cousin.
"You think you understand my world," I say, focusing on the breakfast because if I look at her now, I might do something stupid.
Like tell her the whole truth. Or pin her against the counter until she stops talking.
"You think your law degree and your righteousness give you insight into how things really work. "
"I understand enough. Your family destroys everything it touches. You enable them."
"Enable them." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "Is that what you call it?"
"What would you call it?"
I flip the eggs with unnecessary force. "Survival."
"That's an excuse."
"That's reality." I grip the counter's edge, knuckles going white, because the alternative is crossing to her, backing her against the wall, showing her exactly how thin the line is between violence and something else entirely.
My mouth actually aches with the need to shut her up, to taste that defiance, to swallow her accusations.