Chapter 3 - Natalie
My hands reach out blindly, finding nothing but frigid air.
The darkness is complete, suffocating, pressing in from all sides like the walls of a cell.
Like the visiting room at Greenhaven where Dad spent his last days.
Where the lights would flicker and fail during storms, leaving us in darkness with only the sound of his labored breathing between us.
"Tomas?" My voice comes out high, strangled.
I hear him moving, steady footsteps that don't hesitate despite the complete absence of light. Even in darkness, he moves like a predator who knows his territory intimately.
"Generator's dead." His voice comes from somewhere to my left, calm and controlled. I hear the shift of fabric as he moves. "Happens in storms like this."
My chest tightens further. I can't get enough air. The darkness presses closer, and suddenly I'm back there, in that prison visiting room, Dad's voice weak through the phone: "They're moving me to solitary, Nat. It's so dark there. So dark."
Those were his last words to me. Three days later, they found him dead in his cell. Heart attack, they said. But I knew better. The stress, the isolation, the darkness—men like the Rosettis killed him as surely as if they'd put a gun to his head.
"I can't breathe." The words escape in a gasp. My knees hit the floor, though I don't remember falling. "I can't—the darkness—I can't—"
"Natalie." His voice is closer now, and I can feel the air shift as he crouches near me. Even panicking, I notice how he positions himself between me and the door, protecting me from threats only he can sense. "What's wrong?"
"My father—" Another gasp. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision, which seems impossible when everything is already black. "Prison—he died—the darkness—"
My lungs refuse to work properly. Each breath is shallow, insufficient. The panic spreads from my chest outward, making my limbs feel disconnected from my body.
"Listen to my voice." Tomas's words are steady, calm, cutting through the panic. "You're having a panic attack. You need to breathe with me. In for four counts. Hold for four. Out for four."
I try, but my body won't cooperate. My hands shake violently, and I can't stop them. Can't stop any of this.
"I can't—"
"You can." His hands find mine in the darkness—warm and solid. "Feel my hands. You're not in prison. You're in my cabin. You're safe."
Safe. With a Rosetti. The irony would be funny if I weren't drowning in memories. He smells like woodsmoke and danger, boutique cologne. A combination that shouldn't be comforting but is.
"In for four," he says, and I feel him breathe deeply, his chest expanding. "One, two, three, four. Hold."
I try to match him, focusing on his voice instead of the darkness pressing in.
"Out for four. One, two, three, four."
We repeat it. Again. Again. My trembling starts to ease, though my hands still shake in his grip. I'm hyperaware of how gentle his touch is, how controlled—like he's consciously restraining strength meant for violence.
"Better?" he asks, thumbs stroking over my knuckles.
"The darkness," I whisper. "I haven't been in complete darkness since—"
"Since your father died." Not a question. He knows. He's already told me how closely they watch me—the surveillance photos, tracking my investigation. "Ironic, isn't it? You're seeking comfort from someone whose family probably contributed to that darkness."
The honesty catches me off guard.
"Aurelius wrote that we suffer more in imagination than reality," he continues, voice taking on that thoughtful quality that seems so at odds with what he is. "The darkness itself can't hurt you. It's just the absence of light, not the presence of evil."
"Easy for him to say," I manage. "He wasn't dying in a dark cell because he crossed the wrong family."
"No. He was dying in exile, poisoned by his own son." His hands are still holding mine, keeping them steady, and I can feel the calluses from weapons, from violence. "But he chose how to face it. We always have that choice."
Something flickers across his face—a tightness around his eyes that suggests maintaining this gentleness is difficult. Like restraint itself is painful.
He guides me to my feet, one hand moving to my elbow to steady me. As he turns, I catch the outline of his gun at his waist, tucked where it always is, a constant reminder of what he is.
The scratch of a match breaks the silence, and suddenly there's light.
Just a small flame, but after the complete darkness, it seems like the sun.
He lights a candle, then another, moving around the room.
The golden glow pushes back the shadows, creating a circle of warmth and safety that feels dangerously intimate.
"Better?" he asks, lighting a fourth candle.
I nod, not trusting my voice. The trembling has mostly stopped, but I still feel shaky, vulnerable. To distract myself, I start humming. The melody of "O Holy Night" fills the space between us, sacred music in this decidedly unholy situation.
He pauses in his candle-lighting, something shifting in his expression. Like he's remembering what reverence felt like before he learned to be what he is now. "Why that song?"
"I don't know." I move closer to the fireplace, though it is dead. The woodsmoke smell still lingers. "Maybe because everything feels unholy right now. My father died alone in the dark because he tried to do the right thing. To stand up to people with power. People like your family."
"And that's why you became a lawyer." He sits on the floor near the fireplace, close enough that I can feel his body heat radiating toward me. "To fight back."
"To find justice." I sink down beside him, drawn by the warmth and the light despite every warning bell in my head. "Though sometimes I wonder if that's even possible anymore."
"It's not," he says simply. "There's no justice. Just power and the people willing to use it."
"You can't really believe that."
"Can't I?" He turns to look at me, face half in shadow, half in firelight, beautiful and threatening in equal measure. "I've seen what justice looks like in my world. It's bought, sold, traded like any other commodity."
"It…I…" I have to fight not to lean into his warm, solid chest. "How can you say those things and also quote philosophy at me?"
"Disappointed I can read, prosecutor?" There's dark amusement in his voice when I stare at him.
"Surprised you choose to."
"We all have our escapes. Yours is singing. Mine is philosophy." His smile is sharp. "Both equally useless against bullets."
I resume humming "O Holy Night," the notes steadier now. Something changes in his expression when I reach the part about falling on your knees. Raw hunger flashes across his face before he banks it.
"You have training," he says suddenly. "When you hum. It's not random. Opera?"
"I studied it. Before law school. Before Dad…" I trail off, struck by how observant he is, how he notices details about me like they matter.
"Why did you stop?"
"Because beauty doesn't win court cases. It doesn't put criminals behind bars. What did you say? It doesn't stop bullets."
"Yet you still reach for it when you're afraid." The observation is too accurate, too intimate. "Beauty in darkness. Sacred songs while sitting next to someone you consider profane."
We're sitting close on the floor, shoulders almost touching, the firelight casting dancing shadows on the walls. The storm continues its assault outside, but in here, in this circle of candlelight, I feel unexpectedly safe.
"You have a beautiful voice," he says, the words coming out rough, like they're difficult to admit.
I look up to find his face inches from mine. When did we get so close? The candlelight turns his dark eyes to amber, and I can see myself reflected in them. Not the law. Not the enemy. Just a woman who sang in the darkness.
"Tomas," I whisper his name like a prayer, not a plea.
Something breaks in his expression. Control slipping. The careful distance he's maintained crumbling. His hand comes up to cup my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone gently—the same hand that probably holds a gun with deadly precision.
"We shouldn't," he says, but he's leaning closer, and I can see the war in his eyes between what he should do and what he wants.
"No," I agree, but I'm not pulling away. My mind screams warnings while my traitorous body leans toward him.
His mouth finds mine and I am lost. There’s no warning, no prelude, only the rough, urgent crush of lips that shatters any illusion I had of control.
The world outside of this moment dissolves—the falling snow, the cabin, my own sharp-edged dignity—gone, replaced by the singularity of his kiss.
It is not gentle, not even a little. There’s a violence to it, as if he wants to erase the last hour, the last day, with sheer force of want.
His hand fists in my hair, tugging my head back to bare my throat, and the sound that escapes me is not quite a gasp, not quite a moan, but something raw and animal.
I recognize it for what it is: a sound of need.
I hate that he hears it, that he grins against my mouth, but I’m already clutching at his shirt, dragging him closer.
He tastes like whiskey and secrets and the metallic tang of violence.
It’s a taste I should despise, but instead it pours through me like gasoline on dry tinder.
His tongue swipes over my bottom lip, coaxing, demanding, and I part for him without hesitation.
He takes advantage, deepening the kiss until I feel the edges of him everywhere: the scrape of stubble against my chin, the bruising grip of his fingers at my temple, the shudder that runs the length of his body and into mine.