Chapter 6
“Why would he call at this hour?” Natalie murmurs.
Natalie is sprawled by the dying fire, her paper snowflakes catching the last flickers of light. Pine branches scent the air. Perfect. Too perfect to last.
"This better be life or death, Leo," I say into the satellite phone, voice flat.
My gun sits on the side table. Close enough to grab, far enough that Natalie hasn't commented on it since we stopped pretending this was temporary.
"It is." His voice cracks with panic I've never heard from him. Not when we were kids dodging his father’s fists. Not when the Santos family first started circling. "They found you."
Everything inside me goes cold. Natalie sits up, the blanket falling from her shoulders, reading my body language with that curious instinct she can't fully suppress.
"How?"
"I don't know. Maybe they tracked my calls, maybe someone talked. Does it matter? They're coming, Tomas. Scouts are already on the move."
"How long do we have?"
"An hour, maybe less. They left right after they confirmed your location. I'm already in my car. I can be there just after them if I push it."
"Leo…"
"This is my fault." His voice breaks completely. "If I hadn't lost control, if I'd just walked away instead of putting three bullets in that Santos fuck…"
"Stop." But he's already spiraling, and Natalie's eyes are sharpening, that pressing intelligence focusing on every word.
"I'm coming," Leo says. "We'll figure this out. Maybe we can pay them off, maybe…"
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you murdered someone and let me take the blame." The words come out bitter, and I see Natalie flinch.
"I know. Christ, I know. Just… hold on. I'm maybe forty minutes out."
The line goes dead. I set the phone down carefully, but my hand is already moving to check my weapon.
Old habits. The ones that keep you breathing when everyone wants you dead.
I move to the window, checking angles, calculating defensive positions.
The kitchen has two exits. Living room windows are too exposed.
Bedroom hallway creates a natural choke point.
"Tomas." Natalie's voice is steady, but I hear the prosecutor creeping back in. "What's happening?"
"You need to pack." I'm already moving. "Light clothes only. We might have to run."
"Stop." She stands, my shirt hanging to her thighs, but her spine is straight, shoulders back. "Leonardo killed someone. You're covering for it."
Not a question. Of course she put it together. Months tracking financial crimes, she knows how to follow breadcrumbs.
"It's complicated."
"Murder usually is." Her voice goes frosty, professional. The warmth from earlier evaporating. "That's why you're here. Not some deal gone wrong. You're hiding from revenge for something you didn't even do."
"I'm protecting my family."
"By taking the blame for murder?" She steps closer, and I see it happening: the legal instinct returning, overriding everything else we've built. "This is what you do, isn't it? You're the family scapegoat. The one who cleans up their mistakes."
"Someone has to."
"Why you?" The question cracks something in her voice. "Why does it have to be you who pays for Leonardo's temper?"
Because that's what I do. What I've always done.
Take the hits so others don't have to. But I can't explain that to someone who grew up believing in justice, in fair outcomes, in courts that actually punish the guilty.
Not fully. Not when she already knows the worst: that I killed my own father at sixteen. That violence is written into my DNA.
"He's family," I say simply.
"He's a killer."
"So am I." I meet her gaze steadily. "You knew that when you fucked me. You know what I did to my father."
"That was different. You were protecting your mother…"
"Violence is violence, Natalie. Whether it's killing an abusive father or covering for a cousin's mistake. You knew what I was capable of."
"I thought…" She stops, runs a hand through her hair. "I thought you only killed when there was no choice. But you're covering for a murderer. You're protecting someone who killed in cold blood."
"Leo lost his temper. The Santos son pulled a gun first…"
"There's always an excuse, isn't there?" Her legal voice is fully back now, cross-examining. "Always a reason why the violence was justified. My father used to tell me that's how they think. The crime families. Every murder is self-defense in their minds."
Her father. The one who died in prison, framed by men like us. The parallel sits between us like a loaded gun. Her father, destroyed by men like me. And here she is, choosing me anyway.
Or maybe she isn't.
"This is who I am," I say quietly.
We stare at each other across the room that still smells like pine and yesterday's Christmas morning. Just hours ago she was singing carols while we decorated. Now she looks at me like I'm evidence in a case she's building.
"The Santoses will come here," I say, forcing myself to focus on the immediate threat. "They'll want blood. Mine, specifically, since everyone believes I pulled the trigger."
"But you didn't."
"Doesn't matter. In my world, the story everyone believes becomes the truth."
She starts humming nervous, unconscious notes. "Little Drummer Boy" threading between us like it could somehow make this holy again. But there's nothing holy about what's coming. Nothing holy about what I'll have to do to protect her.
"When they come…"
The first gunshot from outside the cabin cuts me off mid-sentence.
Glass explodes from the kitchen window. I'm already moving, tackling Natalie to the floor, covering her body with mine as two more shots punch through the wall above us.
Three shooters, standard Santos formation. They're here already. Leo's warning barely gave us time.
"Stay down," I growl against her ear, then I'm rolling, gun in hand, muscle memory taking over.
Another window shatters. Living room this time. More gunshots outside the cabin, circling, looking for angles. Three shooters from the sound pattern. I note it automatically while pulling Natalie behind the couch, the heavy oak frame providing decent cover.
"Don't move," I order, already heading for the door.
She grabs my wrist. "You're going out there?"
"It's what I do."
Her eyes are wide, terrified, but there's something else there too. She's seeing me clearly for the first time. Not the man who quotes philosophy or does crosswords. The killer. The weapon.
I kiss her once, hard and fast. "Don't move."
Then I'm gone, slipping out the back door into the snow-covered darkness.
The chill hits like a slap, but I barely feel it. Snow crunches under my boots, each step calculated to avoid the iced-over patches that would give me away. My world narrows to footprints in snow, disturbed branches, the glint of metal twenty yards out.
The first scout is crouched behind my woodpile, focused on the cabin. He doesn't hear me until my arm is around his throat, cutting off his scream. The snap is quick, efficient. His last breath fogs in the cold, then nothing. His body drops silent into the snow.
Movement to my left. The second scout turning, rifle swinging toward me. I'm already firing, two shots center mass. He goes down with a wet gasp, blood spreading dark across white snow. Blood on snow looks like festive tinsel and Christmas morning gone wrong.
The third scout opens fire from the tree line, bullets chewing up the ground near my feet. I dive, roll, come up shooting. My first shot takes him in the shoulder, spinning him. The second puts him down permanently.
Silence.
Just wind through pines and my harsh breathing misting in the freeze. Three scouts dead in the snow. Blood already freezing into dark crystals.
I do a careful sweep, checking for others, but these three were alone. Scouts. The vanguard. More will come when these don't report back.
When I return to the cabin, Natalie is exactly where I left her, curled behind the couch. But her eyes track me differently now. She looks at my hands—steady, unmarked except for blood. Then at the bodies in the snow. Then back at my hands. She doesn't step back.
"Three scouts," I tell her, already moving to barricade the broken window. "Just the advance team."
"How long before the rest?"
"Twenty minutes, maybe thirty. They'll wait for their scouts to report." I check my ammunition—two clips left. "When they don't…"
"How many will come?"
"All of them." I pull the rifle from the wall mount, check the scope. "The Santos don't do things halfway. But for now it’s clear," I say, voice steady despite the adrenaline still burning through my veins.
She stands slowly, gaze moving from my face to my hands: steady, unmarked except for a smear of blood from the first scout. "You killed them."
Not a question. Not an accusation. Just a fact.
"They would have killed you." I set my gun on the table, check the windows. "Tortured you first, probably. Made you scream so I'd hear it."
She moves toward me, and I expect her to stop, to maintain that distance. Instead, she takes my hand, turns it palm up, examining the blood on the snow-soaked ground visible through our shattered window.
"You're hurt."
I look down. There's a graze along my forearm I hadn't noticed, blood seeping through my shirt. "It's nothing."
"Sit," she orders, already heading for the bathroom.
She returns with the first aid kit, expression unreadable. I should be disposing of bodies, setting defensive positions, preparing for what comes next. Instead, I sit still while she tends my wounds, her touch gentle but efficient.
She applies antibiotic cream, starts wrapping gauze.
Her hands shake as she ties off the bandage, but she doesn't pull away.
I watch her choose me over her principles, and something breaks in my chest. Her pupils are dilated, breath coming faster.
Not from fear. Christ, watching me kill turned her on.
My perfect angel is getting wet from my violence.
"Three men are dead in our yard."
"Three men who came here to kill us."
"To kill you. Because they think you murdered someone." She sits back on her heels. "But you didn't. You're just wearing the blood for someone else's crime."
"That's what family does."
"Your family." She looks toward the window, where dawn is starting to lighten the sky. Through the broken glass, we can see the bodies, dark shapes against white snow. "This is the price of loyalty to them."
"Yes."
She straddles my lap, and I claim her mouth, tasting her acceptance of my darkness. The kiss is desperate, possessive, marking her as surely as any brand.
Her fingers thread through my hair. "I should be running from you."
"But you're not." My hands grip her hips, holding her against me where she can feel how much I need her, how hard my cock is despite the violence, because of it.
"No," she breathes against my mouth. "I can't."
She stands, moves to the window. I watch her study the scene: the tactical positions, the blood patterns. Her prosecutor's mind recording evidence even now. But when she turns back to me, there's acceptance in her eyes. Not approval, not forgiveness, just acceptance of what I am.
"It's gone," she says softly, gesturing at her paper snowflakes now fluttering and broken in the frigid breeze from the broken windows. "Our Christmas bubble, this perfect isolation. It's gone, isn't it?"
"The moment Leo called, it was over."
She crosses to me, cups my face in her hands. "You would have died for him. Taken the Santos' revenge even though you're innocent."
"He's family."
"And what am I?"
The question hangs between us. Everything. The reason I'll burn the world if they touch you. But I can't say that. Not when more killers are coming. Not when loving me paints a target on her back.
"You're the woman who just watched me kill three men and made the choice to tend my wounds instead of running." I pull her against me, feeling her heart race against my chest. "That makes you either very brave or very stupid."
"Or very owned," she whispers against my shoulder.
The words hit me hard, punching through my chest. I should send her away, make me protect her from myself. Instead, I pull her closer, selfish bastard that I am. I grip her tighter, breathing in vanilla and gun smoke, Christmas pine and blood.
“I don’t know who I am anymore," she continues, voice muffled against my shirt.
"You don’t need to know who you are. Just what you are."
"Okay." She pulls back to look at me. "So what, exactly, am I? "
"Addicted," I say simply. "And addictive."