Chapter 13
Diane's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
She stood in the compound's common room, surrounded by brothers celebrating victory, and her body was still trapped in that shop on Halsted. The sound of gunfire. The weight of the floor jack she'd shoved against the door. The screaming certainty that she was about to die in someone else's garage.
Union found her in the corner, away from the noise.
He didn't say anything. Just took her hands in his and pressed them flat against his chest, over his heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Steady. Alive. Real.
"Breathe," he said.
She tried. The air came in ragged, too fast, her lungs refusing to cooperate.
"Diane." His voice was low, commanding. "Look at me."
She did. His eyes were dark in the dim light, intense, burning with something that had nothing to do with the battle they'd just survived.
"You're safe," he said. "We won. Novotny's dead. The shops are secure. You're safe."
"I know." Her voice cracked. "I know that. But my hands—"
"Your hands barricaded a door against armed men." He pressed them harder against his chest. "Your hands held that shop while bullets flew outside. They're shaking because they did something impossible tonight."
The trembling didn't stop, but something else shifted. The fear was still there, but underneath it—
Fury.
White-hot, bone-deep fury at Eddie Bartosz and his men and everyone who'd made her feel small and scared for six goddamn months.
"I'm so angry," she whispered.
"Good."
"I want to—" She couldn't finish the sentence. Didn't know how.
"I know." Union's hands tightened around hers. "I know exactly what you want."
The fury caught fire.
Diane grabbed the front of his cut and yanked him down, crashing her mouth against his. The kiss was nothing like the garage—nothing soft, nothing careful. This was teeth and desperation and six months of fear transmuting into something she could actually do something about.
Union made a sound low in his throat and kissed her back just as hard.
His hands found her hips and lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around him without breaking the kiss. He was moving, carrying her somewhere, and she didn't care where as long as he didn't stop.
Stairs. A door. His room.
He kicked it shut behind them and pressed her against it, his body a wall of heat and muscle trapping her in the best possible way.
"Diane." Her name came out rough, wrecked. "Tell me to stop and I'll stop."
"Don't you dare."
She pulled at his cut, shoving it off his shoulders. He let her, then grabbed the hem of her shirt and stripped it over her head in one motion. His mouth found her throat, her collarbone, the curve of her shoulder—biting, claiming, marking territory like he was afraid she'd disappear.
"Mine," he growled against her skin. "You're mine."
"Prove it."
He did.
There was nothing patient about it. Nothing gentle or careful or slow.
They collided with the same force they brought to everything else—stubborn, demanding, refusing to yield.
When he lifted her again and carried her to the bed, she pulled him down on top of her and wrapped herself around him like she could absorb him through her skin.
His hands were everywhere—rough and calloused, mapping her body with the same intensity he brought to organizing defenses. She arched into his touch, her nails raking down his back, leaving marks that would match the ones his mouth was leaving on her.
"James."
His real name. She'd never used it before, didn't even know where it came from, but it tore out of her like a prayer.
He froze.
"Say it again," he demanded.
"James."
Something broke loose in him. The last barrier, the last restraint. He kissed her like he was trying to consume her, and when their bodies finally joined, Diane cried out with relief so intense it bordered on pain.
This was what she needed. This raw, overwhelming proof of life. Not tenderness—she'd had tenderness in the garage, and it had been perfect. But tonight she needed fire. Needed to feel something other than fear.
Needed him.
They moved together in a rhythm that had nothing to do with patience and everything to do with survival.
Every thrust drove out the memory of gunfire.
Every kiss erased the terror of those endless minutes barricading that door.
She met him force for force, demanding as much as she gave, refusing to be handled gently.
"Harder," she gasped.
He obliged.
The world narrowed to sensation—his weight pressing her into the mattress, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise, the sound of his ragged breathing mixing with her own. She felt the pressure building, coiling tighter with every movement.
"Look at me," Union commanded.
She opened her eyes and found his face inches from hers, his expression fierce and desperate and completely undone.
"You're mine," he said again. "Say it."
"I'm yours."
"Again."
"I'm yours, James. I'm—"
The orgasm crashed through her like a wave, and she heard herself screaming his name as the world went white. He followed a moment later, his body shuddering against hers, her name torn from his throat like something sacred.
Afterward, they lay tangled together in the wreckage of his bed, both breathing hard, both too spent to move.
Diane's hands had finally stopped shaking.
"That was..." She couldn't find words.
"Yeah." Union's voice was hoarse. "It was."
She pressed her face against his chest, feeling his heart still racing beneath her cheek. The adrenaline was fading now, leaving exhaustion in its wake, but underneath it was something else.
Peace.
For the first time since Eddie Bartosz had walked into her shop, she felt something like peace.
"I used your name," she said quietly.
"I noticed."
"Is that... okay?"
Union's laugh rumbled through his chest. "You can use my name whenever you want. Especially if you're going to scream it like that."
She smacked his shoulder weakly, too tired for real irritation. "I didn't scream."
"You definitely screamed."
"Shut up."
He pulled her closer, his arm heavy around her waist. "I like hearing it. My real name. From you."
"James." She tested it again, softer this time.
"Yeah." His voice was rough with something that sounded almost like vulnerability. "Like that."
They lay in silence while the compound settled around them. Diane could hear distant voices, the rumble of bikes, the particular sounds of a building full of dangerous men celebrating victory. But here, in Union's room, it was quiet.
Safe.
"I was scared tonight," she admitted. "When the gunfire started. I thought I was going to die in someone else's garage, and all I could think about was that my father's shop would stay closed forever."
"But you didn't die." His hand stroked up her spine. "You barricaded that door. You held it until we got there."
"I didn't have a choice."
"There's always a choice. You could have run. Could have hidden. Instead you grabbed a floor jack and held the line." His voice dropped. "That's not nothing, Diane. That's everything."
She lifted her head to look at him. In the dim light, his face was softer than she'd ever seen it—the hard edges smoothed away, the gruff walls temporarily down.
"Thank you," she said. "For coming for me."
"I'll always come for you." The words were simple, certain. "That's not going to change."
She kissed him—soft this time, gentle, the fire banked to embers. He kissed her back the same way, his hand cupping her face like she was something precious.
"Sleep," he murmured against her mouth. "Tomorrow's going to be another long day."
"You're not leaving?"
"I'm not going anywhere."
Diane settled against his chest, her body heavy with exhaustion, her mind finally quiet. The adrenaline was gone, replaced by a bone-deep weariness that demanded rest.
She closed her eyes and let sleep claim her.
She woke to gray light filtering through the window and the weight of Union's hand on her hip.
For a moment, she didn't move. Just lay there feeling the rough warmth of his palm against her bare skin, the possessive curl of his fingers even in sleep.
He was holding her like he was holding a line.
Like letting go would mean losing something he couldn't afford to lose.
Diane covered his hand with her own and felt something shift in her chest. Something that had been carefully locked away since her father died, since Eddie Bartosz started his campaign to destroy her, since she'd learned that independence was the only thing she could rely on.
She wasn't independent anymore.
She was his.
And somehow, against every instinct she'd spent a lifetime developing, she was okay with that.