Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Vito
She goes slack in my arms.
One second, Teresa is all fight—hard, fast, furious in a way I expected and surprisingly appreciate—and the next her weight gives, her body folding heavy against mine.
I tighten my hold before she can slip, keeping her upright, keeping her from striking the floor or the edge of the bed or anything else on the way down.
I wouldn’t want to harm her.
For a moment, I just stand there with her.
She feels smaller like this. Smaller than she does when she’s looking at me with those sharp green eyes, assessing, measuring, deciding.
Smaller than she did in the grocery store, all contained intelligence and long dark hair, and that soft laugh she gave when I startled her.
Smaller than she did on the Boardwalk tonight in that black dress and heels, trying to enjoy herself while her instincts kept reaching for me through the crowd.
I knew they would.
That’s part of what makes her right.
Not just useful. Not just brilliant.
Right.
I lower her carefully onto the bed.
Her head turns slightly across the comforter, hair spilling dark against the pale fabric, one strap of that dress still perfectly in place over her shoulder. The other snapped in her struggle. I try not to dwell on it.
The sight of her there sends a deep satisfaction through me. Not excitement. Something quieter than that. Colder. More complete.
I’ve spent too long looking for the right answer.
Too long trying to find someone discreet enough, smart enough, strong enough to be brought into what I need without collapsing under the weight of it.
Most people are weak in obvious ways. Some are weak in more dangerous ones.
Loose mouths. Weak nerves. Too much curiosity in the wrong direction, not enough in the right one.
Teresa has none of those problems.
She is brilliant. Discreet. Disciplined. She has spent her life stepping into rooms with violent men and coming back out intact. She has built a career out of looking directly at darkness without romanticizing it, without flinching from it, and without being stupid enough to slip.
That matters.
From my back pocket, I pull out a syringe. I find the vein in the crook of her arm and disinfect it before gently sliding the needle in. I need to make sure she stays under long enough, or this won’t work.
Then I step back and look at the room.
The struggle was fast, but not perfectly clean.
Nothing like this ever is, no matter how good you are at planning.
A picture has gone crooked. One of the smaller frames near the dresser is down entirely, tipped half under the edge of the bed.
I pick it up and set it right, then straighten the one that shifted.
After that, the room settles. Teresa’s room. Teresa’s house. Order restored.
Her gun lies at the foot of the bed where I tossed it after disarming her.
That earns a faint smile from me.
I pick it up, weighing it in my hand. Solid. A real piece. Chosen with care. Not some symbolic little pea shooter, but a weapon selected by somebody who knows how to use it.
She clocks regular hours at the shooting range.
I check it automatically, then look at it again with fresh appreciation.
“You were ready,” I murmur, though she can’t hear me.
I’m amused, yes. But I’m impressed too.
It fits her. The same way the self-defense training fits her. The same way the security system fits her. I knew all about those as well.
Teresa has spent enough time around men like me—men worse than me, in some ways—to understand that precaution is not paranoia. It’s intelligence. It’s survival.
Tonight, it just wasn’t enough.
I decide to take the gun.
Not because I need another weapon. I don’t. And not because I want a trophy. I don’t collect things that way. But because it’s hers, and I don’t want to leave it in her empty house like this.
I slip it into my waistband and look around the room again.
Her heels are near the path she never finished crossing.
Black. Delicate. Sharp-looking things with narrow straps and a heel high enough to change her gait. I noticed them earlier. Hard not to with the way they accentuate her long, long legs. Hard not to notice anything about her tonight, if I’m being honest.
She doesn’t dress like that often—certainly never at church—but tonight, the little doctor was looking hot.
I pick up the shoes and carry them to the closet.
Inside, there are the usual signs of a woman getting ready for a night out.
Open space where hangers were moved aside.
A jewelry case left slightly ajar. Clothing shifted with deliberate hands before she chose what she wanted.
Nothing messy. Teresa is too structured for messy.
But enough evidence of preparation to make the room feel lived-in, current, interrupted.
I set the heels neatly in place.
Then I put the rest of the closet back in order as well, restoring the small disturbances of the evening. Exactly the way I remember it from the last time I was in here. The arrangement matters less than the principle.
Everything where it belongs. Everything settled. Nothing unnecessary left behind for her to worry about.
She’ll need a few things.
I pull out the suitcase from behind one of the racks and choose clothes for her. I give her some different options. Some I know she’ll want to wear.
Some I hope she’ll want to wear.
That isn’t kindness.
At least not only kindness.
I know enough about human beings to understand that familiarity matters.
Especially after a shock. Especially to somebody like Teresa, whose entire life is built around control, structure, and preparedness.
She’ll hate the loss of those things. I can’t prevent that.
But I can remove small, unnecessary humiliations.
And if I’m honest, I do think she’ll appreciate having something of her own to put on later instead of staying in that dress.
Very sexy dress, but not a practical one. And ripped now.
My eyes drift to her on the bed again, her smooth, bare shoulder.
Even unconscious, she looks too composed for this.
Too collected. The black fabric skims her body, one leg slightly bent where I laid her down, hair the color of rich mink spread around her.
She should look vulnerable. She does, physically.
But Teresa has too much presence for vulnerability to sit naturally on her.
Interesting.
I take what she’ll need and place it with the rest.
Then I go through the house.
Methodically. Calmly. Thoroughly.
This part doesn’t bother me. This part never does. Some men lose focus after the most difficult task is behind them. Their breathing stays too high. Their hands move too fast. They start making mistakes because they think the hardest part is done.
I get quieter.
Sharper.
It’s why the family always sends me on “retrievals.”
But this one isn’t for the family. This is for me.
The house is good. Better than most. The system is sophisticated. The locks are solid. The layout is clean and easy to monitor. Teresa chose well. That doesn’t surprise me either. She doesn’t strike me as a woman who leaves important decisions to chance.
But I had already disarmed her system and gotten into the house before she even set foot into it.
Room by room, I make sure everything is as it should be.
No obvious sign of struggle where there shouldn’t be one. No careless disturbance. No piece of myself left behind by accident. Nothing dramatic. Nothing theatrical. Just the patient correction of what needs correcting until the house looks as it should.
I move through her kitchen, her living room, the hallway, the back of the house.
There’s something intimate about it, being inside a person’s private order.
Not sentimental. Just revealing. Teresa’s house tells the same story the rest of her life does: discipline, preparation, intelligence, privacy.
She doesn’t live recklessly. She doesn’t live lazily.
Even her comforts are chosen with intention.
I like that.
I like almost everything I learn about her.
When I’m satisfied, I disarm her security system using a handheld device and go back upstairs.
She hasn’t moved, of course. She lies exactly where I left her. One hand turned slightly inward near her waist. Hair still across the pillow. Mouth relaxed in a way I’ve never seen when she’s awake.
I stand there looking at her longer than I should.
Not because I’m uncertain.
Because now that she’s here, now that this is real, I can see everything that will follow.
Teresa will wake furious. Scared first, then furious.
She’ll assess immediately. Test boundaries.
Read tone. Read space. Read me. She won’t waste energy on screaming for long if she knows it won’t help. She’ll adapt fast.
That’s one of the reasons it had to be her.
I pick her up.
One arm beneath her knees, the other around her back. Her head settles against my shoulder, warm and heavy, her hair brushing my throat.
Those full lips almost pouting up at me in her sleep. She’s light enough for me to manage without effort, solid enough to feel real in my arms and not like some imagined version of herself I built from files and glimpses and brief conversations in grocery stores.
I take her down and out the back.
The yard is shadowed, quiet, the edges of fences and trees silvered faintly in the night. Her backyard gives way to the neighbor’s directly behind her house. Using the shadows of houses, I carry her easily. The neighborhood is fast asleep at this point, even on a Friday evening.
The air is cooler out here. Teresa doesn’t stir.
I keep moving.
By the time I reach the car parked off the next street, the neighborhood is still silent and undisturbed. No sudden lights. No noise. No interruption.
I settle her in the back seat and make sure she stays that way.
Then I stand there for a second, one hand on the open door, looking at her.
Soon, I think.
Soon she’ll wake up and know she wasn’t wrong tonight. Or last week. Or in the grocery store, when something in my eyes unsettled her, and she couldn’t explain why. Her instincts were working perfectly. They just weren’t enough to save her from me.
I close the door and head back.
One last pass through the yard. One last reentry. One last look at the house.
Inside, everything is quiet and restored. Almost serene.
Her shoes are away. The room is back in order. The ordinary evidence of a woman getting ready for a fun Friday night is gone.
I take in the scene from the threshold and feel, not triumph exactly, but completion. A stage ended. Another beginning.
I take the suitcase and lock up. When I’m clear of the property, I reset her security system remotely.
I load the suitcase into the back.
I get behind the wheel, glance at Teresa again, and start the engine.
This is the part where most people would think the difficult thing is over.
They’d be wrong.
The difficult part starts when she wakes.