Chapter 24
RETH
She sleeps like she does everything else—completely.
No careful arrangement of limbs, no cultivated stillness.
Just her, sprawled across the center of the bed with one arm thrown over her head and her hair fanned out across the pillow in that specific chaotic way.
The glass ceiling above her is doing what it was built to do—clouds moving slow and enormous across the dark, the moon somewhere behind them throwing diffuse silver light across the room, across her.
She’s inside the clouds. The way she wanted.
I stand at the end of the bed, watching her breathe, trying to locate the version of myself that existed before she walked into this house.
The one who kept this clean. Operational.
The one who understood that wanting her was a thing to be managed, contained, and never—under any fucking circumstances—acted on.
I can’t find him anymore. And I’m not sure I want to.
She shifts in her sleep, an almost imperceptible tension in her brow. Maybe she’s dreaming. I try to imagine what goes on in there—the restless engine of her mind, the loops and tangles that power her waking self. The inner seams of what makes her so uniquely…her.
What happened in the dining room sits in my body like shrapnel. Not the way the old shit sits—the jobs, the blood, the specific weight of what I’ve done and what’s been done to me. Those, I know how to carry.
This is different.
She was on her knees in front of me, put my hands in her hair, looked me dead in the eye and said this is yours like she meant it.
Not as payment. Not as leverage. She gave it to me and kept her eyes on mine the entire time, and for the first time I felt the devastating difference between being used and being wanted.
It almost broke me.
“Pretty violence,” she’d whispered, tracing my scar. The way she said it, like she was naming something she was taking for herself, it made this black thing in my chest twist, fill up and split apart, because if I ever wanted to be anything, it would be to be hers.
I exhale slowly through my nose and look at her sleeping in the clouds I built from her words, and I understand—with the cold clarity of a man who’s spent his life making calculations—exactly how fucked I am.
I am not going to be able to let her go.
That’s the fact of it. I’ve turned it over from every angle, run every operational assessment, applied every ounce of the discipline that’s kept me alive for years—and the answer keeps coming back the same.
She didn’t ask for this.
She doesn’t know what this means. What it costs.
What it will cost. She sees the broken man in the shower, the man who made her come while proving to her how powerful her words are.
She sees the man who trusted her, the man who gave himself over to the slow descent to devastation in her mouth.
She doesn’t see what I do, or what I become when I’m not close to her.
This is no longer an obsession. It’s compulsion, and hell doesn’t know what I’ll do to keep her safe. What I’m already planning to do.
Ian’s not going to like it.
Of course, he’s waiting in the hallway when I exit her bedroom, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, that look on his face that says he’s already catalogued every variable and doesn’t like the math.
“Cat’s out of the bag, psycho,” he says, falling into step beside me. “You don’t have to stalk around her anymore.”
“Shut up.”
“Old habits. Speaking of old habits…”
I stop at the top of the stairs.
He doesn’t say it directly. He doesn’t have to.
The cocaine. Prague. The dealer. The bar. Andrei dragging me out before the cops showed.
I glance back toward Sophia’s door. “Not while I have her.”
Ian holds my gaze for a long moment. “You sure about that?”
“I’m sure.”
“You weren’t sure in Prague.”
I turn on him, voice low and sharp. “You want to do this right now?”
“I want you to be honest with yourself for once. You almost got yourself killed because you went off the rails. You think Valeria didn’t notice? You think she doesn’t know exactly what triggered it?”
“She knows,” I say flatly. “She planned it.”
Ian’s jaw tightens. “Then you need to be smarter than her.”
“I am smarter than her.”
“No. You’re more desperate than her. And desperate makes you stupid.”
The words land like a slap. I feel them in my teeth.
Ian steps closer, voice dropping. “Look, I get it. You want to protect her. I want that too. But right now you’re running hot, brother.
You cannot—and I can’t stress this hard enough—slip the fuck up like you did in Prague.
I dunno what it is, if she has this magic fucking link into your mind, but Valeria knows you.
My God, does she know you. She knew you’d lose your shit when she handed you that Novák prick. ”
“You say that like I don’t already know.” I start descending the stairs, Ian trailing behind.
“I know you know. I’m just saying it out loud for shits and giggles.
Listen.” He grabs my elbow, and I snarl as I whip around, glaring at him.
“That bitch is going to throw every goddamn curveball your way waiting for that one time you’re sloppy.
Novák? He’s a drop in her bucket of party tricks.
And if you go off the rails every time she pulls a goddamn rabbit out of her hat,” he stops, pressing his lips together, “it’s no longer just Mary anymore, man. It’s Sophia too.”
There’s a huge motherfucking part of me that wants to wring his neck, but I’ve known him long enough to know every word is coming from a place of loyalty.
“Reth, if there ever was a time for you to tell those demons inside your head to fuck off, it’s now.
Because if you don’t, Valeria is going to sweep right in.
So do what you do best—think like the cold, calculated bastard I know you can be.
If you go off half-cocked right now, you’re not protecting Sophia.
You’re handing Valeria the map straight to her. ”
I stare at him, chest tight, the old rage and the new fear twisting together until I can’t tell which is which. “You think I’m going to let Valeria take that from me?”
“I think if Valeria finds a sliver of weakness, she will cut it open and not stop until she has another tighter, spiked leash around your neck. You’ll be a whipped Pinocchio, my friend.” He taps my cheek, and I growl. “Granted, a good-looking one.”
“What the fuck is your point, Ian?”
“Do not pull another stunt like today. Stay the fuck sober because one wrong move and Valeria will have Sophia in a hole somewhere. And you, my dear pussy-whipped puppet, will be forced to watch on live feed while Valeria makes you choose which piece of her to lose first.” Ian steps up to me, our eyes level.
“Say you’ll never touch that stuff again. Swear to me.”
The silence between us is ugly, heavy, and full of old bones. I inhale. Not a shallow breath, not a liar’s trick of oxygen, but a long one, down to the bottom where shame becomes sediment. “I swear.”
“Good.” He smirks. “Now that that’s out of the way—”
I pivot. “We move first.”
“What? No.”
“It’s the only way to beat her. To stay one step ahead.”
“Is that what you got from that? I give you the speech of the fucking century, and somehow your bright idea is suicide?”
“It’s not suicide. It’s strategy.”
“It’s the same thing when you’re the one executing it.” Ian drops onto the bottom step, elbows on his knees, and looks up at me with the expression he gets when he’s decided to stop arguing and start reasoning. The dangerous one. “Walk me through it.”
I never thought the day would come when I’d even consider what I’m about to tell him. Everything I’ve ever done was to make sure this never has to happen, protecting what’s most important. The cost? My soul. But now I’m backed into a corner, and there’s no way out without risk.
“We go to Samuel.”
Ian blinks. Blinks again. Leans back with his elbows on the stair behind him. “Well, that’s a very solid, very robust…fuck no.”
“I can’t speak to you when you’re like this.” I stomp over to the kitchen and grab a beer from the fridge. Ian follows.
“Well, honey, I’m afraid you’re going to have to, because that’s how a marriage works.” He points at me. “You come up with shitty ideas.” Places his palm on his chest. “And I tell you that you have shitty ideas.”
I pop the beer and take a large swig, leaning against the counter. “You have any better ideas…love?”
“Fuck yeah, I do. You harden this position. You bring in your entire team. You make this house the last place on earth Valeria wants to send a team. That’s the play.”
“Meanwhile, Sophia is stuck here forever, and Mary’s still out there while Samuel has no fucking clue.”
“Jesus,” he blurts, making this big dramatic eye roll. “It ticks me off when you make sense. Oh, I have an idea. We bring them here. Crazy will love the company.”
I cock a brow. “Crazy? You mean Sophia?”
“I call her Crazy, because have you seen how obsessed she gets with a door?”
“Nicknames, huh?” I hate the possessive pang in my gut. “Just so you know,” I place my beer on the counter, eyes glued to his, “I will feed you your cock if you so much as look at her in a way that pisses me off.”
Ian grins, all cool-water and wolf. “You fucking wish I’d look at her like that. Girl’s got more crazy in her pinky than you do in your whole sad-sack PTSD brain. Don’t overestimate my capacity for crazy.”
I flip him off and finish the beer in one long pull, letting the cold numb my teeth and scrape a little of the ache off the inside.
“Okay, fine,” he concedes, grabbing two beers from the fridge and handing me one. “Let’s game it out, then. We go to Samuel, tell him everything, and then what?”
This is the part he’ll get a hernia over, and I remain silent as I pick my words.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” he utters, and by the look on his face he’s already figured it out. “No. Abso-fucking-lutely not. Not happening.”
“You don’t even know what I’m gonna say.”
“Of course, I do. You got stupid written all over you.” Ian walks to stand by the floor-to-ceiling window, and I wait for him to process it. It always takes him a while. “She won’t fall for it.”
I take my beer and sit on the couch. “Who?”
“Both of them. But especially Crazy.”
I give him a warning glare.
“Oh, get over it. Besides, she’s not my type.”
“What is your type?”
“Loud, obnoxious, mean, and allergic to emotional attachments. That’s why I like you, and why Sophia makes me want to staple my own tongue to the desk.
” He tilts the bottle toward me. “But you. You like her because she’s going to rip you apart, and you’ll say ‘thank you, wasn’t enough, spit in my mouth, ma’am. ’”
I snort in spite of myself.
“I’m serious, Reth.” All sarcasm is drained out of the conversation. “That woman upstairs, she’s not going to go anywhere. Especially if the plan involves you not going with.”
I twirl the bottle in my hand. “You’re implying that she has a choice in the matter.”
Ian’s expression falls, and his silence is deafening.
“I don’t have to read your mind to know what you’re thinking,” I say. “But deep in that very loud brain of yours, you’ve already calculated every outcome, just like I have. And you’ve come to the same conclusion as I have.”
Ian stares at me for a long time. The muscle in his jaw works. When he speaks again, his voice is stripped of everything—the mischief, the deflection, the sharp edges.
“You know what she’ll do to you.”
I press my lips in a thin line, staring at the bottle, toying with the label. “At least then she won’t be able to do anything to the people I care about.” I swallow. “In the end, that’s all that matters.”
Ian presses the heel of his hand against his mouth. Breathes through his nose. “You’ll let her win?”
“I’m going to let her believe she’s won.” I meet his eyes. “That’s different.”
“Is it?”
“Valeria wants two things. Control, and me. If she thinks she has both—”
“She won’t search for them,” Ian finishes it. His voice is hollow. “She calls off the net, because why chase the ones who ran when she already has the one that matters.”
“Exactly.”
Ian eyes the bottle like he wants to smash it against the glass and lob the shards in my direction. “I can’t in good conscience let you go through with this.”
I get up, straighten, look him square in the eye.
“You don’t know Valeria Capello the way I do.
You think you have a clue of what she’s capable of, but you don’t.
I fucked up by dragging Sophia into this.
Now, I need to make it right. And if I can finally get Mary out of this too, then by God, I’ll do whatever it takes.
” Determination has its own heartbeat, and right now mine is steady.
“Even if it means I never come back out.”
My hands ache wanting to punch something, but the real fight is upstream. In my head. Luckily, I know how to win battles against my own mind.
Ian holds his beer in the way you hold something when you need your hands to have something to do. “She’s going to hate you for this.”
“I know.”
“And when it’s over—if it’s ever over—she’ll have every right to.”
“I know that too.”
“And you’re doing it anyway.”
I look up at the ceiling. At the floor above it. At the specific darkness of a house that’s holding something worth protecting.
“Tell me a different way to keep her alive,” I say. “One that doesn’t end with Valeria finding her. One that doesn’t require me to be somewhere I can’t be.” I look at him. “Tell me a different way, and I’ll take it.”
Because there isn’t one. We both know there isn’t one. Ian ran the math the same way I did—he just ran it hoping for a different answer, and we got to the same place from opposite directions. There’s no way to dodge a bullet when you’re already chewing on the barrel.
Ian empties his beer and places it on the coffee table, squaring his shoulders. “What do you need me to do?”
“Simple. Keep your promise.” I walk to the stairs, glance back. “Protect her when I can’t.”