16. Dani
16
DANI
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
I ’m dressed in my uniform, a red suit with black silk underneath. My new lace front sways when I walk, and my eyes glow an eerie green, House is fully-synced and online. Da’bitch attitude is in full wattage. Beads of water trace paths down the bronze planes of his chest, following the ridges of scars that tell stories he's never shared. He's naked, his cock semi-erect, and despite everything I know, everything I suspect, my mouth still waters as I drink him in. My body remembers his touch, betraying my resolve with a rush of heat between my thighs.
“Hey,” he says when he sees me standing at the foot of the bed. The sheets are rumpled in a heap from where we made lo—where he fucked me. “Quiet last night. Again, this morning. You good?”
I shrug, fighting to keep my voice steady. "Yeah." Liar, my mind whispers. Nothing about this is good.
“Hmm,” he says, taking me in his arms. His skin is still shower-warm, and I hate how my body instinctively melts into his touch. "You'll have to be more convincing," he grins, grinding his erection into my stomach. The familiar hardness sends a jolt of want through me that I ruthlessly suppress.
“Actually, I don’t. As you are no longer my concern.” The words taste like last night’s party, stale and putrid in my mouth.
His hand tightens around my waist, fingers digging into the high-tech fabric. “Come again?”
“We’re done. I want you gone today. You can return to your suite or leave The Governor. If you intend to remain a resident here, a security officer will be assigned to you.”
“If I intend,” he growls. “I’m not going anywhere.” With one hand, he grips the back of my neck. “Neither are you, ma cherie.”
“Is that what you told your brother? I overheard his warning. ”His eyes widen, but then he recovers quickly. “You betrayed me.”
“After the shit we’ve been through, you think I’d set you up?”
I steel my resolve against the pain in his voice. “I don’t think it, Voss. I know it.”
“You don’t shit. And it's what you don’t know that will get you killed.”
“Enlighten me, please.”
“Like you need to take off that fucking suit. You don’t need it, Dani. You’re brave, fearless, you don’t need a crutch.”
“Fuck you. House doesn’t fuck me over. House doesn’t lie. House will—”
“Never love you like I do, Dani. Your trust in a machine is your weakness.”
I snort, in disbelief. “If we’re talking man versus machine. The men in my life—they have been the weakest links. My father—too weak to come from me. Oscar—too weak to be a man without putting his hands on me. And you—too weak to let me fight my own battles. I don’t need you. Just because I took a bullet and gave you my body, we aren’t connected. You are not family.”
“When were you going to tell me the man who attacked you is your fucking brother-in-love? Fucker’s obsessed with you?”
“You’ve been spying on me?” I tap the snakeskin watch on my wrist, my link to my security teams. “Confirm backup has arrived.”
“And you’ve been lying to me,” he accuses. “House, deny access to all visitors.”
“I’ve never lied to you, asshole. Omar is a threat. I’ll handle my business. You were my client. I was trying to protect you from my past.”
“And I’m trying to love you,” Xeno roars. His bare chest heaves as if he’s running a marathon and falling behind the competition.
I steel my spine. Love doesn’t exist; it is fiction sold to women in three hundred pages of happily-ever-after bullshit. “Don’t go there, Voss.”
House’s British-accented voice cuts in. “Voss, Xeno, voice command detected. Not authorized. Intruder alert sounded.”
Xeno roars as it sinks in that he is the wanted visitor. “You—,” he hisses.
“I am doing my job. Get dressed,” I gesture to his cock, “your escorts are here.”
The door to my apartment opens; Silvio and Corso look from me to Xeno. Okay, not who I’m expecting.
“What—” they are not supposed to be here. I called my team.
Silvio is the first to speak. “Voss, get dressed. Your suite is waiting.”
He stares the two men down, then looks back at me. “You sure you want to get between me and my woman?”
Fury and the promise of retribution blaze behind his eyes. A flood of arousal washes over me the longer we’re locked in this tense posture.
“Look,” Corso sighs. “She doesn’t want you here.”
A cruel smile splits Xeno’s full lips. “Too fucking bad,” he growls.
“I can shoot you,” Corso says casually, which surprises the hell out of me. “or, you can walk out.”
Xeno looks at me, his brown eyes flashing with anger, hurt, and determination. “Doubt my words. Mistrust my motivation.”
Corso draws his gun.
“Voss,” Corso warns. “You’ll be a dead, naked motherfucker. Put on some gotdamn pants and walk out of here.”
One look from Xeno, and I know he won’t back down. My stomach bottoms out.
“You came to take what’s mine. You fuckers, can choke on these nuts.”
“Xeno,” I plead with my eyes. The ring on my finger, his ring, seems to heat, the skin beneath burning. My breathing speeds up. He’s inches away, but it spans an ocean of complicated emotions. I glimpse the resolve shining back at me. A pounding starts in my chest.
“If I die, I die loving you, ma cherie.”
“Don’t,” I yell. But, it’s too late. I watch in horror and Xeno drops to a fighting stance. A snarl tears from his throat as he barrels towards the two men he perceives as a threat to him loving me.
“Oh shit,” Silvio mutters.
Corso aims and pulls the trigger.
Crack. Crack.
Xeno jerks, but doesn’t go down. He charges, leaping at Corso.
Crack.
The third blast echoes in my ears. Xeno’s massive frame crumples with a grace that seems wrong—he's always been pure power in motion, all coiled strength and barely contained violence. Now he lies still, and the wrongness of it freezes me in place. I bite back a scream.
Corso’s calling my name. And I see is Xeno—my heart—unconscious on the hard floor. I can’t breathe, but my training kicks in even as my heart shatters.
House's familiar presence in my earpiece offers cold comfort. "All systems normal, Dani. Security protocols were followed correctly."
Correctly.
Right.
So why does victory taste of bile? Inside, I'm drowning in what-ifs. What if I'd handled this differently? What if I'd trusted him enough to talk it through?
What have I done?
The cold metal of my Glocks finds my palms as if magnetized. I draw them in one fluid motion, muscle memory from countless hours of training. The weapons feel alive in my hands, extensions of my rage and grief. I level them at Corso, the tritium night sights steady despite my internal trembling. My fingers curl around the textured grips, finding home on the triggers. A DeLuca welcomed me into his safe haven, but Xeno was my home.
“Dani. No,” Silvio bellows, charging straight at me.
I don’t want forgiveness as I prepare to violate every protocol, every promise, every oath I've ever taken. For Xeno, I will kill Corso DeLuca. I will kill them all.
“He’s tranq, Dani. Not dead,” Silvio snaps, his voice rough and on edge. “Lower your guns. Damn the two of you, fucking insanity.”
Silvio's speaking rapid-fire into his comm unit. I focus on the rise and fall of Xeno's chest, shallow but steady. Three tranquilizer darts protruding from his chest—no blood. Only accusations. Maybe, Corso hadn't killed him.
"Dani, put your guns down,” Corso orders, his gun now trained on me. “I’ll drop your ass right next to him,” he threatens.
The next minute is a blur of chaos. Youric storms into my apartment, his blades trained on me and everyone else. He looks at his brother naked and unmoving, and then stares directly at me, disdain burning in his eyes.
"He'll be fine," Corso says, holstering his weapon. His voice carries the steady assurance of a professional, but I catch the slight tremor in his hands as he lowers his gun. "Just knocked out."
Silvio moves to help Youric get Xeno on his feet, their movements precise and controlled, but their eyes dart between Corso and me on a repeating cycle. They both know what I know—I’ve crossed a line today, one we can't uncross.
“Stay the fuck away from my brother,” Youric says loud enough for all of us to hear, but I know the arrow hits me the hardest. Guilt assails me, but then I remember the conversation from the night before.
“Shut the hell up, Dr. Strange, “ I hiss, taking a page from Xeno’s book of fictitious characters. “he can tell me himself when he wakes up.” Silently, I pray to a god I’m unsure exists that Xeno will forgive me. “
Youric shakes his head. “He’d be a fool.”
Maybe. “Fuck off, Youric.”
They load Xeno onto a gurney, checking vitals with practiced efficiency. His face looks peaceful in unconsciousness, almost vulnerable. It's a lie. Xeno Voss has never been vulnerable a day in his life.
I follow them to the clinic level of The Governor’s clinic, my heels clicking against marble in a rhythm that matches my racing heart. The sound echoes off the walls, a metronome counting down to something I can't name. House whispers a statistic in my ear—estimated time until the tranquilizers wear off. I let the Alexa-ish answer wash over me, an information shield against the chaos of emotion threatening to break through my carefully constructed walls. Love is baffling, and I still struggle to reconcile my actions with my feelings. I could deal with Xeno being away from me, but not like this.
This wing of the clinic is all sleek modernism and subtle wealth, like everything else in The Governor. I've been here too often lately—first with my own gunshot wound, now with Xeno. The thought sends a spike of guilt through my chest. He told me he loved me, and this is how I repaid him.
I’m wearing a path in one of the clinic’s exam rooms an hour later. My House interface keeps trying to regulate my breathing—elevated heart rate, increased cortisol levels, signs of acute stress response. I override the protocols. I need this edge of panic, this sharp reminder of why I chose duty over desire. Why I had to end it before he could end me.
Your trust in a machine is your weakness, his words echo in my head. But machines don't lie. They don't make promises they can't keep. They don't make you feel things you can't afford to feel.
“Dani?” The blonde nurse who seems always here appears, tablet in hand. She's weird—too watchful, too available, too everywhere. Her scrubs are pristine, her smile professional, but something niggles at the back of my mind. “I thought you might like an update on Mr. Voss?"
Relief floods my system that someone is speaking to me. Momentarily drowning out the warning bells about the nurse, I return her smile with one of my own. "Yes, please."
“Okay,” she beams, tapping the mini-tablet with her index finger. “According to this, he’s going to be just fine. See.”
She gestures for me look at the scene. The computer-generated image of my uniform on the screen has my brows dipping low in confusion. My eyes narrow just as the compression sleeves in my uniform activate, crushing my chest.
“He’s fine, bitch. You’re not.”
The needle slides into my neck before I can react. Ice floods my veins as I spin. No. No. Not House. She has hacked House’s command interface functions. The nurse's face blurs, transforming into a predatory smile as she steps back. My hand reaches for my weapon, but my movements are already sluggish, anduncoordinated.
"Shh," a familiar voice soothes from behind me. Through dimming vision, I see Rhys step out of the shadows. My teammate. My former lover. The man who's trained beside me, worked under my leadership. He pulls the nurse into a deep kiss before turning to me, and the betrayal hits harder than any drug.
"Nothing personal, Dani," he says, catching me as my legs give out. His arms are gentle like they've always been. Like they were when he held me down for this bitch to change my dress. Or was she? "Just business."
The world tilts sideways as he lifts me. I try to fight, but my body won't respond. House's voice in my head grows staticky, anddistorted. Security breach detected. Unauthorized access to... System malfunction... Connection lost...
Then silence. The constant hum of House in my ear, my constant companion for years, goes dark. The loss feels like drowning, like falling without a safety net. In my last moments of consciousness, I see the nurse pulling off her wig, revealing close-cropped dark hair. She speaks into a comm unit, "Package secured. Extraction in progress."
Rhys carries me past empty corridors—how did they clear the building? How deep does this betrayal go? I want to scream, to fight, to understand why. But the darkness is pulling me under, inexorable as the tide.
The last thing I feel is cold air on my face as they carry me out of The Governor. My home. My fortress. Now just another place whereI wasn't safe.
I'm sorry, Xeno, I think as consciousness slips away. You were right about the machines. But you were wrong about love being enough to save me.