Chapter 12 #2
"I said stand down. You don't call moves in my fucking charter. You don't ride out for blood without my word. Especially not now. Look at me, Doom."
He looks at her.
"I’m not going to let him touch her again. None of us are. But if you ride out tonight with a Glock and a vendetta, you’re going to die, and then Hatchet wins. You will not give him that win. Not on my charter. Not from my prospect. Do you understand me."
It isn't a question.
Doom holds her eyes for a few moments.
The whole room holds its breath with him.
Then his shoulders come down half an inch. "Yes, Prez."
"Good." She turns to the room. "Lock the compound.
Brick, get me the campus feed and forward everything to Alejandro's people.
The contractor's name is on its way—he's not a Kodiak member, which means they hired this.
Boulder, gear up. We ride at first light.
Zorro, get Damon on the line. I want every charter to be on alert by sunrise. "
Everyone does what they’re told.
Doom doesn't let go of me through any of it.
His hand stays at my back as the brothers move around us.
He walks me out of the main room and down the hallway to his room without a word.
He closes the door behind us and locks it.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
He stands a few feet away with his back against the door, his hands flat against the wood, his head tipped back, his eyes closed.
I watch him breathe. I watch him try to find the man who walked me in here.
"Doom."
"Don't say anything. Not yet. Please."
I don't.
A few minutes pass. He keeps his eyes closed.
Eventually he opens them. He pushes off the door, crosses the room, and sits beside me on the bed.
He doesn't touch me. Just puts his elbows on his knees and his hands together, palms flat.
"Tell me you're okay."
"I'm not."
He turns his head to look at me and waits.
I don't pretend.
That's the deal we have.
I will always tell him the truth.
"I didn't fall apart in the hallway because I wasn't going to give him that. I held it together because I'm my parents’ child. They don't raise women who fall apart in hallways. But I'm not okay. I'm not okay, Emiliano."
He nods.
His eyes find my face, then the place on my chest where the man's hand was.
They come back to mine.
"I should have been there."
"You couldn't have been."
"I know." He swallows. "I'm not going to let him touch you again. Not him, not anyone. Te lo prometo."
He kisses me.
I open my eyes and he's already watching me.
I answer by pressing closer.
He pulls back just enough to see me, and I'm struck by what I find in his eyes.
These are the eyes he keeps only for this room, for this door closed between us and the world.
He doesn't speak.
His fingers find the hem of my shirt and lift it over my head, and I shiver not from cold but from the thrill.
His hands hover. A breath away from my skin.
"Where?"
I understand immediately. He's mapping where this man touched me.
He needs coordinates for where another man's hand pressed against me, held me against a wall, left invisible bruises on the geography of my body.
I take his right wrist and guide his palm flat against my sternum, exactly where the man’s grip pinned me.
Doom exhales like I've struck him.
"Here."
"Yes."
His other hand cups my jaw. His thumb traces my collarbone, featherlight, following the path down to where my pulse flutters at the base of my throat.
"And here?"
"And below."
He swallows. I feel it in the movement of his hand against my chest.
His palm drags down the center of me, deliberate and unhurried, the opposite of how the stranger touched me.
He stops at the curve of my breast where knuckles once pressed hard enough to bruise.
"Here?"
"Yes."
I tense, waiting for him to kiss the spot, to claim it, to erase the memory with his mouth.
He doesn't. He just holds his palm there, warm and still, soaking into my skin like a brand of a different kind.
His heat replaces the cold. His patience replaces the rush.
I don't realize I'm crying until his thumb finds the tear tracking down my cheek.
"Estoy aquí," he whispers. Soft. Barely a breath.
"I know."
"No te va a tocar otra vez. Lo juro. ?Me oyes, Nova? Lo juro por mi vida."
He swears it on his life. I believe him.
I nod, and he eases me back onto the mattress.
He undresses me the rest of the way with a slowness that feels sacred, like he's memorizing every inch in case tomorrow tries to steal this memory.
His lips find my collarbone, the hollow where my neck meets my shoulder.
He presses his mouth to the center of my chest where his hand just was, and stays there, breathing into me.
When he looks up, his eyes are wet. He doesn't blink it away. He lets me see.
I cup his face. "I see you, Emiliano."
His mouth opens, but no words come. He doesn't need them.
He undresses himself, and we don't rush.
There's nothing frantic about his fingers on his own buttons, his own belt.
Just deliberate ceremony, each piece of clothing set aside with the same care he showed mine.
When he returns to me, he moves like a man who has discovered the luxury of time.
He kisses my mouth, my forehead, the spot beneath my ear where my pulse thrums.
He holds his lips there until my heartbeat steadies under his attention.
He enters me slowly. His eyes lock onto mine. "Look at me."
"I am."
"Don't look away."
I don't.
I hold his gaze as he moves inside me, unhurried, deep, and present.
His hips rock with tenderness, each stroke a question and an answer at once.
He whispers in Spanish, words that aren't dirty or demanding. Soft words. "Eres mi vida. Mi familia. Todo lo que tengo y todo lo que quiero."
You are my life. My family. Everything I have and everything I want.
The tears come again. Salt on my lips. I let them.
When I come, it's quiet.
My eyes stay on his.
My fingers grip the back of his neck, pulling him closer, and my mouth opens against his cheek without sound—just a small, broken breath that tastes like surrender.
He follows two breaths later. Silent.
His forehead presses to mine, his body shuddering through the release, and he holds me through every tremor until the shaking stops.
He doesn't pull out. He stays, heavy and warm, his breath evening against my skin.
His eyes are wet and he doesn't hide it.
He pulls me into him after and doesn't let go.
I curl against his chest, my ear over his heart, his arm under my head.
His other hand stays on my belly, fingers spread, like he's anchoring himself to me with the breadth of his palm.
The room is dark. The window is cracked.
The clubhouse has gone quiet to its night sounds.
Somebody's bike at the far end of the street. The dry click of the air conditioner cycling on.
He breathes.
I count his breaths and find my own pace inside them.
After a long time, he says, "I can't lose you."
I don't say anything. I let him keep talking if he wants to.
"I can lose a lot of things. My father a hundred more times. My sister all over again every day for the rest of my life. The patch. This club. I can take all of that."
He stops. He breathes.
"I can't lose you."
I lift my head and look at him. "Then don't."
"That's what scares me. It's not always up to me."
"Then we don't ride out tonight with a Glock and a vendetta. We do it Amara's way."
He almost laughs. It is the closest thing to a laugh I have heard from him today. "You sound just like her when you said that."
"I learned from the best."
He kisses my forehead.
He stays awake long after I fall asleep.
I know because every time I drift up from the surface of sleep, his hand on my belly is still spread wide and his breath is uneven.
He doesn't sleep until just before sunrise. I know because I keep waking up through the night, making sure he’s still here.