Chapter 9 #2
I step back half a pace anyway, forcing myself to be deliberate, because impulsive is how you end up regretting things you can’t undo.
Lonari watches me closely.
“I need to know,” I say, voice steadier now. “If we do… anything… it’s not because I’m scared and you’re convenient.”
His mouth twitches. “I’m convenient?”
I glare. “Don’t get cocky.”
He raises one hand slightly, like surrender. “Alright.”
I inhale, tasting that faint herbal scent in the room, feeling the softness of the carpet under my bare toes because I kicked my boots off without remembering when.
“I want choice,” I say quietly. “I want to choose you, if I choose you. Not because the world is burning and you’re the only wall I can lean on.”
Lonari’s eyes hold mine, and his voice comes out low, almost reverent in its honesty.
“Then choose,” he says. “Or don’t. I’m not taking what you don’t give.”
The words hit something in me—something tender and furious.
Because in the systems I grew up in, nothing was ever asked. It was assigned. Approved. Denied. Scheduled.
This—this asking—feels like freedom in a language I’m not fluent in.
I step forward.
Not rushing. Not falling.
Choosing.
I lift my hands and place them on his chest, feeling the solid heat of him through the suit fabric, the steady strength under my palms. The contact sends a shiver up my arms and settles in my belly like a slow flame.
Lonari doesn’t move. He waits.
“Okay,” I whisper, and my voice shakes, but my hands don’t. “Okay. I choose.”
His breath leaves him in a low exhale, like he’s been holding it.
“Yeah?” he murmurs.
“Yeah,” I say, and then I add, because I can’t help myself, “Don’t make it weird.”
A soft, surprised laugh rumbles out of him. “You already made it weird.”
“Shut up,” I whisper, and I lean in.
When he kisses me, it isn’t frantic. It isn’t a victory lap. It’s controlled in the same way his violence is controlled—precise, intentional, like he’s treating me as something that can be damaged and refusing to be careless.
His mouth is warm, firm, tasting faintly of spice and something darker underneath, and the kiss deepens slowly, a question, not a demand. My hands slide up his chest to his shoulders, and I feel the tension there—muscle held back, restraint flexing like a leash he keeps in his own grip.
I make a small sound against his mouth, and his hands come to my waist, large and steady, anchoring me. He doesn’t pull. He holds.
I pull.
The suit fabric shifts under my fingers as I tug him closer, and the sensation of his body against mine makes my knees go soft. Heat floods my skin. The room feels warmer, or maybe my blood is just finally doing something besides panic.
He breaks the kiss just long enough to look at me, forehead almost touching mine.
“Still choosing?” he asks, voice rough.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Say it again,” he murmurs, and there’s something in his tone that isn’t dominance so much as… need. Like he’s making sure. Like he’s terrified of getting this wrong.
“I’m choosing,” I say, and then I add, because I’m me, “And if you ruin this with a dramatic mobster line, I will bite you.”
His mouth curves, and the smile is brief but real. “Noted.”
We move together toward the bed, slow enough that the choice keeps being made with each step. I feel the edge of the mattress against the back of my knees, the softness giving when I sit, the coolness of the linen against my skin.
Lonari pauses again, hands braced on either side of me, caging without trapping.
“You tell me to stop,” he says quietly, “and I stop.”
I swallow, eyes stinging for reasons that aren’t entirely about desire. “Okay.”
His gaze searches my face like he’s memorizing it. Then he kisses me again, softer at first, then deeper as my hands find him, as my body leans into his heat.
The world narrows.
Not to nothing—never to nothing—but to sensation: the warmth of his mouth, the steadiness of his hands, the quiet rustle of fabric, the faint scent of spice and clean soap and the honest human smell of sweat as our bodies decide they’re alive.
I don’t narrate the rest to myself like a report. I don’t turn it into data. I let it be what it is: deliberate intimacy chosen in the aftermath of violence, not as escape, but as a statement.
I am here.
I am not owned.
I am not contained.
And when Lonari holds me afterward—careful, protective, his breath steady against my hair—I let myself rest in it for a moment without hating myself for needing it.
My heart still beats too fast, but it’s not only fear now.
I trace the edge of his jaw with my fingertip, feeling the texture of scale under my touch.
“I still don’t trust institutions,” I whisper into the quiet, because some truths don’t go away just because you found warmth.
Lonari’s hand settles on my back, heavy and grounding. “Good.”
I blink, pulling back slightly to look at him. “Good?”
He meets my gaze. “Institutions don’t love you. They use you. You’re right not to trust them.”
The blunt validation hits me like a shock.
I swallow. “So what do you trust?”
Lonari’s eyes flick toward the ceiling, toward the unseen weight of family, power, and the Godfather’s masked fear.
Then he looks back at me, and his voice comes out low and steady, the way it does when he’s decided something and nothing is going to move him off it.
“I trust the truth,” he says. “Even if it burns my family down.”
My throat tightens.
Because that’s not a mobster line.
That’s a vow.
And in the distance, beyond the walls, the Nun keeps humming with money and lies and neon, while somewhere out in the galaxy a war is being assembled piece by piece.
I press my forehead to his chest, listening to the steadiness of him, and for the first time since Yatori, I feel something that isn’t just survival.
Resolve.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Lonari’s hand tightens gently at my back. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say, and my voice is steadier now. “Then let’s burn the right things.”