Chapter Six #2
She drank, hands trembling.
Elias stepped out of the dark like he’d been there all along rather than in the thick of things with the rest of them. Mara had seen him inside, heard him claim that the shot to the heart was his, but he looked like he’d just stepped from the cover of a magazine rather than a fire fight.
The men went still.
Mara straightened too. The man just had that aura about him.
Elias’s gaze took her in—minor injuries, posture, the way she stood. Approval flickered and vanished.
“You did what you had to,” he said.
She nodded once.
“There’s a problem,” Elias continued, voice level. “We have a mole. Until we finish cutting that cancer out, I can’t guarantee your safety inside the network the Covenant controls.”
Luca’s jaw tightened. “Then she comes with me.”
The words hit Mara like a hand at her back—steady, claiming, unmistakably Luca. Heat flared low in her chest, a rush of relief and something dangerously close to pleasure. He wanted her with him. No hedging. No conditions.
Mateo shot him a look. “No.”
The single syllable cut clean through the moment.
Luca turned. “What?”
“She doesn’t belong to you,” Mateo said evenly. “She chooses where she goes, who she goes with, and what happens from here.”
Mara’s pulse skidded. The warmth Luca’s words had sparked twisted into something sharper—confusion, yes, but also respect. Mateo wasn’t taking Luca from her. He was handing the choice back to her.
Luca opened his mouth as if to argue, then closed it. She saw the fight in him—the instinct to shield, to decide, to lock the door and keep her safe by force if that’s what it took. His hands curled into fists, knuckles whitening.
Elias watched him closely, unreadable. “He’s right.”
The space around them felt suddenly enormous. Men. Guns. Blood drying on concrete. The echo of chains still ringing in the rafters. And her, standing in the middle of it, scraped raw and shaking but very much alive.
Mara drew a breath that hurt and made the decision that was pretty damn easy to make.
“I want to go with Luca,” she said.
Saying it out loud steadied her. This wasn’t fear choosing for her. This was recognition. Luca hadn’t tried to own her—he’d tried to protect her. Mateo hadn’t pushed her away—he’d insisted she decide. Elias hadn’t intervened—he’d waited.
Luca exhaled hard, relief and fear colliding in his expression so visibly it made her throat tighten. For a heartbeat, she wondered if he’d try to argue anyway.
He didn’t.
Elias nodded once. “Then go. We’ll lock things down. When it’s clean, we’ll find you.”
They separated without ceremony. No speeches. No promises spoken aloud. Just movement and intent.
Luca drove like the road owed him something. No headlights. No radio. The night pressed close on either side, the engine a low, angry hum beneath them. Mara watched his hands on the wheel—steady now, but tight—and matched her breathing to the rhythm of the drive until the shaking eased.
The house was small. Unlisted. Buried in the kind of quiet neighborhood where nothing ever happened. A place that belonged to one man because only one man knew it existed.
Inside, Luca set her on the edge of the bed and took her hands.
Her wrists were angry and raw, skin broken where the cuffs had bitten. Seeing them up close made something dark pass through his eyes. He moved into the bathroom and came back with a medical kit.
“Hold still,” he said. “I want to put some antiseptic and pain relief on them. I don’t want you hurting.”
“I’m okay,” she murmured, even as the antiseptic stung.
He wasn’t listening.
His hands shook as he cleaned the scrapes, jaw locked so tight she could see the muscle jumping. “They hurt you. On our watch. On my watch.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, soft but certain.
“It was the Covenant’s,” he snapped. “You were betrayed by a traitor in our organization. I should’ve—”
She leaned forward and kissed him.
It wasn’t soft.
It was grounding.
The kind of kiss that said stop spinning. The kind that pulled him back into his body when his mind was already hunting ghosts.
His breath left him in a startled sound. He froze—then his hands came up to cup her face, careful, reverent, as if touching her was a promise he was afraid to break.
She pulled back just enough to meet his eyes.
“I’m here,” she said. “With you.”
He rested his forehead against hers and breathed. “You scared the fuck out of me.”
She smiled, leaning a little more of her weight into him. “Everything scared the shit out of me too. I thought I would never see you again.”
Luca leaned back, his gaze locked to hers and she couldn’t decipher the intense look on his face.
“Mara, you need to really think about what you are saying. I am a lot older than you, and I live in a world that is fucked up, filled with shadows and darkness, and I will never be able to live a normal life. I am a part of the Covenant and that is not something I can step away from, or, if I am being completely fucking honest, I don’t want to.
I am willing to give you something temporary, but I want—”
She jerked against him, her expression turning from aroused and intense to pissed in a surprisingly short amount of time.
“Temporary? What, Luca, you just wanna fuck buddy and then walk away? Am I not worthy of something more than just being a casual fuck that you can walk away from? What, would you leave a couple of hundred-dollar bills on the table and walk away?” She stood up from the bed. “Christ, I am so fucking stupid!”
Anger flooded Luca’s mind, not in response to her anger, but because of what she had said about herself.
She had only taken one step from him when he stood, and turned her back toward him in one hard, controlled motion.
Not rough enough to hurt—never that—but forceful enough that she felt the decision in it.
He yanked her against his chest, one hand spanning her waist, the other braced between her shoulder blades, breath hot at her ear.
“Don’t,” Luca growled. “Don’t you ever fucking put yourself in that category.”
She stiffened. “You just did.”
“Like fuck I did!” he practically growled, voice low and shaking with restraint.
“I said I won’t pretend this is easy. I said I won’t lie to you.
I have fucked women before. I like it. I’m good at it.
And I sure as hell won’t apologize for that.
” His grip tightened—steady, grounding. “But I have never looked at you like a whore. Not once. Not for a second.”
Her breath caught.
“If you’d let me finish,” he went on, jaw clenched, “I was going to say I want something that lasts. Something with weight. Something that doesn’t disappear when the lights come on.
” He paused, forehead pressing to hers. “My life isn’t something you take on without thinking about it.
It’s dangerous. It’s permanent. It comes with blood on the floor and enemies who don’t forget. ”
He drew back just enough to look at her. “So, I will give you temporary if that’s all you can see right now. I will keep you safe, respect you, and never make you feel small for it.”
“And if I want more?” she whispered.
“Then, I’ll work for more,” he said simply. “I’ll build it with you. Slow if we have to. Hard if we must.”
His thumb brushed the edge of her jaw, reverent. “Yes, we’ll fuck—because desire is honest and I won’t pretend otherwise. And when it’s right, I’ll make love to you too, because you deserve that kind of care.”
He eased his hold, giving her space without letting her go. “You get to choose, Mara. Not because I don’t want you—because I want you enough to do this right.”