Lucia
It’s dark when he finally returns. The gates announce him with their low mechanical sigh, the kind of sound you feel in your bones before you hear it. The estate shifts around it. Guards moving, radios murmuring, lights changing just a shade brighter, like the house itself recognizes him.
I’m already on my feet. I don’t remember standing up. One second, I’m sitting on the edge of Nico’s bed, smoothing his hair while he pretends not to be sleepy. The next, I’m upright, heart hammering so hard, it makes my vision blur.
“Turo?” Nico asks, hopeful, voice lifting like a question mark.
The door opens. And there he is. Alive. Breathing. Standing in the doorway with his jacket torn at the shoulder, knuckles bruised and scraped, eyes too bright with the aftermath of violence that didn’t get to take him.
For one terrifying half-second, my knees threaten to give out. Then Nico launches himself off the bed with a shout.
“Papa!”
Turo catches him without hesitation, like his body was waiting for that weight. He lifts him high, Nico’s small hands fisting in his collar, laughter spilling out of him like the world never tried to steal anything today.
“I’m home,” Turo says. “Always.”
I don’t trust my mouth yet. I press my hand to the doorframe because if I don’t touch something solid, I might dissolve.
Turo’s eyes meet mine over Nico’s shoulder. Something crosses his face. Relief, gratitude, the echo of fear that never quite makes it out of his eyes. He nods once, subtle, like we’re acknowledging a shared secret in a room full of people.
We did this.
He brings Nico back to bed like nothing happened. Like this is just another night. Another routine. Three stories, because Nico negotiates relentlessly, two songs, one extra glass of water, and a very serious inspection under the bed for monsters.
“Only pretend ones,” Nico says solemnly.
“Only pretend ones,” Turo agrees.
I stand in the doorway and watch them together, my chest tight with something that feels too big to name.
Turo crouched, checking shadows, making the abstract safe because the real danger is done for the night.
When Nico finally drifts off, guards stationed outside the door like quiet sentinels, I close it gently. Only then do I let myself breathe.
Turo doesn’t say anything. He just takes my hand and leads me out of the family wing, down the quieter corridor toward the safehouse side of the estate. His bedroom door closes behind us, solid and final, putting walls and distance between this moment and our son.
I don’t say anything. My heart is hammering in my chest, and I can feel the heat of his body as I drag him into his bedroom.
He doesn’t hesitate. There’s no slow build, no easing into this.
He’s all in, his hands on my waist, pulling me flush against him, his lips desperate, like he’s been waiting for this as long as I have.
The kiss is deep, hungry, and suddenly, I can’t think straight.
My fingers tangle in his hair, tugging him closer. I can’t get enough.
But the second I feel the heat of his body pressing against mine, something inside me snaps.
I drag him further into the bedroom with me and press him up against the wall to invade his mouth deeper with my tongue.
My hands run all over his body, and he’s feeling me as well.
His hands eagerly try to touch every inch of me, and damn it, I want to let him.
The kiss deepens, his lips and tongue claim me completely, and I’m in heaven because of it.
Fireworks are already erupting in the pit of my stomach, the butterflies growing in size and flapping wildly until I can hardly cope any longer. My knees knock together, my legs jellified, and I don’t even know how I’m holding myself up anymore.
“Come here,” Turo growls as he spins me around and presses me up against the wall face first.
I splay my palms wide, my fingers itching to grab on to anything to keep me standing, as his fingers dive into my underwear and his fingers fuck me deep. A guttural scream rises within me and explodes as he massages and explores all of me.
“Turo, oh my… God,” I cry as his thumb grazes over my clit, setting my whole body on fire. “That feels… it’s too much…”
He doesn’t stop, though. He knows I need this. I brace my forehead against the wall, my skin prickling with sweat and so sensitive, it almost hurts. His bite at the back of my neck is possessive, the scrape of his teeth a promise: I’m here, no one else gets you, not even the monsters in your head.
Without even thinking, I spin to face him, and slide down to my knees, so I’m pinned between him and the wall with his thick, throbbing cock in my face, his trousers already undone.
I don’t bother with the slow tease or coy glances.
I want him right now, to taste him, claim him, and make him need me the same desperate way.
My mouth waters, and I take him in, tongue flat as I slide down, swallowing half of him in one greedy go.
I hear the air stutter out of his lungs and feel his fingers fist in my hair, tipping my head back so he can watch my lips part, his cock painted slick with spit already.
He’s rough, but I want him to be. I want this to bruise my jaw for days, leave me marked, a phantom ache reminding me who I belong to.
I look up, make sure he sees my eyes, so he knows I want all of it, and only then does his control fray.
The lines in his neck stand out, bare and beautiful, and then he’s fucking into my mouth, gentle at first but quickly giving over to need.
My own hand is between my thighs by now, two fingers slick and shaking, and the tips are already soaked.
I want to come so bad, I can’t breathe. I rub myself in hard, frantic circles, desperate to catch up with the obscene, beautiful rhythm he’s setting with my mouth. Turo’s head falls back, jaw clenched.
“Fuck. Lucia. You don’t even know what you do to me.”
I do, actually. I never knew I could want someone so much, there’s no room for anything else, not fear, not even the memory of fear. There’s only us, tangled up in each other, both of us hunting down the edge with no intention of stopping.
He guides me, both hands in my hair now, hips bucking with shallow, needy thrusts. He holds me there, gaze searing into me, and I take every inch, every warning gasp, until I’m drooling down my chin and so close to coming, I sob into his skin.
He pulls free suddenly, thick, hands splayed across my jaw.
It’s almost brutal, the way he hauls me up, urgent and needy, and for a second we’re both breathing like we just outran a hurricane.
I don’t get a word out before he catches my mouth, hungry and raw, and I taste myself on his tongue.
His hands roam, forgetting, then remembering every inch of me.
My shirt is gone, bra somewhere on the damn floor, and his fingers knead into my sides, my hips, until I gasp, until I burn.
He wants me. He wants me so much, it’s practically violent the way he yanks my panties down in one hard jerk, the elastic snapping delicate skin. It’s like he needs to leave a trace, a mark. Proof I’m still real and still his.
There’s a heavy table at the side of the room, and my back slams into it, cold wood on hot skin.
He kisses me, deep, and then bites at my lower lip, enough to sting.
He doesn’t ask if I’m ready. He’s inside me in a single, devastating thrust, and the fill of him is blinding.
I cry out, legs hooked shamelessly around his waist, and his cock presses so deep I see stars.
For a moment, he just holds me there, trembling, forehead pressed to mine, the ragged edges of him laid bare.
We fuck like we’re trying to erase the rest of the world.
The table creaks, the room echoes with the wet slap of skin and the gasp of my name in his mouth.
His thrusts are ruthless, rocking me back and forth, making my nails rake angry red lines down his shoulders.
I need this, all of it, the raw and the ruin.
Need him to fuck the terror out of me, the memory of headlights and gunfire and the way I almost lost him.
“Turo, I…”
My voice shreds. I want to say a thousand things: I love you. Don’t ever scare me like that again. Fuck, I missed you. But all that escapes me is a ragged moan, punched straight out of me by the slam of his hips.
I dig my fingers into his hair and tug. Like if I let him go now, he might flicker out of existence, a hallucination my need conjured out of thin air.
He knows. He always fucks me like he’s reading my mind.
Like he’s cauterizing every wound I keep hidden, one thrust at a time, pounding out the bruises no one else can see.
By the time he pulls back to shoot ropes of himself across my belly, I’m already coming so hard that I don’t notice until white spatters my skin, hot and real. The sight triggers another wave, and I shudder, boneless and spent.
We collapse together, his weight pinning me to the wood, both of us sticky and panting and shaking in the dark. The adrenaline drains first, then the rest.
I can’t move. Not even when he lifts me, strong and gentle, and lays me down on the bed, covering my body with his so the whole world goes silent. Somewhere in the distance, I hear the rain start up again, soft against the glass. The lullaby Nico fell asleep to.
I want to say something, anything, but even if I could find the words, I don’t think I’d survive uttering them out loud.
Turo gathers me in, his hand warm at the back of my neck, lips in my hair. “You saved me today,” he murmurs, breath hot against my skin.
I swallow hard. “You listened,” I answer. “You trusted me.”
That’s the thing that shatters me. Not the danger. The trust. The way he changed everything because I said it was wrong. He believed me.
“I was terrified,” I whisper into the quiet.
“So was I,” he answers.
We stay like that for a long moment. Breathing hard. Foreheads touching. The aftermath still buzzing through our bodies like static that hasn’t quite discharged.
He pulls me into his chest, his hand resting at my back like it belongs there. Like it always has. I listen to his heartbeat, slow beneath my ear.
For the first time in days, my body believes we made it through. And as sleep finally takes me, wrapped in him, I understand something with quiet, unshakable clarity:
This is what survival turns into when you stop doing it alone.