Chapter 6 — Sienna #3
I should say something. Should acknowledge what just happened. Should process the fact that we just crossed every line and there's no going back.
But I don't want to think yet. Don't want to calculate or analyze or plan.
I just want to lie here and feel wanted and chosen and completely seen.
His fingers trace lazy patterns through my hair and down my back and I'm aware of my body pressed against his, of my soft curves against his hard lines, of the way we fit together like we were designed for this.
"You okay?" he asks quietly.
"Yes."
"I wasn't gentle."
"I didn't want gentle."
His chest moves with what might be a laugh. "Good. Because I don't think I could've been gentle if I tried. I've been wanting you too long to be anything other than what that was."
"What was it?"
"Desperate. Necessary. Real." His hand tightens in my hair slightly. "The realest thing I've felt in years."
I press closer against him and his arm tightens around me and we're quiet for another long moment.
We're quiet for a while, just breathing together, and then he says, "You never talk about your mother. Only your father."
The observation catches me off guard. "She died when I was nine. Stroke in the kitchen while she was making breakfast. One second she was there, the next she was on the floor and I was screaming for my father. She was gone before the ambulance arrived."
His hand tightens in my hair slightly. "I'm sorry."
"My father never remarried. Never brought anyone else into the house.
Just raised me himself with help from whoever he could convince to handle the practical things.
I think that's why he loves me the way he does, not because I'm his daughter but because I'm all he has left of her.
He looks at me and sees her. That makes me valuable to him in ways I can't compete with. "
I pause, feeling the old grief rise up.
"But it also means he's never seen me. Just me. He sees his daughter, his legacy, my mother's face. But he doesn't see Sienna. I've spent my whole life wanting someone to see me as just me. Not Victor Crane's daughter. Not my mother's ghost. Just me."
"I see you," Diesel says quietly. "And I don't see your father or your mother when I look at you. I just see you."
The words settle in my chest and I realize this is what I've been wanting my entire life.
To be seen.
To be wanted for who I am, not what I represent.
To matter to someone for reasons beyond utility or legacy.
"Ray said you've never wanted anything for yourself in all the years he's known you," I say quietly. "Is that true?"
He's quiet long enough that I think he's not going to answer.
"Yeah," he says finally. "It's true. I grew up in foster care.
Six different homes between seven and sixteen.
None of them were bad, but none of them were home either.
I learned early that people don't keep you unless you're useful, so I made myself useful everywhere I went.
Helped with chores, stayed quiet, didn't cause problems. It worked well enough to keep me fed and housed but it didn't make anyone want to keep me. "
He pauses and I stay quiet, letting him find the words.
"When I aged out at eighteen, I had eight hundred dollars and a GED and no one who gave a shit where I went.
Worked oil rigs for three years, saved everything, didn't attach to anyone because attachment meant loss.
Then I found Vigil and Clint asked where I was headed and I said nowhere and he said they could use someone who wasn't particular.
That was fourteen years ago. The club's been the first place I belonged since before I can remember. "
I press my palm against his chest, feeling his heartbeat. "That's why you're so good at this. At the club. At being what they need. You've been doing it your whole life."
"Yeah."
"And that's why you don't let people in. Because everyone who was supposed to keep you didn't."
"Yeah."
"I'm not going anywhere," I say. "When you come back tonight, I'll be here. And tomorrow I'll still be here. And the day after that. I'm staying."
He turns his head to look at me and I can see something vulnerable in his expression, something that looks like hope mixed with fear.
"When I get back," he says, "we're going to figure out what this is. What we are. Because I don't want to keep pretending this is just the arrangement."
"It's not the arrangement," I say. "It stopped being the arrangement the second you kissed me last night. Maybe before that."
"When?"
"When you asked what I think. When I realized no one had ever asked me that before. That's when I knew this was different. That you were different."
We're quiet for a while longer and I can hear activity downstairs getting more focused, more urgent. The raid is coming. In less than two hours, Diesel is going to leave and go do violence and I'm going to sit here terrified that he won't come back.
But right now he's here.
And that's enough.
It has to be enough.
"You should get ready," I say finally. "It's almost time."
"I know."
But he doesn't move. Just holds me closer, his hand in my hair, his heartbeat steady under my palm.
And I hold on to him and try not to think about what comes next.
I just focus on this moment.
On being here with him.
On being seen and wanted and chosen.
And that's when it hits me, quiet and certain and terrifying.
I love him.
The realization settles in my chest like something I've always known but am only now admitting. I love this man who's about to go do violence. I love this man who asked me what I think and broke something open in me. I love this man who sees me as something other than my father's daughter.
I love him.
And that's the most reckless thing I've ever done.
More reckless than documenting my father's crimes. More reckless than walking through Vigil's gate.
Because loving him means I can lose him.
Means tonight when he goes to that warehouse, I'll be here terrified.
Means I've given him the power to destroy me in ways my father never could.
But I don't regret it.
I'd make the same choice again.
Because being loved back, being seen and wanted and chosen, is worth the risk.
Even if it costs me everything.
Especially if it does.