Chapter 4 #2
His expression doesn't change, but amusement flickers in his eyes. Or approval that I'm pushing.
"You remember."
"Hard to forget a through-and-through GSW to the shoulder. Especially when I filed it as a construction accident." I hold his gaze. "So was it? Construction?"
"No."
"What were you really doing?"
"Solving a problem." He takes a sip of his coffee. "It didn't go as smoothly as planned."
"Did you solve it?"
"Eventually." His voice is flat, matter-of-fact. "The man who shot me isn't a problem anymore."
I set down my coffee and look at him directly. "Are you dangerous?"
"Yes."
The honesty catches me off guard. No deflection, no reassurance, no attempt to make me feel safe. Just yes, simple and clear, like it's a fact I should know going in.
"Should I be worried?"
"Not about me." He says it with absolute certainty, like it's a vow. "Never about me."
A dangerous man who says I shouldn't worry about him, which means I should definitely worry about him. Every instinct I have is screaming that this is exactly the kind of man Vincent used to warn me about.
I don't get up or make an excuse to leave.
Instead, I ask, "Then who should I be worried about?"
His eyes go dark. Actually dark, like something violent just moved through his thoughts.
"Anyone who tries to hurt you." He says it quietly, but there's an edge underneath that makes me believe him. "That won't happen again."
"You can't promise that."
"I can." He leans back, but the intensity doesn't ease. If anything, it gets worse. "I do."
"You don't even know me."
"I know enough."
"You know my name and where I work. Where I live because you walked me home. That's not enough."
"I know you save people." His voice drops lower.
"I know when you're short-staffed at the ER, you pick up extra shifts even when you're running on four hours of sleep.
I know you take the subway home at two in the morning instead of calling a car because you tell yourself you can't afford it, even though you can. "
I go very, very still.
"How do you know that?"
"Know what?" His expression doesn't change.
"My work schedule. How I get home."
"You just told me. You're a nurse. Nurses work long shifts." He tilts his head slightly. "And you live in Hell's Kitchen. Nobody drives in the city. Subway's the obvious choice."
It sounds reasonable. It is reasonable.
Except I never said I work overnight shifts. Never said I take the subway at two AM. Never mentioned anything about my schedule at all.
"I didn't tell you any of that."
His smile is small, knowing. Like I've passed some kind of test.
"No," he says quietly. "You didn't."
He doesn't explain. Doesn't make excuses. Just admits it.
The shift in topic is deliberate, giving me space to step back from the edge of whatever this conversation was becoming. I should push. Should demand answers.
“I’d like to see your place sometime.”
The phrasing is casual, but there's weight underneath it. An assumption that there will be a "sometime." That this isn't the last time we'll see each other.
"Maybe," I say, which commits to nothing.
"I will," he says, and there's no maybe in his voice at all.
We talk for hours, and it's easy. Too easy. He asks about my work, my neighborhood, my favorite places in the city. I ask about his family, his apartment, what he does in his free time. The conversation flows like we've known each other longer than one chaotic night and an afternoon together.
But underneath the easy flow, there's another current. An intensity that never fades. He doesn't look at me—he studies, catalogs, memorizes. He angles his body toward me, claiming space, demanding I notice him whether I want to or not.
He touches my hand once, when I'm gesturing while telling a story about a patient who came in with a potato stuck somewhere it shouldn't be. His fingers close around my wrist—not grabbing, holding. The contact is brief but deliberate, and when he lets go, the phantom pressure of his grip lingers.
"You have beautiful hands," he says quietly.
I look down at them. They're nurse's hands—short nails, dry from constant washing, a small scar on my right knuckle.
"They're just hands."
"No." His voice goes rough. "They're the hands that saved my life."
The weight of that statement settles between us.
"I just do my job."
"You didn't have to protect me. You could have reported the gunshot wound. You didn't."
"I didn't know who you were."
"You knew I was lying." He leans forward. "You knew I was dangerous. But you helped me anyway."
"I help everyone."
"Not like that. Not by lying on hospital reports. Not by risking your job." His eyes are so dark they're almost black. "You saved me, Francesca. Now let me return the favor."
"I don't need saving."
"Everyone needs saving from something." He reaches across the table and his fingers brush my cheek—so light I might have imagined it except I can feel the heat of his skin. "Let me be the one who does it for you."
My mouth goes dry. I can't find words, can't find the presence of mind to tell him this is too much, too fast, too intense.
Instead, I sit frozen, barely breathing, while his fingers trail down my jaw and fall away.
When we finally leave, the sun is already low on the horizon, casting long shadows across MacDougal Street. He walks me home again, and I let him, even though I know the way and I've walked these streets a thousand times alone.
But this time feels different. He's standing closer now than he was last night, not touching but near enough that his cologne reaches me—something clean and expensive with an edge of danger underneath.
When someone jostles past me on the sidewalk, his hand goes to the small of my back—protective, possessive, proprietary—and doesn't move away even after the threat has passed.
We stop outside my building, same as last night.
"Thank you," I say. "For coffee. And for walking me home. Again."
"I'll always walk you home." He says it like a promise and a threat all at once.
He's standing close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his body in the cold January air.
I think he's going to kiss me. The air between us crackles with expectation. I tilt my face up slightly, just in case, and hold my breath.
His gaze drops to my mouth. Stays there. His jaw clenches like he's fighting himself, and when he lifts his eyes back to mine, the hunger in them makes my knees weak.
But he doesn't kiss me.
He reaches out slowly, giving me time to pull away, and runs his thumb across my bottom lip. The touch is feather-light, reverent, and absolutely devastating.
"Not yet," he murmurs, so quiet I almost don't hear it. "When I kiss you, Francesca, you're going to be ready for it."
Then he steps back, and the absence of his heat feels like a loss.
"Goodnight, Francesca."
"Goodnight, Luca."
I watch him walk away until he turns the corner and disappears, and only then do I realize I'm shaking.
The walk up to my apartment feels longer than usual, and by the time I let myself in, my heart is pounding for reasons that have nothing to do with the stairs.
My mind is still replaying that moment outside—the way Luca looked at me, the way he touched me, the absolute certainty in his voice when he said when, not if.
I collapse on my couch, still wearing my coat.
Relief should be flooding through me—he didn't kiss me, didn't push for more, didn't try to come inside. But all I feel is the shadow of his thumb on my lip and the certainty in his voice when he said when, not if.
I kick off my boots and try to convince myself that disappointment is better than the alternative, that taking things slow is smart, that I'm being rational and careful and all the things a woman should be when she meets a man who's clearly dangerous.
It doesn't work.
I change into pajamas, wash my face, brush my teeth, and try to settle in for the night even though it's still early. I'm off tomorrow too, so there's no early shift to prepare for, no reason to force myself into bed at a reasonable hour.
I make tea. Chamomile, because it's supposed to help you sleep, though it never really works for me.
The thought makes me pause, mug halfway to my lips.
I set the tea down and look around my apartment. Everything looks normal. Same mess I left this morning, same stack of mail on the counter, same throw blanket draped over the back of the couch.
Everything seems fine but something is wrong, I’ve been getting that wrong feeling for a while if I’m honest with myself.
My pulse picks up.
I check the front door. Locked, deadbolt engaged. I check the windows. All closed, latched from the inside. The fire escape window is locked too, the old-fashioned kind that needs a key I keep on my keychain.
No one's been here. No one could have been here.
I'm being paranoid.
But then I remember the way Luca looked at me. The things he knew that I never told him. The certainty in his voice when he talked about my work schedule, my commute home.
I know when you're short-staffed, you pick up extra shifts.
I know you take the subway home at two in the morning.
How does he know that?
How does he know any of it?
I turn off the lights and climb into bed, the tea forgotten and cold on the counter. I close my eyes and try to sleep.
But the feeling that something is just slightly off, like something is wrong remains.
I remember the time I thought a book wasn’t the way I left it. Or a chair that was out of place. I tell myself it's nothing. That I'm reading into coincidences, seeing things that aren't there. That meeting Luca has made me jumpy, made me imagine threats where none exist.
I tell myself a lot of things.
But somewhere deep in my gut, beneath the rationalizations and the explanations and the desperate need to believe I'm wrong, I know.
The things he knows about me and my life. The coffee he ordered without asking. The work schedule he shouldn't know.
I pull the blanket up to my chin and stare at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of my apartment—the radiator clanking, the couple arguing upstairs, the traffic on Ninth Avenue below.
Then, as sleep claims me, I smell it. Faint. Almost imperceptible. Something I’ve smelled before in my apartment. Clean and expensive, with an edge of danger underneath.
His cologne...in my apartment.