18. Kara
Kara
My left side still throbs if I laugh too hard or twist my torso too fast, but three weeks of recovery have turned the sharp, blinding pain into a manageable ache.
I sit at my kitchen counter with my laptop open, three color-coded folders spread out over the laminate.
The morning sun cuts through the blinds, casting warm, even lines across my legal pads.
I’m reviewing the updated corporate disclosures for Antonio Rossi’s secondary transport accounts, looking for the final signature thread that connects his dock leases to Vincenzo’s holding companies.
A ceramic mug is set down on the counter right next to my elbow.
I don't look up from my screen. "I already had a cup of tea twenty minutes ago, Leander."
"That was green tea," Leander replies, stepping into my line of sight. He’s wearing a Henley with the sleeves pushed up past his forearms, his jaw freshly shaved, his hair still damp from the shower. "This is chamomile. Drink it."
"I don't want chamomile," I tap my pen against the pad. "I want to finish cross-referencing these clearance numbers."
Without asking, Leander reaches out, hooks two fingers around the edge of my laptop screen, and gently tilts it down forty-five degrees until the display goes dark.
I freeze, my pen hovering an inch above the paper. I look up into his eyes.
"You've been staring at that screen for three hours," he mutters, his voice carrying that low, immovable tone he uses on uncooperative post-op patients. "Your posture is slouched, which compresses your sixth rib. Take a sip."
He's been watching me from the living room doorway for twenty minutes.
"I am fine," I tell him, keeping my tone smooth and level. "My ribs are fine. My posture is fine. And you are hovering."
"I'm monitoring," Leander corrects smoothly. He pulls the high wooden stool out from across the counter, sits down, and rests his broad forearms on the surface. "Your doctor said light activity. Reading financial fraud filings for four hours straight is not light activity."
"My doctor is an ER attending who gives me ice packs and lets you dictate my schedule," I remind him, leaning back against the leather seat. "And my doctor's boss happens to be a grumpy trauma surgeon who checks my pulse every time I sneeze."
A tiny, almost imperceptible shift touches the corner of Leander's mouth, though his face remains a mask of cold discipline. He reaches across the counter, his warm hand cupping the side of my neck. His thumb presses lightly against my pulse point, counting the beats out of sheer habit.
"Seventy-four," he mutters softly. "A little high."
"It's high because you closed my laptop while I was in the middle of a paragraph," I say, leaning into his touch despite my words.
His palm stays against my skin for a while before he pulls his hand back. He reaches into the pocket of his trousers, pulls out a thick manila envelope, and slides it across the laminate until it rests right on top of my legal pads.
I look at the envelope. It’s unmarked, sealed with a plain red string.
He didn't bring that from the hospital.
"What's this?" I ask, my eyes flicking back up to his face.
"Plane tickets," Leander mumbles. "And a deed for a private residence in Vermont. The house sits on forty acres, six miles outside a town called Bennington. It belongs to a retired vascular surgeon I worked under in Boston. Nobody in this city knows the address."
The casual hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen suddenly feels very loud. I don't touch the envelope. I sit still, my back straight, my mind instantly calculating the trajectory of his thought process.
"Why am I looking at a deed for a house in Vermont, Leander?" I ask.
"A car is picking you up at six o'clock tonight," Leander tells me, his voice steady, measured, and absolute. "Julian is driving you to the private airfield in Teterboro. You'll be in Vermont by nine."
I stare at him. He planned this a while ago, didn’t he?
"No," I say simply.
Leander's brow knits together slightly, his jaw tightening. "Kara. It's not a debate."
"It is a debate," I correct, resting my forearms on the counter, matching his posture. "Because it's my life, and you don't get to ship me out of state like an inconvenient piece of evidence."
"It's not about shipping you out," Leander argued, his tone hardening just a fraction.
"Vincenzo is desperate. After what happened at the council meeting three weeks ago, Roberto stripped him of his dock oversight.
Half the capos are refusing to take his calls, and the other half are waiting for him to make a mistake so they can take his territory. "
"And?"
"And a cornered animal doesn't care about rules," Leander whispered softly, his eyes locking onto mine with a dangerous intensity. "He knows he can't hit me directly. He knows if he comes to my condo or my floor at the hospital, I'll put him in the ground. So he's going to look for another angle."
I look down at the envelope, then look straight back into his eyes.
"You're waging a war right now, aren't you?" I ask quietly.
Leander nods.
"And this war..." I pause, letting the words hang in the quiet space between us. "It's because of me, isn't it?"
Silence settles over the kitchen. Leander stays perfectly still, his shoulders squared, his expression unreadable to anyone else. But I see the subtle, microscopic tension in his jaw, the guilt he's been carrying since the night he found me bleeding in that alleyway.
"Yes," Leander nods again. "It is."
Oh, my sweet boy.
"That's where you're wrong, Dr. Sartori," I tell him with certainty.
Leander frowns. "Kara—"
"Antonio made the betrothal arrangements before I ever bumped into you outside the hospital lobby," I tell him, leaning forward until our faces are barely apart. "My father built this cage for me fifteen years ago. You didn't start this fire, Leander. You just gave me the match to burn it down."
"It doesn't matter who started it," Leander’s voice drops into a low, rough register.
"What matters is that people are going to get hurt before it finishes.
I am hitting his distribution warehouses tomorrow night.
I am freezing his off-grid accounts, and I am making sure Don Roberto has no choice but to exile him permanently. "
"Then you need me here," I reply.
"I need you safe," he growls, his hands clenching into loose fists against the counter. "I need to know that while I am dealing with my father's men, nobody is walking up your steps with a weapon. I can't focus if I'm worried about you."
"I don't need you to worry about me," I tell him, my chin going up. "I need you to focus on the fight while I handle the legal execution."
"Kara, listen to me—"
"No, you listen to me," I interrupt, my tone carrying a razor-sharp weight that stops him cold. "I spent two years running away from Antonio Rossi. I took student loans, I worked sixty hours a week in a basement office, and I lived in a cold apartment just to prove I didn't belong to his world."
I reach out, taking the manila envelope from the counter, and toss it neatly into the small trash bin beside the fridge.
The thud of the paper hitting the bottom of the bin echoes through the room.
Leander watches the envelope fall, then looks back at me, his eyes wide and dark with a mix of disbelief and rising anger.
"I am not running away again," I say, my eyes locked onto his without a fraction of hesitation. "Not to Vermont, not to a safe house, and certainly not because Vincenzo Moretti thinks he owns me."
"This isn't about running, Kara!" Leander snaps, his composure breaking just enough for his voice to crackle with raw, unvarnished fear. "This is about keeping you alive! If anything happens to you—"
"If anything happens to either of us, we deal with it together," I cut him off, my voice dropping into a quiet, absolute register that leaves no room for debate.
"I am your partner, Leander. I am not a patient you need to discharge, and I am not a liability you need to hide in the woods while you do the dirty work. "
Leander stares at me, his chest rising and falling in heavy cycles.
"You're stubborn," Leander mutters, dragging a hand over his face, his fingers catching his jaw.
"I'm logical," I correct smoothly. "If I go to Vermont, Antonio knows I'm isolated.
He tracks my vehicle, he finds the property, and I become a target in an empty county with no one to come to my aid.
If I stay here at Metro General, I have state jurisdiction, three federal audit filings ready to launch, and the chief of trauma surgery sleeping in my bed. "
Leander lets out a short, quiet breath through his nose, a sound that is half a scoff and half a defeated sigh.
Leander looks down at his hands on the counter, then looks back up into my eyes, his eyes revealing the deep, fierce devotion underneath.
He stands up from the stool, steps around the counter, and stops right in front of my chair.
I look up at his frame as he reaches down, catching my face in both of his hands. His thumbs brush gently across my cheekbones, his touch reverent, careful, and intense.
"You're going to give me a stroke before I turn forty, Rossi," he whispers, his raspy voice vibrating in the quiet kitchen.
"You're a doctor," I murmur back, reaching up to wrap my fingers around his wrists. "You can write yourself a prescription."
Leander slowly lowers his head, resting his forehead against mine. I can feel the heat radiating off his skin, the grounding rhythm of his breath mingling with mine.
"If you stay," Leander whispers, "you stay close to me. No late shifts alone in the administrative wing. No walking to your car without me or Julian beside you. And if I tell you to step behind me, you don't argue."
"I can agree to those terms," I reply, my eyes holding his. "Provided you stop closing my laptop while I'm working."
A genuine smile touches the corner of Leander's mouth.
"Deal," he nods.
He leans down and kisses me and I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling his shoulders down, letting the weight of him ground me completely.
When he pulls back half an inch, his eyes stay fixed on mine, his thumb softly tracing my lower lip.
"I'm not letting anyone take you, Kara," Leander says quietly. "I spent years running from my family and what they do. But I'll burn this whole city down before I let them touch you again."
I reach up, cupping his jaw, my thumb softly brushing across his stubble as I look straight into his eyes.
"I know you will," I whisper, my voice steady and full of unshakeable devotion. "And I'm not going anywhere, Leander. I love you."
"I love you, Kara," he whispers softly, his breath warm against my cheek. He rests his forehead against mine once more. “So much.”
My home.