Chapter 2 - Tomas #2
But I won't. I have more restraint than that. The same restraint that keeps me from making certain calls. The same restraint that will get me killed if my family finds out she's still breathing.
"Your reality," she says, and her voice is softer now, almost sad. "You choose to stay with them. You choose to be their weapon."
I plate the eggs, add bacon, slide it across to her with enough force to make the porcelain ring. "Eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"I wasn't asking." I lean across the counter, close enough to see her breath catch. "You're under my roof. That means you follow my rules. First rule: you eat when I tell you to eat."
She picks up the fork, but her eyes stay on me, defiant even in compliance. "Why did you save me?"
The question catches me off guard. I could lie, give her some story about family honor or practical concerns. Instead, I tell her something closer to truth. "Maybe I'm tired of watching people die."
Something flickers in her expression. For just a moment, she looks at me like I'm a person instead of a problem to solve. Like she sees past the Rosetti name to something else. Something that might be worth saving.
Then she takes a bite of eggs and the moment passes.
We settle into an uncomfortable rhythm at the breakfast bar, the wind howling outside, shaking the windows with each gust. She hums while she eats.
"Silent Night" again, the melody threading through the tension between us.
Every time she hums that particular carol, something shifts in my chest. Like remembering what innocence felt like, before I learned to load a gun at twelve.
"Got any films in this giant cabin? Something to pass the time?" she asks.
I hold back my smirk. That question sounds a lot like her giving in. "Sure. Put on a Christmas movie, get in the mood. We've got Elf, The Santa Clause, Die Hard—"
"'Die Hard' is not a Christmas movie," she says.
I glance at her, scowling. "It takes place on Christmas Eve."
"That doesn't make it a Christmas movie." Her voice rises with passionate conviction. "By that logic, any movie that happens near a holiday is a holiday movie."
"A man fights impossible odds to reunite with family. Sounds like Christmas to me." I let my gaze travel over her deliberately. "Though McClane had it easy. His wife actually wanted saving."
Color floods her cheeks. "I don't need saving."
"No?" I move around the counter, stop just outside her personal space.
"You broke into a safe house in a blizzard.
You're trapped here with someone you consider a dangerous criminal.
Your car's buried, phone's dead, and the only person who knows you exist right now is me.
" I lean in, close enough to feel her breath on my face.
"Sounds like you need all kinds of saving, prosecutor. "
"From you or by you?" The question escapes before she can stop it, and we both freeze.
The air between us crackles with something that has nothing to do with danger and everything to do with the way her lips part, the way she's looking at me right now like she can't decide if she wants to run or reach for me.
I step back first, needing distance before I do something irreversibly stupid. "Finish your breakfast."
That night, after a day of careful avoidance and verbal sparring, we face the bedroom situation.
The others are under construction, plastic sheeting and exposed drywall making them uninhabitable.
The couch is a narrow torture device designed by someone who hated comfort, although that didn't stop me from insisting on sleeping there last night. Not a mistake I’ll make again.
"The bed is huge," she says, standing in the bedroom doorway wearing a pair of my sweatpants and another borrowed shirt. "We can share without it being… anything."
This violates every rule I've made for myself. Sharing a bed with the enemy. Leo would put a bullet in my head if he knew. Dom would handle it more quietly, but the result would be the same. The Rosettis don't forgive betrayal, even from blood. Especially from blood.
"That's a terrible idea."
"As opposed to you destroying your back again on that couch? I'm definitely not sleeping on it." She's already pulling back the covers on one side. "Look, separate sides, separate blankets if necessary. I promise not to steal all the covers."
When she slides under the blankets, claiming her territory, something primitive in me refuses to retreat to the couch. Like my body recognizes what my mind won't admit.
"Stay on your side," she says firmly, building a wall of pillows down the middle of the bed.
"Same to you."
We lie rigid as boards, two people determinedly not touching in a bed built for intimacy. The wind continues its assault on the windows, and somewhere in the darkness, I hear the crack of a tree branch breaking under the weight of snow.
"For the record," she says to the ceiling, "this doesn't mean I'm accepting this situation."
"Noted for the record."
"And tomorrow, I'm finding a way out."
"You're welcome to try."
"Stop being so smug about it."
"Stop being so predictable about it."
She huffs, turns on her side facing away from me. "Goodnight, kidnapper."
"Goodnight, prosecutor."
Hours pass. I track her breathing as it gradually deepens into sleep. She shifts, makes small sounds, turns toward the center of the bed despite her earlier declarations about boundaries. The pillow wall she built crumbles as she moves.
Then she whispers my name.
"Tomas."
Not Rosetti. Not kidnapper. My actual name, soft and unconscious in her sleep.
I stay perfectly still, but something cracks in my chest. She murmurs it again, her hand sliding across the sheets as if searching for something. For someone.
For me.
Dom and Leo already think she knows too much.
That's why Leo wanted her dead. If they knew she was here, alive in my bed, they'd expect me to handle it.
One call to confirm the roads are clear, then silence.
That's what family loyalty demands. Instead, I'm lying here memorizing her breathing, planning ways to keep her longer.
The Santoses want blood. Mine, specifically.
And here I am, harboring the one person who could destroy us all.
Her hand finds mine in the darkness, fingers curling around my palm like she's anchoring herself. Still asleep, still unconscious, but holding on like I'm the only solid thing in a storm.
Three more days of this. Three more days of her defiance and arguments about Christmas movies. Three more days of wanting what I shouldn't want. Three more days before I have to choose between family and… No, there is no choice. I will always choose family.
Tomorrow I'll reassert control. Tomorrow I'll remember she's the enemy.
Tonight, I listen to her whisper my name and accept that I'm completely, irrevocably fucked.