18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Alina
Alina sat on the edge of the safe house bed, staring at the wall like it had personally offended her. It hadn't. Dante had. Well… not offended her. More like emotionally compromised her entire nervous system, which was infinitely worse.
She dragged both hands down her face. "No. Nope. Absolutely not. We are not doing this."
Doing what? her brain unhelpfully supplied.
"Falling for him."
Oh, sweetheart…
"Shut up."
She stood, pacing the room like a woman waiting for a medical diagnosis she already knew.
Because here was the problem: Dante Moretti-mafia leader, danger incarnate, walking red flag with lethal cheekbones-had held her last night like she was the only thing keeping him alive.
And her stupid heart had responded with: Yes, hello, I live here now.
She groaned. "I cannot fall for a man who has a war room."
Technically, it's more of a strategy table-
"Not helping."
She paced faster. "He kills people." Only the bad ones, a traitorous part of her mind argued. "He's dangerous." Hot. "He's emotionally unavailable." Not to you.
She stopped, pressing her palms to her eyes. "Okay, that's rude." The thought was so clear it felt like someone else had said it. She collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. "I need a plan. A plan to not fall for the man who pulled me from a trauma hole."
Laundry chute.
"Same thing." She sat up, grabbed the notebook on the nightstand, and flipped to a blank page. At the top, she wrote:
PLAN TO NOT FALL FOR DANTE MORETTI (Working title: "Save Yourself, You Idiot")
She tapped the pen against her chin.
Avoid eye contact. (He has very intense eyes. Exactly why we're avoiding them.)
No touching. (He touches you like you're breakable. Which is manipulative. Which is hot. Shut. Up.)
Remember he's a criminal. (A very organized one. Not the point.)
Do not think about his hands. (Too late.)
Focus on survival, not… whatever this is. (Trauma bonding. Gross. Accurate.)
She sighed, flopping back again. The truth was ugly and inconvenient: she liked him.
She trusted him. She felt safe with him-which was insane, because he was the least safe man she'd ever met.
And worst of all? He looked at her the way he looked at everything he wanted-already calculating the cost of having it.
Her chest tightened. "No," she whispered. "We are not doing this. We are not falling for the mafia man."
You already did.
She threw a pillow at the wall.
The door opened. She sat up so fast she got whiplash. Dante stood in the doorway. Bruised. Exhausted. Still, somehow, infuriating him.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"No," she said. "Yes. Maybe. I don't know. I'm having a crisis."
His brows drew together. "What kind of crisis?"
"The kind where you don't get to come closer."
He froze mid-step. "Did something happen?"
"Yes," she said. "You happened."
He blinked. "I… what?"
She pointed at him. "You. With your face. And your voice. And your whole… brooding protector thing. It's very distracting."
A slow, dangerous smile tugged at his mouth. "Distracting?"
"Don't you dare look pleased."
"I'm not," he said, absolutely looking pleased.
She groaned. "This is exactly what I'm talking about."
He stepped closer-slowly, carefully, like she was a wild animal he didn't want to spook. "Alina," he said softly, "you've been through hell. You don't have to figure anything out right now."
She crossed her arms. "I made a plan."
"A plan?"
"Yes. A plan to not fall for you."
He went still. Completely still. Then he said, voice low, "Is it working?"
She opened her mouth, closed it, then tried again. "No," she whispered. "It's not."
Something in his expression broke-quietly, beautifully, dangerously. He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him, but he didn't touch her.
"Then stop fighting it," he said.
Her breath caught. "I can't," she whispered. "You're… you."
"And you're you," he said. "And that's the problem?"
She swallowed hard. "I don't know how to do this."
"Neither do I."
The silence that fell between them was charged, warm, and utterly terrifying.
She looked away first, her gaze drifting to her hands-hands that had held pressure on wounds, that had charted vitals and administered meds, that had been trained to preserve life at almost any cost. I'm a healer, she thought, the identity rising up like a shield.
I fix things. I save people. I don't… I don't fall for men who end lives.
But even as she thought it, she saw Dante in the airport terminal, gun in hand, protecting her from men who would have killed her without hesitation. He was violence, yes-but violence directed, violence purposeful, violence that had kept her alive when her own goodness would have left her dead.
What does that make me? she wondered. A hypocrite? A traitor to everything I swore?
"Alina," Dante said, and she realized she'd been silent too long.
"I'm scared," she said, and the words came out smaller than she intended. "Not just of them. Of… this." She gestured between them. "I'm a nurse, Dante. I spent six years learning how to put people back together. You… you take them apart."
He didn't flinch. "I know."
"How do I reconcile that?" she asked, her voice cracking. "How do I look at myself in the mirror and know that I'm falling for someone whose hands are stained with blood?"
He stepped closer, close enough now that she could see the individual scars on his knuckles, the calluses that spoke of work and violence both. "My hands have done terrible things," he said quietly. "But they would never hurt you. And they would never hurt anyone you chose to save."
"That's not-" She stopped, shaking her head. "It's not about me. It's about who I am. Who I thought I was."
"Then who are you?" he asked, and there was no mockery in it, only genuine curiosity.
She laughed, brittle and broken. "I don't know anymore.
I used to be a good person. The one who followed the rules, who believed in the system, who thought that if you just did enough good, the world would reflect that back at you.
" She looked up at him, her eyes wet. "You shattered that.
Not by being cruel, but by being… this. By being complicated.
By saving me when the system would have let me die. "
"Is that so terrible?" he asked softly. "To learn the world is more complex than you believed?"
"It's terrifying," she whispered. "Because if I was wrong about that-if I was wrong about what goodness looks like, about who deserves saving-then what else was I wrong about?"
She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling her heart hammer against her palm.
"I'm a healer, Dante. It's not just what I do.
It's who I am. Or who I was. And now I'm here, in this world of yours, and I'm not healing anyone.
I'm just… surviving. And wanting you. And I don't know how those two things can coexist."
"They coexist," he said, "because you are still you. You defended that barista. You save lives for a living. You haven't stopped being good, Alina. You've just stopped being naive."
The words hit her like a physical blow. She felt her breath hitch, felt the tears spill over before she could stop them. "I don't want to be naive," she whispered. "But I don't want to be hard either. I don't want to be someone who can look at death and not feel it."
"You aren't," he said, and his voice was rough with emotion. "You feel everything. That's your strength. That's why-" He stopped, jaw tightening.
"Why what?"
"Why can't I stop wanting you," he finished. "Not because you're soft, or because you need protection. But because you feel things so deeply it makes me remember that I can too."
She didn't step back. He didn't either. And for the first time since the world had tilted sideways, she understood she was being hunted, she stopped calculating the exit.
"Dante," she said softly, "I'm scared."
He reached out-slow, gentle-and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "I know," he said. "But I'm not going anywhere."
Her heart betrayed her. Again.
Alina didn't realize she was shaking until Dante's hands framed her face. "Alina," he murmured, "you're trembling."
"I know," she whispered. "I can't stop."
He didn't hesitate. He slid one arm under her knees, the other behind her back, and lifted her as if she weighed nothing. She gasped, fingers gripping his shoulders. "Dante-"
"I've got you."
He carried her to the couch and lowered her gently, but she didn't let go. Her hands stayed fisted in his shirt, her breath uneven, her eyes wide and glassy. He sat beside her, their knees brushing. "Come here," he said, and it wasn't a command, but an offer.
She didn't think; she just answered the need. She shifted, pulling herself into his lap, burying her face against his shoulder. His arms wrapped around her instantly, one hand splayed across her back, the other cradling her head as if to hold her together.
Her breath hitched. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I-"
"You don't have to apologize," he said softly. "You've been holding yourself together with sheer will."
Her forehead pressed to his jaw. "I don't know how to stop."
"I do."
He shifted her gently, guiding her so she sat sideways across his lap, her legs draped over the cushions. His hands slid to her shoulders, thumbs brushing the tense muscles there. "Breathe," he whispered.
She did. Barely.
He began to work the tension from her shoulders-slow, steady pressure, his thumbs tracing the knots formed from fear and adrenaline. She exhaled shakily, her body softening under his hands.
"That's it," he murmured. "Let go."
Her head dropped forward, forehead brushing his collarbone. He continued, moving to the base of her neck, massaging the tight muscles there until her breathing evened out.
"You're good at this," she whispered.
"I've had practice," he said. "Men don't follow a leader who shakes."
She huffed a weak laugh. "So you're saying I'm a mafia boss now?"
"You survived an attack," he said. "You hid in a metal chute. You kept your head. You're stronger than half the men I've trained."
Her chest tightened-not from fear this time, but from something warm and dangerous. He tilted her chin up gently. "You're here. You're alive. And I'm not letting anything take you from me."
Her eyes softened. "Dante…"
He leaned in-slow, deliberate-giving her every chance to pull away. She didn't.
Their lips met in a kiss that wasn't frantic or hungry. It was grounding. Steady. A promise pressed into skin. Her fingers slid into his hair, holding him close, not out of desire but out of relief-like she needed the contact to believe he was real.
He kissed her again, slower this time, his hand cupping her jaw, his thumb brushing her cheekbone. When he pulled back, her forehead rested against his.
"You're safe," he whispered. "I've got you."
Her voice trembled. "Don't let go."
"I won't."
He shifted her again, laying her gently back against the couch cushions while staying close, his body angled over hers protectively. His hands moved to her upper arms, then her shoulders, then her back-slow, soothing strokes that melted the last of the tension from her muscles.
Her breathing steadied. Her eyes fluttered. Her body finally relaxed. And for the first time since the attack, she stopped shaking.
Dante brushed a soft kiss to her temple. "Rest. I'm right here."
She curled into him, her hand resting over his heart. And he stayed like that-holding her, grounding her, keeping her safe-long after she fell asleep.
—---
She was halfway to the kitchen when the sound of Dante's voice stopped her. It wasn't the words, but the tone itself-a low, frayed fury she'd never heard from him before-that made her press herself into the shadows of the hallway.
Then came Luca's voice, sharp and clear through the cracked door: "You're in love with her."
The accusation hung in the air. A beat of silence followed-a silence so heavy, so full of an answer, it was louder than a confession. Her stomach dropped, a cold, plummeting weight. She pressed a hand to the wall, steadying herself.
He loves me, she thought, and the knowledge felt like both a gift and a death sentence. He loves me, and I'm a nurse who took an oath to do no harm, and he's a man who harms as a matter of course. How does that work? How do we work?
She thought of the patients she'd lost, the ones she'd saved, the way she'd held strangers' hands as they crossed from one world to the next.
She thought of Dante's hands-capable of such violence, yet so gentle when they touched her.
The contradiction felt impossible, a paradox that threatened to tear her in two.
I'm a healer, she thought again, but this time the words felt different. Less like a wall, more like a question. What does a healer do when the world is broken? When the system fails? When the only way to save someone is to accept the darkness that protected them?
She didn't have an answer. She wasn't sure she ever would.
She stepped back quietly, returning to the bedroom before either man saw her. She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. "Don't fall for him," she whispered to herself.
Her heart didn't listen.