Chapter 11
Eleven
Kon
Three days since she cried in my arms. Three days since she let me see her break.
She's been rebuilding her walls ever since, brick by careful brick, and I've been letting her because I'm not a complete idiot.
A woman who has survived what Onyx has survived needs to control the timeline of her own vulnerability.
Push too hard and she bolts and seeing her run from me is the last thing I want.
So I stand back and wait. I cook breakfast and answer her questions and pretend the sound of her crying doesn't echo through my skull at three in the morning when sleep refuses to come.
But today we formalize things. Rafael called yesterday.
Twice. The first call was business: Luca's team has mapped Seamus's shipping routes and we're ready to move on the warehouse within the week.
The second call was personal, wrapped in the careful diplomacy Rafael uses when he's about to deliver a truth I'd rather not face.
"The brothers are asking questions, Kon. About her. About you. About what exactly is happening between us."
"She's an intelligence asset under protection."
"Is that all she is?"
I hung up without answering.
This morning I set the contract on the kitchen counter beside her coffee. Massimo drew it up yesterday. Clean, professional, every clause vetted by the sharpest legal mind in Chicago's underworld.
Onyx emerges from her room and I nearly drop the spatula.
She's wearing a skirt.
In eight days, I have seen this woman in jeans, my borrowed t-shirts, and the occasional blouse buttoned to the throat.
Today she's wearing the flowing black skirt I bought for her.
It ends above her knees and caresses her curves in a way that makes my blood pressure spike.
She's paired it with a soft gray sweater, the neckline wide enough to bare one shoulder, and her dark hair falls loose past her shoulders instead of pulled up in the usual messy twist.
She chose this. From the closet I stocked for her, she deliberately chose a skirt. And from the way her blue eyes flick to my face the moment she rounds the corner, cataloging my reaction with that sharp journalist's gaze, she chose it for me.
My grip tightens on the spatula. My jaw locks.
"Morning." She slides onto the barstool and reaches for the coffee, her skirt riding up her thighs as she crosses her legs. Her eyes hold mine over the rim of the mug, a challenge flickering in the blue. "Something wrong?"
"Nyet." The word comes out rougher than I intend. My accent thickens around it, betraying me. I turn back to the stove and focus on the eggs with a concentration they don't deserve.
Her quiet laugh behind me is the sound of a woman who knows exactly what she's doing.
I slide her plate across the counter, then set the contract beside it. The stack of pages lands with a soft thud that changes the temperature of the room.
She picks up her fork. Takes a bite of eggs. Glances at the document.
"What's this?"
"A contract. Massimo drafted it. The terms of your protection and what you provide in return."
She sets down the fork and pulls the pages toward her, her brow furrowing as she scans the first paragraph.
Her fingers are steady, her posture straight, the playfulness from a moment ago replaced by the sharp focus of a woman who has spent her career reading documents designed to obscure the truth.
"Why do we need a contract?" She looks up, those blue eyes pinning me. "We've been exchanging information for over a week. You're already protecting me. I'm already giving you intel. What does putting it on paper change?"
I lean against the counter and cross my arms. "Several things."
She mirrors my posture, setting down her fork and folding her arms across her chest, one eyebrow climbing in that slow, deliberate arc that tells me she's slipping into journalist mode.
Her chin tilts up, blue eyes sharpening, the same expression she probably wears when cornering a source who's trying to dodge her questions.
"Such as?"
"Rafael is asking questions. The brothers are getting curious about what exactly is happening between us.
" I hold her gaze. "Right now, I have a woman living in my home with no formal arrangement.
To the Syndicate, that looks like a compromised operative, not a strategic asset.
The contract makes this official and eases their minds that you are not here to blow a hole in our operations. "
“And you all spent a lot of money on saving me.”
“I spent a lot of money saving you and I would do it again.”
That causes her to pause. Her lips purse into an O and for the first time my little flame has nothing to say for a moment. And then the moment passes.
Her chin lifts. "So this is about your reputation, then."
"This is about making sure no one questions whether I can do my job while you're in my bed."
The bluntness lands. Her cheeks flush, a warm pink spreading from her jaw to her cheekbones, but she doesn't look away.
"What else?"
"Right now, you have no protections beyond my word.
If I'm killed tomorrow, the Syndicate has no obligation to you.
No arrangement. No agreement. You'd be an unaffiliated civilian in a building full of men who answer to Rafael, not to me.
" I let that settle before continuing. "A signed contract binds the entire Syndicate to your protection. Not just me."
The flush fades. Her jaw tightens as she processes the implication, the reality that my protection has an expiration date shaped like a bullet.
"And the third reason?"
"The contract gives you a choice." I keep my voice level, even as the words scrape against the inside of my chest. "You can sign or walk.
You can negotiate terms, demand amendments, refuse clauses.
Right now, you're here because I brought you here.
After you sign, you're here because you chose to be. "
Silence stretches between us. The morning light slants through the tall windows and catches the steam from our coffee mugs drifting upward between us, suspended in the warmth.
"Choice." She repeats the word quietly, turning it over. Her fingers trace the edge of the contract pages. "That's a hell of a word coming from the man who bought me at auction."
"I know. But that was because it was the only way to get to you. It’s not like I had a choice if I wanted to answer your wish."
Now it’s her turn to say, “I know.” And this time there’s a humble tone to her words.
She holds my gaze for three long seconds. Then she pulls the contract closer and starts reading.
Line by line. Clause by clause. The woman reads every word the way she reads people: thoroughly, suspiciously, with an eye for what's hidden between the lines.
Good girl.
"This says I remain in your custody until the threat is eliminated." She looks up, one finger pressed against the offending clause. "Define eliminated."
"Your uncle and father are neutralized. Either imprisoned, dead, or otherwise unable to harm you."
"'Otherwise unable.' That's vague."
I lift a shoulder. "It's flexible. You know what I am, Onyx. There’s no need to dance around the truth."
"Nope. You’re not going to scare me out of getting answers. I want specifics. I’m all about details." She uncrosses her legs and leans forward, elbows on the granite, the sweater slipping further down her bare shoulder. "I want to know exactly when I'm free to go."
Ah, those specifics.
I amend the language on the contract. She finds another issue. We go back and forth, point by point, her pen scratching notes in the margins with a precision that makes my admiration war with my irritation.
I've never had anyone negotiate with me. Most people sign whatever I put in front of them because the alternative involves body bags and unmarked graves. This woman treats me as an equal, challenges every assumption, refuses every ambiguity.
It's infuriating. It's intoxicating.
"This clause about testimony." She taps the page with her pen, her brow creased, the crease deepening when she's about to argue a point she knows she'll win. "It says I testify if necessary. Who determines necessity? I didn’t think you guys would work side by side with authorities."
"I determine the necessity."
"No." The word is flat, absolute, delivered with a jaw set in stone. "We do. Jointly. I'm not a puppet, Kon. If I testify, it's because I choose to, not because you decided it's convenient. And you didn’t answer my question."
I should refuse. Every instinct I've honed over two decades of enforcing the Syndicate's will tells me to hold this line, to keep control, to never cede authority to anyone.
I look at the defiance blazing in her blue eyes, the stubborn tilt of her chin, the pen gripped in fingers that refuse to tremble.
"Fine. Joint determination. As for the authorities, when it's cleaner to let the law handle them, we do. When it's not, we handle them ourselves. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
She smiles. Small, victorious, the corners of her mouth curving in a way that reshapes her entire face and does devastating things to the space behind my ribs. She knows she won. She wants me to know she knows.
The morning turns to afternoon. I order food from the Italian place three blocks down the road.
We eat while arguing about liability clauses.
She pulls apart a piece of focaccia with her fingers and uses it to punctuate her arguments, waving olive-oil-slicked bread at me while she dismantles my position on information exclusivity.
"You're good at this," I admit, watching her tear into a clause about intellectual property rights with the same precision she brings to investigative reporting.
"I've been negotiating with powerful men my whole life." She dips the bread in oil, her expression shifting, a shadow passing across her features before she clears it. "Usually I was negotiating for my survival. This is actually refreshing."
"Refreshing."