Chapter 9 #2
"You want to leave." His voice drops an octave. It is not a question. It is a fatalistic conclusion. He expects everyone to leave.
I grab his face in both of my hands. My palms press against his rough, scraped cheeks. I force his eyes to meet mine.
"Are you stupid, or just temporarily concussed?" I snap.
He blinks. He is genuinely stunned.
"I just told you I hate variables." I drag my thumbs across his high cheekbones. "I hate chaos. I hate the mafia. I hate the fact that you own a building specifically designed to withstand a siege."
He waits. His lungs expand against my stomach.
"But I hate the idea of walking out that door without you even more." The truth spills out of me, raw and terrifying. "You lied to me about why they came to my clinic. You tried to manage me. You tried to keep me in the dark because you thought I would run if I saw the monster in the closet."
"You should run." He whispers the words against my wrist. The confession costs him everything. His instinct screams to hold me, but his twisted sense of honor demands he give me an out.
"I don't run." I glare at him fiercely. "I rebuilt my clinic on the same block after the fire. I stared down the insurance companies. I stared down the arson investigators. Do you really think a few tattoos and a bad attitude are going to scare me away?"
A dangerous heat sparks in the depths of his brown eyes, roaring back to life, fueled by my stubborn refusal to act like a victim.
"You gave me this keycard." I pick the plastic up off the counter.
I tap it against his bare chest, right over his heart.
"This means I get real access. No more lies of omission.
No more locking me in a safehouse while you go play Batman with live ammunition.
If I am in this, Nico, I am all in. I'm not a hidden hostage. I'm your partner."
He surges upward, the metal stool scraping violently against the linoleum. He catches my waist, lifting me off the floor until my toes dangle in the air. He presses my spine firmly against the edge of the refrigerator, trapping my frame completely.
"Partner." He tests the word like a foreign concept. He has been alone in this for two decades. The family points him at a target, and he fires. He has never had someone stand beside him in the trenches.
"Yes. Partner." I brace my hands on his wide shoulders. "Which means you tell me everything. You tell me what affects my clinic, my safety, and the people around me. No more half-truths."
A rough laugh tears out of him. He buries his face in the crook of my neck. His hot breath skates across my collarbone, sending a shiver down my spine.
"You're a terrifying woman, Priya Sharma." He presses an open-mouthed kiss against my pulse point.
"I'm a woman who knows her worth." I slide my fingers into his dust-coated hair. The soft strands contrast with the harshness of his existence. "You chose me. You brought me into this. Now you have to deal with the consequences."
He lifts his head. The darkness in his eyes shifts into primal devotion. He looks at me like I am the only fixed point in his chaotic universe. He looks at me like a man who just found his religion.
"I accept the consequences." He crowds me closer. The ridge of his arousal presses against my stomach through the shirt. He makes no effort to hide his need. He wants me to feel exactly what this conversation is doing to his restraint.
"Good." I swallow. My professional focus slips under the heat of his body. "Now, show me the war room."
He freezes. "What?"
"The war room." I point down the hall toward the glowing blue monitors. "You’ve been tracking half the South Side from this apartment. I want to see it. I want to see the armory you destroyed. I want to see the board."
Nico studies my face for a long, agonizing moment. He is searching for hesitation. He is waiting for the trauma to resurface. He finds nothing but pure, unadulterated resolve.
He sets me down on the floor. His hands slide slowly down my arms, a reluctant retreat. He takes a step back, opening the path to his inner sanctum.
"Follow me."
I walk behind him. He is no longer dragging me along. He is inviting me in. We cross the threshold into the fortified secondary bedroom.
The room is a masterpiece of paranoia. Six monitors cover the far wall. Surveillance feeds show every angle of the safehouse, the street, the alleys, and my clinic. Deeply invasive, profoundly comforting. He mapped my existence because he could not bear losing me.
A metal desk dominates the center of the room. Tactical gear, encrypted phones, and weapons cover the surface. A corkboard stands in the corner, covered in architectural blueprints, shipping manifests, and photographs of Bellanti soldiers. Red strings connect the targets.
This is his mind. The chaotic, violent landscape he navigates every day.
I step past the desk. I stand in front of the monitors. The bottom right screen shows the smoking ruins of the building adjacent to my clinic. Firetrucks surround the lot. Police tape blocks the street. The outer level of the Bellanti armory is a smoking wreck.
He did that to the outer level in the span of a few hours. He became a monster to buy me one more morning of safety.
Nico stands silently behind me. He doesn't offer excuses. He doesn't apologize for the violence on the screen. He waits for my judgment.
The choice crystallizes. The fear evaporates, replaced by a fierce, undeniable claiming instinct. I am tired of running. I am tired of being afraid of the shadows. Nico Costa is the darkest shadow in Chicago, and he just handed me a way inside.
I reach into my pocket. I pull out the black keycard. I hold it up to the harsh blue light of the monitors. The Costa crest gleams.
I don't have to stay here. I have money. I have a car. I have the intelligence to vanish. I could walk out of this safehouse right now, and he would let me go. He would follow me in the shadows, guarding my door for the rest of my life, but he would never force me to stay.
I choose to stay.
Not because I have nowhere else to go. Not because I’m trapped by circumstances. I stay because this terrifying, tattooed man is the first place that has ever felt like it was built specifically for me. He carved out a fortress in the middle of a war zone just so I could sleep soundly.
I turn around to face him.
Nico stands rigid, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The raw vulnerability on his face is devastating. He looks like a man bracing himself for me to walk away.
I slide the black keycard securely back into the breast pocket of his oversized tactical shirt that I'm wearing. I press my hand flat over the pocket, securing the heavy plastic directly against my beating heart.
I take a deliberate step toward him.
He exhales a ragged, broken breath.
I take another step. I close the distance. I walk right back into his space on my own terms. I slide my arms around his waist, resting my cheek against his scarred skin. His heart thunders wildly against my ear.
"Show me how the cameras work." I murmur the demand against his skin.
Nico's arms wrap around me instantly. He crushes me to his chest. He buries his face in my hair, inhaling me like oxygen. The tension in his muscles finally breaks, replaced by unshakeable possession. The monster is mine. And I’m his.