“Take the long way,” I say, not looking up. “She needs time.”
Lucy laughs then, eyes wild. “You’re acting as if you missed me.”
“I did,” I admit, and it’s the first truth I’ve spoken in days.
She’s quiet for a stretch, fingers playing over the buttons of my shirt. “Thank you for not asking what I told them.”
I tilt her chin up so she has to look at me. “You’d never betray me,” I say. “I’d bet both my guns on it.”
Her eyes shine, wet for a second. Then she nods, pushes a hand to my face, and says, “Next time, let’s get arrested together.”
I smile, for real this time, and press her tight to my chest as the car snakes through the city. Every turn is a small violence against the world that tried to keep her from me.
When we reach the bridge, she’s asleep on me, breathing steadily. But I keep watch over her until we’re truly safe, back at my penthouse with the door locked, lights low, and no ghosts in the hall.
I carry her to bed, lay her down, and for the first time, let myself believe I might be more than the monster her father says I am.
That maybe, I am the only shelter she's got.
She wakes before dawn. I feel it before I see it, a shift in the covers, a breath too sharp for sleep. I roll over and find her at the edge of the bed, knees pulled to her chest.
She draws little circles on her knee, focusing somewhere outside the bedroom window. “What if they try again?”
“Then next time, they won’t find you. Let them come for me.” I lean forward and press my lips to her shoulder. “I’ll burn down every federal building in this city if they even breathe wrong.”
Lucy shivers, but it isn’t fear. It’s something deeper, a need that comes from knowing I would destroy the world for her.
She tilts her face to mine. “You can’t protect me from everything, Ale.”
“Watch me,” I say. And I mean it.
We don’t leave the apartment that day. She paces, reads, tries on every robe in my closet, and leaves lipstick prints on every mug in the kitchen. For lunch, we eat charred pizza on the terrace, hidden from every angle but the sky above.
Hours later, as the city's million lights shimmer like fallen stars beneath us, she wraps her slender arms around my waist, her fingertips cold against my abdomen. Her voice is small butsteady when she asks, "If my family comes here, will you let them in?"
"If you want me to," I say, feeling her exhale against my skin.
She shakes her head, hair sliding like silk across my chest. She presses her lips—soft, warm, slightly chapped—to the rough stubble along my jaw. "I never want to see them again. Not unless they accept my decisions. They were never worried about my safety. They're worried how scandal might affect their precious bottom line, their stock prices, their country club memberships."
It’s only later, when she finally falls asleep, her lashes dark against her cheeks, that I let the anger return. I pace the living room’s marble floor, my reflection moving across the windows. I repeat her father’s name in my mind, feeling its bitterness. The old man won’t stop, not while he’s alive or has money hidden away, not while his daughter, his property, sleeps in my bed.
It will not be enough to threaten. It has to be absolute.
Enzo meets me in the service elevator at 4 a.m., briefcase in hand. I don’t say a word. He knows what I want.
Enzo's eyes glint like obsidian in the dim elevator light. "We'll send a message," he says, voice a low rasp against the mechanical hum. "Something they can't ignore."
I nod, feeling the weight of my wedding band against my finger. "Make it biblical."
He cracks a smile, teeth sharp in the shadows. "Old or New Testament?"
"Both," I say, the word heavy between us. I head back upstairs, my shoes quiet on the marble.
Tomorrow, her father will wake to find his empire destroyed, his luck gone. Tomorrow, every man who left even the smallest bruise on her will know fear and regret.
Tonight, I just hold her in my arms, her breath warm on my chest, her heartbeat steady against me. Tonight, that’s enough.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN