Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Her breath hitched. “Of me?”
“No,” I stated immediately. “Of losing you.”
The words landed between us like something alive.
She didn’t respond right away, but when she did, her voice was softer than it had been all call. “I’ll be careful.”
“Good,” I whispered, “please do.”
“Will you?” she asked.
I glanced back toward the motel, toward the silhouettes of my brothers, toward the life that had shaped me. “I always am,” I reaffirmed.
And when we hung up, I stood there in the dark with my phone in my hand and my gut screaming one message over and over:
Someone knew.
And if someone knew, then the week of peace I tasted in her apartment was already under threat. I pulled up the feed. Her hallway was empty.
Too empty. I watched it anyway, jaw locked, mind already moving through possibilities.
Workplace comment. Saints mention. Outlaw.
That wasn’t random.
That was a probe.
And I didn’t like who might be holding the stick.
Chapter 18
Loco
I didn’t tell her I was coming.
Didn’t call. Didn’t text. Just packed a small bag, checked the bike, and pointed myself north like my body already knew the way even if my head pretended it didn’t.
DC rose up out of the road the same way it always did—hard edges, clean lines, a city that didn’t care who you were as long as you kept up. I had sworn off this place once. Told myself it was better left behind with the versions of me that had bled here.
Turns out I was wrong.
I parked a block from her building this time, killed the engine, and walked the rest of the way. Allowing the sound of traffic and footsteps and life drown out the noise in my head.
I stood at her door longer than last time.
Not because I was unsure.
Because I was aware.
Aware that this—whatever this was—had shifted. That the calls, the worry, the quiet way she’d started to take up space in my thoughts had changed something fundamental inside me.
I knocked. Footsteps. A pause. The door opened and her eyes went wide.
“Dante?” No shock this time.
Just something softer. Something warmer. Maybe even happiness.
I didn’t even get a chance to say anything before she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. Tight. Immediate. Like the decision had already been made somewhere inside her.
I froze for half a second.
Then I held her. Really held her.
Her face tucked into my chest, my chin resting on the top of her head, the city falling away again because that was what seemed to happen when she touched me. She pulled back just enough to look up at me, eyes searching, vulnerable in a way she rarely let anyone see.
“You came,” she whispered her shock.
“I did.”
She nodded once, like that settled something. “You didn’t tell me so I could get ready.” She smiled before she reached up, cupped my face, and kissed me.
No hesitation.
No testing.
Just certainty.
It hit me so hard my chest ached. I followed her inside without breaking the kiss, the door clicking shut behind us, my hands already familiar with the shape of her. The sex came easily—heat and urgency and that same deep connection that made everything else fade—but what struck me was how unguarded she was.
She didn’t hold back.
Didn’t keep one foot braced for retreat.
And somewhere between the second time we collapsed into her bed and the quiet that followed, it hit me.
I was in love with her.
Not the reckless, explosive kind that burned itself out.
The steady kind.
The kind that made you want to fix things and stay and learn the rhythms of another person’s life. The kind that made you imagine mornings and groceries and shared silence.
I didn’t say it.
Not because I was afraid.
Because I respected it too much to rush it out into the open like a challenge.
The days that followed felt normal. In the best of ways. We went to dinner at a quiet place she liked where no one paid us much attention. Sat side by side instead of across from each other. Shared bites. Talked about nothing important and everything that mattered.
We watched a movie on her couch, her feet tucked under my thigh, her head on my shoulder. She fell asleep halfway through, and I didn’t move because the weight of her there felt like something earned.
On the third morning, her dishwasher decided to flood half the kitchen.
She stood there barefoot, staring at the water creeping across the tile like it had personally betrayed her. “I don’t have time for this,” she muttered.
I smiled, rolled up my sleeves, and shut off the water.
“You don’t have to—” she started.
“I know,” I explained. “I want to.”
I spent the afternoon hauling out the old unit, mopping water, running to the hardware store like it was the most natural thing in the world. She hovered at first, then retreated to her laptop, watching me from the counter like she wasn’t quite sure how to process a man fixing something without being asked.