Page 53 of Wicked Mafia Beast
"I'll hold you to that." She shifts against me, her cheek finding the flat plane of my chest, settling over my heartbeat. Her fingers continue tracing, following the lines of wire down to my hip, then back up to the cluster of roses over my heart. "Do the others have tattoos like this?"
"My brothers? Da. Each of us has our own marks. Different stories. The only one we share is the viper. It’s the mark of our brotherhood." I raise my right hand and gesture to the head ofthe viper settled over the back of my hand and its body hidden among the roses and wire.
She traces the head as she asks, "But you all carry the same pain underneath? Is that what ties you together?"
I tighten my arm around her.
"You see too much, ??????."
"Occupational hazard." Her voice is getting drowsy, the words softening at the edges. "Kon?"
"Mm."
"I lied. Every time I said this doesn't change anything. Every time I walked away and pretended it didn't matter."
My chest goes still. "I know."
"Of course you do." A sleepy exhale against my skin. "Infuriating man."
"I should go." The words slip out on a drowsy exhale, barely formed, the kind of truth that only surfaces when the body is too tired to guard the mouth. She's not talking about the bed. Her fingers curl against my chest, gripping the ink over my heart. "This whole thing, Kon. The Foundry. The deal. You. I should leave before..."
She trails off, but I hear the rest in the way her voice fractures.Before I can't anymore. Before leaving you destroys me the way staying destroyed my mother.
"Stay."
"That's not..." Her fingers still against my ribs. "That's not smart. None of this is smart."
"I know. Stay anyway."
A beat. Two. Her body softens against mine, the last of the tension draining from her muscles, and her breathing deepens. Her palm presses flat over my heartbeat, warm and steady, holding on even as sleep pulls her under.
I lie awake long after her breathing evens out. The moonlight moves across the ceiling in slow, silver arcs. Her weight against my side is slight, but the gravity of it pins me to this bed more effectively than chains.
Her face in sleep is different. Younger. The sharp edges soften, the sardonic armor dissolves, and underneath is just a woman. Exhausted. Brave. More alone than anyone I've ever known.
I trace the curve of her spine with one finger, following the ridge of bone from the nape of her neck to the small of her back. She shivers but doesn't wake. Her lips part on a soft exhale and she burrows closer, pressing her face deeper into my chest.
The words rise in my throat before I can stop them. Too soon. Too dangerous. Too real.
I say them anyway.
"? ???? ?????." I love you.
The words leave my lips and the darkness swallows them whole, burying my confession beneath the hum of brick walls and the silver wash of moonlight and the steady rise and fall of her breathing. She doesn't stir. Doesn't hear the truth I just handed to the night because I'm not brave enough to hand it to her.
Not yet.
But the truth settles into my bones with the weight of certainty.
I press my lips to the top of her head and close my eyes.
I'm in trouble. So much trouble.
Dawn creeps through the windows in pale gold. She stirs against my chest, her body tensing as consciousness returns, registering unfamiliar warmth and the solid wall of muscle beneath her cheek.
Her eyes open. Find mine.
For one breath, she doesn't run. For one breath, she looks at me with those blue eyes, unguarded and searching, and the rawness in her expression strips me down to the foundation.
