Page 12 of Devil Among Men

“You didn’t even think about it.”

“I don’t need to.” I fold the map, buying myself a second before I have to look at her directly. “It’s a raid on an armed port. You’re not trained for that.”

“I never said I wanted to run in with a gun. I want to help with intel. Recon. Something that uses what I’m actually good at instead of sitting here useless while you risk your life.”

“You’re not useless.”

“Then stop treating me like I am.” She crosses the room fast, closing the distance between us until she’s standing close enough that I catch the heat coming off her. “I spent years learning how to dig up information nobody wanted found. I know how to read people. I know how to spot a lie before it’s finished forming. That’s a skill, Rafael. It’s not nothing just because it doesn’t involve a gun.”

“It’s dangerous regardless.”

“Everything about this life is dangerous! You don’t get to pick and choose which parts of danger I’m allowed near. You don’t get to decide that for me.”

“I do when it’s my job to keep you alive.”

“Your job?” She laughs, short and humorless, stepping back like the word burned her. “Is that what I am to you? A job?”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Do I? Because it sure sounds like the same thing you told me back on the terrace. Managing me. Handling me,” she says. “I watched Il Diavolo’s mentor kill my parents and yours, Rafael. I’m already in this whether you like it or not. The only question left is whether I’m in it as someone useful or someone you keep locked away in a B&B like a problem you haven’t figured out how to solve yet.”

“That’s not fair.”

“None of this is fair!” She throws her hands up, frustration and fear both bleeding into her tone. “None of it was fair when I found out you were there the night my parents died. None of it was fair when our home burned to the ground. None of it’s fair that Jayla’s in a hospital bed right now because of a war I didn’t start. But I am not going to sit here folding napkins while you go get yourself killed protecting some idea of me that doesn’t actually need protecting.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking for. You’ve never seen what these men do to people who get in their way. You’ve never watched someone die because a plan went wrong in ways nobody accounted for.”

“Then teach me!” She’s right in front of me, close enough that neither of us is backing down, the air between us charged with equal parts fury and desire. “Stop deciding I can’t handle this world and start showing me how to survive in it. That’s what partners do, Rafael. Not this—this constant, exhausting battle where you get to be the only one making decisions about my life.”

“I can’t lose you,” I say. “Do you understand that? I have already lost people I loved to this life. I am not doing it again. Not you.”

Her expression shifts at that, anger morphing into confusion. “You don’t get to keep me safe by keeping me small.”

“I’m not trying to keep you small.”

“You are. Maybe not on purpose. But you are.” She reaches up, her palm resting flat against my chest, right over the place my heart’s currently slamming too hard against my ribs. “I need you to trust me the way I’m trying to trust you. Even when it’s terrifying. Especially when it’s terrifying.”

I cover her hand with mine, holding it there against my chest, neither of us moving for a long moment while the argument settles into momentary silence.

“Let me think about it,” I say finally.

“That’s what you said about telling me the truth too.” She pulls her hand back, some of the fire returning to her eyes. “Look how long that took.”

The words land harder than she probably means them to, old wounds tender enough to flare at the smallest pressure. I don’t respond, mostly because I don’t trust what’ll come out if I try.

“I have to finish planning,” I say instead, gathering the map and avoiding her eyes. “We’ll talk about your role in this after Thursday.”

“After Thursday.” She repeats it flatly, turning toward the door. “Convenient timing, Rafael.”

She’s gone before I can call after her, footsteps sharp down the narrow hallway, and I stand there alone with a folded map and the growing, uncomfortable sense that she’s not entirely wrong to be angry.

Thursday comes faster than I’m ready for.

The men load into two cars just after dark, weapons checked, faces set with the particular calm that comes right before violence, the kind you either learn or you don’t survive long enough to matter. I check my own weapon out of habit, more than actual need, my mind still circling back to Portia despite every attempt to keep it fixed on the job ahead.

She finds me by the car before I climb in, arms wrapped around herself against the evening chill.

“I’m still angry with you,” she says. “About all of it. The role thing included.”