Chapter 32

• The air smelled of sweat, gunpowder, and something indefinably sharp—like danger itself still clung to the walls.
• Kieran lay awake, the thin sheet twisted around her legs, her body deliciously sore, her mind racing. Isandro’s steady breathing against her bare shoulder was both comforting and unsettling. How had they gotten here?
• Enemies. Rivals. Lovers.
• She turned her head, studying him in the soft dawn light. The mask he always wore the cold, ruthless mafia king had slipped while he slept. In its place was something startlingly human. Vulnerable, even. His dark lashes fanned against high cheekbones, and his usually hard jaw was relaxed, peaceful.
• She should’ve felt regret. Or at the very least, fear.
• But instead, her heart squeezed in her chest.
• Isandro shifted, as if sensing her stare, and his eyes fluttered open black and fathomless, but softened in this quiet moment. His arm tightened reflexively around her waist, pulling her closer.
• “Morning,” he murmured, voice gravel-thick.
• Kieran’s lips twitched. “Barely.”
• Neither of them moved to get up. The weight of what had happened the night before what they’d done, what they’d become hovered over them like the gun resting on the nightstand.
• Finally, he spoke again. “We can’t pretend this changes nothing.”
• “No,” she agreed quietly, her fingers tracing the curve of his shoulder, down to the inked scars along his bicep. “It changes everything.”
• His hand slid up her side, slow, deliberate, until it rested just beneath her breast. “And yet,” he whispered against her throat, “I still want more.”
• Heat coiled low in her belly, but Kieran forced herself to focus. “Isandro… we can’t lose our heads.”
• His lips brushed her pulse point. “Too late for that.”
• The stillness shattered when Kieran sat up, pulling the sheet across her chest. “Last night doesn’t erase what we’re walking into.”
• Isandro sighed, scrubbing a hand through his dark hair. The ink on his arm rippled with the motion. “I know. But it changes the way I fight for you.”
• Her breath caught. No one had ever fought for her before not really. She was used to standing alone, used to betrayal. But the way he looked at her now like she was something worth bleeding for unsettled her more than any rival’s bullet.
• “You barely know me,” she whispered.
• “I know enough,” he murmured. “Enough to risk it.”
• A knock sharp, precise snapped both their heads toward the door.
• The moment shattered. Isandro was up instantly, grabbing his gun from the nightstand. Kieran followed, adrenaline cutting through the haze of intimacy as she reached for her discarded jeans and knife.
• The door creaked open to reveal Matteo, Isandro’s second-in-command, his face grim.
• “They moved,” Matteo said. “Nero’s crew. They’re setting the trap sooner than expected.”
• Isandro’s expression hardened. “How soon?”
• “Tonight.”
• Kieran swore under her breath. Nero the rival capo who’d been hunting both of them was making his move. And if they weren’t ready, neither of them would survive the night.
• Isandro’s eyes met hers dark, steady, unflinching. “We end this. Together.”
• She gave a tight nod, gripping the hilt of her knife. “Together.”
• The safehouse transformed into a war room.
• Weapons spread across the table: pistols, knives, extra magazines, a sniper rifle polished to lethal perfection. Kieran adjusted the sight on her Glock, the repetitive motion doing little to steady the pounding in her chest.
• Across from her, Isandro spoke in low, clipped tones to Matteo and a pair of his trusted men. His voice usually smooth, commanding carried the tension of the impending fight.
• Kieran kept her hands busy, but her eyes betrayed her, flickering to Isandro more often than she wanted to admit. The man who’d once been her enemy, the man who’d stolen her breath and her loyalty in the same night, now stood ready to kill for her. With her.
• And she was terrified not of death. But of losing him before she had the chance to figure out what this… what they really were.
• He approached when the others drifted to their positions. Without words, he offered her the black holster she’d set aside. She let him help her strap it across her chest, their bodies brushing, his fingers brushing the inside of her wrist.
• The bruises there marks from last night’s shared fury and desire caught his eye. His expression darkened.
• “Too rough?” he asked softly.
• “No,” she murmured. “I liked it.”
• His breath hitched. For a moment, time stilled. His hands paused on the buckle of the holster, his eyes raking over her face as if memorizing it.
• Then he leaned in, his voice barely audible. “Don’t die on me tonight, Kieran.”
• She lifted her chin. “You first.”
• The plan was simple. Dangerous, but simple.
• Lure Nero’s men to the docks, cut them off before they could strike the cartel’s shipment, and end the threat permanently.
• As the black SUVs rolled toward the waterfront, Kieran sat beside Isandro in the back seat, the tension between them thicker than the humid night air.
• “We make it out alive,” she said quietly, “then we talk. About…this.”
• Isandro’s gaze burned into hers. “I’ll hold you to that.”
• The moment stretched, and then the vehicle slowed arrival.
• Weapons were checked. Nerves steeled.
• And as the first shots rang out, Kieran dove into the fray fighting not just for her life, but for the fragile, dangerous connection she’d found in the unlikeliest of hearts.
• The night cracked open with gunfire.
• The first volley lit the darkness muzzle flashes bursting like fireworks along the rusted skeletons of the abandoned docks. Kieran moved with ruthless precision, her Glock steady in her grip as she dropped two of Nero’s soldiers before they even saw her coming.
• Beside her, Isandro was a living weapon graceful, brutal, and unrelenting. The way he moved through chaos was almost beautiful, deadly in the way only men forged in violence could be.
• But this wasn’t about beauty.
• It was survival.
• Kieran ducked behind a shipping container, breath ragged. Her pulse roared in her ears. Somewhere to her left, she heard Matteo shouting orders. To the right gunfire, closer now.
• And then she saw him.
• Nero.
• The rival capo emerged from the shadows, gun raised, eyes locked on Isandro’s unguarded back.
• “No” Kieran’s voice tore from her throat as she lunged.
• Her body moved on instinct faster than thought. She slammed into Isandro, knocking him to the ground just as Nero’s bullet whizzed past where his head had been.
• The impact drove the breath from her lungs, but she didn’t stop rolling to shield him as she raised her weapon.
• Two shots.
• One clean through Nero’s shoulder.
• The man screamed, staggered back and was gone, swallowed by the night.
• The firefight pressed on, but it barely registered.
• Isandro’s hands clutched her arms. “Kieran…Jesus.”
• “You’re alive,” she gasped, chest heaving. “Don’t you dare thank me yet.”
• His hands cupped her face, his expression wild with fear, fury, relief. “I’m thanking you now.”
• And then he kissed her.
• It was savage blood and gunpowder still on the air between them but when his lips crashed against hers, she clung to him like a lifeline.
• She didn’t care who saw.
• Didn’t care if they died in the next breath.
• For one suspended heartbeat, there was only this: the man she should never have trusted, the man she might already be falling for, and the taste of survival between their teeth.
• The gunfire slowed.
• One by one, Nero’s men fell. Some surrendered. Some bled out on the cold cement, their loyalty to a dying cause staining the docks in crimson.
• Kieran’s breath came in sharp, burning gasps. The weight of her weapon felt heavier now her arms trembling not from fear, but from the wild surge of adrenaline still crashing through her veins.
• Isandro’s thumb brushed across her jaw as he helped her to her feet, his touch lingering in a way that made her heart ache. “Are you hit?”
• She shook her head. “No. You?”
• “Only my pride,” he murmured, giving her a crooked grin despite the chaos around them.
• Matteo approached, blood spattered across his black shirt. “Nero’s gone. Wounded, but he won’t get far.”
• Isandro’s eyes hardened. “Find him. This doesn’t end until it’s finished.”
• Matteo nodded and melted into the shadows.
• Kieran exhaled, her fingers curling around Isandro’s wrist—part grounding, part desperation. The battle was over. But something far more dangerous had been set in motion between them, something that had nothing to do with bullets or betrayal.
• “You almost died,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
• “So did you,” he rasped, stepping closer. The air between them pulsed raw, electric. “And I realized something.”
• She swallowed hard. “What?”
• “That I can’t lose you. Not to this war. Not to him. Not to anything.”
• The words punched through her like a blade. Her defenses the ones she’d built her entire life cracked beneath the weight of them.
• “I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted. “I don’t know how to trust this.”
• “Then don’t,” he said quietly. “Just trust me.”
• For a heartbeat, she wavered then closed the distance, pressing her forehead to his. The docks burned around them, sirens wailing in the distance, but in that fragile, stolen moment, there was only the two of them.
• Enemies. Lovers. Survivors.
• And something dangerously close to hope.