Cillian kept glancing at my phone as we walked, his jaw flexing like each word of that unknown text was a personal insult. I shoved the phone into my pocket when I locked the building door behind us.
"You know," I said, because silence felt like letting my own thoughts eat me alive, "if this is you secretly texting from a burner for dramatic effect, ten out of ten."
"It's not from me." His voice was flat. "And I don't like someone else pretending it is."
Right. Because God forbid identity theft enter the mafia ecosystem.
We climbed the stairs. My sneaker squeaked on the third step; his dress shoes made no sound at all. Of course. The predator gets stealth mode while the prey gets cartoon noises.
"You're still scowling at my pocket," I added.
He gave the door to our floor a little shove that made the hinges whine like they were apologizing. "I'm scowling," he said, "at the fact that someone thinks they can threaten what belongs to me."
There it was. The word dropped between us like a weight.
I swallowed. "Fun reminder that your 'what' is a person. Who lives here. Who has neighbors. So maybe keep the murder monologues down to an indoor voice."
He didn't answer. The hallway was dim, the cheap overhead light buzzing. My apartment door sat at the end, paint chipped, a little crooked in the frame. I fumbled the keys just enough to betray my nerves and pushed the door open.
The lock clicked.
And from inside, Lana's muffled voice floated out, sleepy and suspicious. "Evie? That you?"
Shit.
"Yeah," I called, trying to sound like I had absolutely not brought organized crime home. "Sorry, I, uh, dropped something."
The living room lamp flicked on. Lana appeared in the hallway in an oversized T-shirt and sleep shorts. She stopped dead when she saw him. I watched her brain do the math: strange beautiful man, suit, height, bone structure, aura of murder.
"Lana," I said, stepping in quickly, "this is Cillian."
"The cousin?"
I blinked. Right. Past Ava had invented a European cousin once. Damn you, past Ava.
"Yes," I said, a little too brightly. "Cousin. From… out of town. Surprise visit."
Behind me, I felt his amusement sharpen. He didn't correct me. Of course he didn't.
"Family drama?" Lana asked, suspicion and sympathy doing battle.
"Olympic level," I said. "We're fine. Go back to sleep."
She hesitated. Her eyes lingered on my face a heartbeat longer. Then she smiled at Cillian. It was a little shy, because she was human and he looked like temptation in a suit, but she hid it under bravado. "Nice to meet you, Cousin Cillian. Sorry I'm not in, like, real clothes. Did not expect a royal visit."
His head tilted slightly, that almost-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You don't need to apologize,"
Lana's cheeks flushed. "Well. Okay. Goodnight. Don't, uh, argue too hard, you two. The walls are thin."
Dear universe, please kill me.
"Goodnight," I managed.
Her door clicked shut.
The second it latched, I grabbed a handful of Cillian's coat sleeve and whispered, "Room. Now." He let me drag him down the hall, which was somehow worse than if he'd resisted.
My room looked exactly as tragic as I'd left it: narrow bed, tiny IKEA desk, too many textbooks stacked under a window that stuck in winter.
Front and center on the bed: a black lace bra, sprawled across my pillow like it owned the place.
My soul left my body.
"Okay," I croaked. "Everyone remain calm."
His gaze tracked the room with efficient precision: door, window, corners, the cheap wardrobe, the shadow under the bed. It stopped on the bra.
There was a tiny pause.
I lunged for it, snatching the offending scrap of lace off the pillow and shoving it behind my back like that erased it from both reality and his memory.
"Laundry day," I said too fast. "It's very normal. People wear underwear. Shocking, I know."
He said nothing, but his eyes were warmer when they came back to my face. Just… amused.
I backed up a step, which was a mistake because my heel hit the tote bag I'd thrown on the floor earlier. It tipped over. The contents spilled out in slow motion: a tangle of T-shirts, socks, and, of course, a neat roll of spare underwear and my toothbrush, which clattered and bounced dramatically across the hardwood.
I stared at the scattered pile.
He stared at the scattered pile.
"Wow," I said weakly. "It really looks like I was planning to run away, doesn't it?"
His glance flicked from the runaway toothbrush to my face, some of the air shifting between us. Less humor. More something else.
"You were," he said.
"Hypothetically," I protested, diving down to scoop up a traitorous pair of cotton panties before they could have their own meet-cute with his shoes. "I was planning to hypothetically consider possibly running away. Big difference."
When I straightened, he was closer.
I hadn't heard him move.
He didn't sit. He stood in the middle of my room, incongruously large against my IKEA bookshelf, hands at his sides, coat still on, as if lowering himself to the level of my second-hand mattress was a step he would only take if invited.
"Sit," I said, because my mother raised me to have manners even with men who bought my hand in marriage like a bulk discount.
His brows lifted a fraction. "Where?"
I gestured at the bed, then immediately regretted it. "There."
For a second, I thought he might argue. Then he shrugged out of his coat in one smooth motion, the fabric whispering, and sat on the edge of the mattress, forearms resting loosely on his thighs. It dipped under his weight.
I dumped the rescued underwear and bra onto my desk in a chaotic pile, cheeks hot.
When I turned back, he was watching my left hand.
I followed his gaze.
The ring glinted on my pinky finger, silver and diamonds snug around the smallest possible digit. It looked wrong there. Childish. Improvised.
I'd forgotten I was still wearing it.
There was no warning before his fingers closed around my wrist.
"Wait—"
He didn't. His free hand settled firm at my waist, guiding me sideways and down, and suddenly I was not standing anymore.
I was sitting on his lap.
More accurately, I was planted across his thighs, one leg outside, one trapped between his, my knees bracketing his, my hands splayed against his chest like I'd decided to reenact a bad romance cover.
"Okay," I said, voice about an octave higher than usual. "We've taken a bold turn."
His attention was on my hand, on the ring. His fingers wrapped around my pinky, thumb grazing the metal as if verifying it was real.
"I thought you would sell it," he said quietly.
There was something dangerous and calm in the way he said it, like he was reciting an assumption he'd already punished me for in his head.
I swallowed. "You're disappointed your pawn kept your grandmother's jewelry instead of pawning it for bus fare? Sorry to disappoint."
His grip tightened just enough for me to feel it. "It's not disappointment."
I shifted on his lap, trying to ignore the solid pressure of his thighs under me and the way my body responded to it like an idiot. Heat coiled low in my belly, as if proximity alone was some kind of switch.
"It's not that I suddenly developed sentimental feelings about us," I said, words tumbling out. "I just—look, selling a mafia lord's family heirloom feels like a speedrun to die in a ditch."
His eyes lifted from my hand to my face, slowly. "So, you kept it."
"I hid it," I corrected. "And then I kept it. For… insurance."
His thumb smoothed over the ring, over my skin. The touch was light, clinical. It still sent a shiver up my arm.
The intimacy of the position finally crashed over me in a wave. My chest was almost brushing his with every breath. From this distance, I could see the faint roughness of stubble along his jaw, a tiny nick near his throat where his razor had slipped, the darker green ring around his iris.
My pulse jumped.
I cleared my throat and shifted again, testing his grip. His arm around my waist didn't budge. If anything, he drew me closer, eliminating the last bit of space between my back and his chest.
"Okay," I said slowly, carefully, because if I let my brain spin any faster it was going to fly off. "Now can I get up and do the very human thing of… feeding you? We can negotiate over pasta. Or ramen."
His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth, then tracked down the line of my throat to the hollow just above my collarbone. I felt every centimeter of that look like a touch.
"My dinner," he said, voice lowering, "is right here."
He said it like a simple fact. No drama. Just certainty.
My breath hitched. "Wow, okay, Hannibal."
He leaned in. His nose skimmed the curve of my jaw. Then his face pressed into the side of my neck, right where my pulse hammered. He inhaled, slow and deep, like he was imprinting something.
My fingers curled in his shirt without permission.
I could smell him, up close: that expensive cologne, yes, but underneath it something cooler, metallic, like winter air in a city. His breath was warm against my skin.
I tried to pull back on instinct, but his arm was an iron bar at my waist.
"You do remember," I managed, words shaky but valiant, "that we did not actually get married? Technically, legally, I'm single and ready to die alone with cats."
His lips brushed the spot just under my ear when he spoke. The contact was barely there, but my entire body reacted like he'd set me on fire.
"Your father signed the contract," he murmured. "The papers were filed with my family's council. The ceremony was for appearances. Not for us."
He drew back just enough to look at me again. His eyes were darker, pupils wide.
"You wear my ring," he said. "You bear my name on that contract. You ran, yes. But you didn't break it." His thumb tapped the metal on my finger, a tiny, claiming beat. "You're already my wife."
The word slammed into me.
Wife.
For a second, all I heard was my own heartbeat, thunder in my ears. My mouth went dry. My brain scrambled for loopholes, legal technicalities, anything.
"Yeah," I said faintly. "See, where I come from, wives usually get to vote on whether they become wives. Wild local custom."
His gaze didn't soften. It did sharpen, in a way that made my lungs forget their jobs.
"Where I come from," he said, "we do not lose what is ours because it tries to run once."
I stared at him.
Somewhere down the hall, Lana's bedroom door creaked a little in the building's restless sleep. Outside, a car passed, bass thumping faintly. My entire world had shrunk to the four walls of my room and the man holding me like a problem he'd already solved.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
We both froze.
For one panicked second, I hoped it was Lana sending a meme. Or Elena asking where I'd disappeared to. Or my bank reminding me I had six dollars.
His jaw tightened. "Take it out."
The tone said arguing would be ill-advised.
I shifted awkwardly, still half on his lap, and fished the phone from my pocket. The screen lit my features and his in cold blue.
Jason: Hey Evie, been thinking about you. Saw you run out of work earlier. Everything ok? Wanna grab coffee tomorrow? Or dinner? Your call. 😏
Cillian's eyes narrowed on the words. The air in the room went cold.
"Jason," he read aloud, voice like ice cracking. "Who is Jason?"