Chapter 2: The Reckoning
The name hung in the air between them, a ghost in the warm, smoky room. Siena’s entire body went rigid. For three endless seconds, she was convinced he’d felt her flinch, that the sharp intake of her breath had given her away. But his eyes were closed, his face a mask of exhausted, sated oblivion pressed into the fur by her shoulder. He hadn’t noticed. It had been a slip of the tongue, a synaptic misfire in the haze of orgasm.Her mind raced, scrambling for purchase.He knows.No, he can’t. He was lost.It was just a sound.
Carefully, she extricated herself from the tangle of limbs and fur. He murmured a protest, a low, sleepy sound, but didn’t wake.She moved silently, gathering her clothes from the floor where they’d been discarded. Her hands trembled as she stepped into her panties, pulled on her jeans. Dressing felt like assembling a costume for a play that had just taken a disastrous, irreversible turn.Siena. He’d groaned Siena.Not Selene.She paused, looking back at him. Nico Valentino, asleep by firelight, looked younger. The formidable tension that ruled his waking hours was gone, leaving only the stark, handsome lines of his face. A strange, sharp ache pierced her chest, something entirely separate from fear.She pushed it down, hard. It was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Leaving the money and the heavy silver cufflink on the mantel, she slipped out, closing the oak door with a soft, definitive click.
The next two days were a study in exquisite torture.Siena moved through her life as if walking on a floor of cracked glass. Every sound was Leo’s voice.Every shadow in her periphery was Nico. She attended a tedious gallery opening for a friend, smiled politely, discussed post-modernism, all while her nerves screamed. She helped her brother review a shipping manifest in his study, her eyes skipping over the columns of numbers, hyper-aware of the empty space where Nico usually stood at Leo’s right hand.
“You’re quiet,” Leo noted, not looking up from the document.
“Just tired,” she said, her voice impressively steady.“The gallery thing ran late.”
Leo grunted, satisfied. “Nico’s handling a problem in Queens.Should be back tomorrow.You’ll come to dinner? He likes it when you’re there. Thinks you’re good for my temperament.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips.The casual mention was a knife twisted in her gut. “Sure,” she said, the word tasting of ash.She went to her apartment, but solitude was worse. The silence was full of the memory of his voice, his hands, his mouth. The phantom sensation of him moving inside her, the look in his eyes when he’d said You feel like home. She threw herself into her own work, refining the business plan for the small, independent art consultancy she was determined to launch with her own money, far from the Marino name.The numbers blurred. All she could see was the firelight on his skin.
By the third night, the pull of The Grotto was a physical sickness.She told herself it was about control. She needed to prove she could still be Selene, that the slip hadn’t shattered the persona. She needed to see if he would return, and if he did, she would be the one to end it.Clean. Final.Before this spiraled into a catastrophe that could get them both killed.The club felt different tonight. The bass seemed invasive, the laughter too sharp. She performed her first dance for a hedge fund type with sweaty palms, her mind a thousand miles away. She was adjusting the strap of her heel in a dim back corridor when the air changed.It wasn’t a sound first. It was a pressure, a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.She looked up.
Nico stood at the end of the hallway, silhouetted against the faint glow from the main room. He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket. His white dress shirt was untucked, wrinkled, and stained with what looked like a dark, spreading patch of red near the shoulder.His tie was gone. His hair was disheveled, and his eyes—even from twenty feet away, she could see they were not the calm, watchful pools she knew. They were wild, fractured, burning with a fury so potent it seemed to vibrate the very air around him.He saw her. His gaze locked onto hers with the terrifying precision of a predator. He started walking, his stride not the usual measured, confident pace but a driven, stalking charge.
Her body reacted before her mind could, a flush of heat followed by a wave of cold fear. She backed up until her shoulders met the cool, polished mahogany of the wall.There was nowhere to go.
He closed the distance in seconds, his body slamming into the space before her, his hands hitting the wall on either side of her head, caging her in. The scent of him washed over her—sweat, iron, the sharp, acrid tang of gunpowder, and beneath it, the essential, masculine smell that was uniquely his.The red stain was definitely blood. Not his, she thought with a detached part of her brain.It would be worse if it was his.
“Nico?” she breathed, Selene’s aloofness gone, replaced by genuine alarm.His chest heaved. He stared down at her, his dark eyes searching her face behind the mask as if trying to reconcile the woman before him with whatever chaos he’d just emerged from. The fury in his gaze softened, just for a second, into something raw and devastatingly lost.
“I need you,” he growled, the words ragged, torn from his throat.“Now.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a confession of a desperate, intolerable hunger. All her plans, all her resolutions to end it, evaporated.In that moment, he wasn’t the underboss. He was the man from the fireplace, shattered and coming to the only place he thought he might find a moment’s peace.
She didn’t hesitate.She took his hand, her smaller one disappearing in his, and led him. Not to the private rooms, but to the first available space she knew would be empty—a small velvet-draped alcove used for storage, tucked away from the main corridors. She pulled the heavy curtain closed, plunging them into near-total darkness, broken only by a single, low-wattage bulb somewhere behind a stack of crates.
The moment the fabric fell shut, he spun her, pinning her back against the wall. His mouth crashed down on hers, a hard, punishing kiss that tasted of violence and despair. There was no tenderness, only a ravenous need to consume and be consumed. She kissed him back with equal fervor, her hands clutching at his ruined shirt, feeling the damp, stiff patch of blood under her fingers.
He broke the kiss, his breath hot and ragged against her cheek. “I can’t… I can’t think straight,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. His hands fumbled at her robe, ripping the flimsy tie. He shoved the fabric off her shoulders, his fingers digging into the corset.“This fucking thing.”
“Here,” she said, her own voice shaking. She guided his hands to the fastenings at the front, a simpler clasp than the laces. It sprang open. He pushed the corset down, his palms sliding over her bare breasts, thumbs scraping over her nipples.She gasped, arching into his touch.
His mouth left hers, trailing down her neck, her collarbone, taking one hardened peak into the scorching heat of his mouth. He sucked, hard, his teeth grazing the sensitive flesh, and a shock of pure, bright pleasure-pain lanced through her. His other hand shoved her panties aside, his fingers plunging into her without preamble.She was already wet, aching for him.
“Fuck, you’re ready,” he groaned against her breast. “Always so fucking ready for me.”
He stepped back, his hands going to his belt.His fingers, usually so deft, were shaking. He couldn’t get the buckle open.A raw, frustrated sound escaped him, part anguish, part rage.
“Let me,” she whispered.She sank to her knees on the dusty floor of the alcove. The shift in position, her looking up at him in the gloom, sent a new charge through the air. His eyes burned down at her, the wildness now focused into a single, intense flame.
She made quick work of his belt, the button, the zipper. She freed him, his cock springing out, thick and achingly hard, the head already slick. He shuddered as her fingers wrapped around his base.“Suck me,” he commanded, the words a ragged plea clothed in dominance.
She didn’t need to be told twice.She leaned forward, taking him into her mouth. He was big, stretching her lips wide. She used her tongue, flat against the sensitive underside, as she took him deep.His taste flooded her senses—salt, skin, pure, potent need. A guttural groan ripped from his chest, one hand tangling in her hair, not to guide, but to hold on.“Yes,” he hissed.“Just like that. Oh, god, Selene…”
The name, her false name, anchored her slightly in the madness. She hollowed her cheeks, sucking hard, drawing him deeper into her throat. He thrust forward gently at first, then harder, losing himself in the rhythm. His hips began to piston, fucking her mouth in earnest, his grip on her hair tightening. She relaxed her throat, taking him all, the head hitting the back of her throat with each thrust. Her own arousal was a throbbing, insistent beat between her legs, fueled by his loss of control, by her own power to provide this, to be this for him.“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice thick and strained. “Gonna come in that pretty fucking mouth.”
She increased her pace, her own moans vibrating around him. He threw his head back, his body tensing, a corded line of muscle in the dark.“Siena—” he gasped, the word a broken exhale.
And then he came, hot pulses of release flooding her mouth as his hips stuttered. She swallowed convulsively, the intimate act feeling more vulnerable than anything that had come before. The name echoed in her skull, louder this time, undeniable.He’d said it again. In his moment of total surrender, his guard annihilated, it was her real name on his lips.
He sagged against the wall, pulling her up with him before she could process the horror. He kissed her again, deep and possessive, tasting himself on her tongue. His hands were everywhere, pulling her panties down her legs, lifting her.
“I need to be inside you,” he murmured, his frenzy momentarily spent, replaced by a deeper, more urgent hunger. “Need to feel you.”
He turned her around, bending her over a stack of crates covered by a dusty cloth. The velvet of the drape brushed her cheek.He positioned himself behind her, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise. He nudged at her entrance, slick with her own wetness and his spend, and pushed inside in one relentless, deep stroke.She cried out, the sound muffled against the fabric. He filled her utterly, a stretching, perfect fullness that anchored her to the earth. He didn’t move for a moment, just held himself there, buried to the hilt, his forehead resting between her shoulder blades as he caught his breath.Then he began to move. This was different from the fireplace, different from the first night.This was raw, primal, a physical exorcism. Each thrust was hard, deep, punishing in its intensity. The crates rattled against the wall with every drive of his hips.His grip on her tightened, his fingers digging into her flesh. There was no finesse, no artful rhythm, just the pure, animal need to join, to claim, to forget.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he grunted into her back, his voice dark with passion.
“I’m yours,” she moaned, the truth of it, in this dark, stolen corner, undeniable.
“Say it again.”
“I’m yours, Nico!” The declaration tore from her, loud in the confined space.It set something off in him. His pace became brutal, a relentless piston driving her higher and higher. The friction was exquisite, a burn that spiraled into a gathering inferno low in her belly. One of his hands slid around her hip, his thumb finding her clit, rubbing harsh, perfect circles.It was too much. The overload of sensation, the danger, the devastating intimacy of his whispered mistake, the raw physicality of his taking—it coalesced into a shockwave that broke through her. She came apart with a shattered cry, her inner muscles clamping around him in violent, rhythmic pulses. The pleasure was so intense it bordered on pain, white-hot and all-consuming.Her climax triggered his. With a final, deep thrust that pressed her hard into the crates, he roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated release, and emptied himself inside her, his body shuddering violently against hers.
For a long time, they stayed like that, joined, breathing in ragged unison. The dust they’d disturbed hung in the air, visible in the sliver of light from the bulb. Slowly, he softened, slipped out of her.He turned her around, gathering her against his chest. He held her tightly, his face buried in her hair, his heart hammering against her own.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, the words muffled.“Christ, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I was rough.”
“You needed it,” she said softly, her cheek against his stained shirt.She could smell the blood again.“What happened?”
He went very still. The wall, which had crumbled, began to reassemble itself brick by brick. She felt it happen in the tension that returned to his muscles. “Nothing for you to worry about,” he said, his voice shifting, closing down.The underboss was returning, shoving aside the vulnerable man.
He pulled back, his hands gentle now as he helped her straighten her clothes. He fixed his own trousers with swift, efficient movements. The wildness was gone from his eyes, replaced by a weary, guarded calm. He looked at her, really looked at her, his gaze tracing the lines of her mask.“You’re different,” he said, not a question, but a quiet observation.
“So are you,” she replied.
He reached out, his thumb brushing her bottom lip, a touch so tender it made her chest ache. “This can’t happen again,” he stated, but the words lacked conviction.They sounded like something he was supposed to say.
“I know,” she whispered.He nodded, a sharp, decisive motion. He pulled a thick fold of bills from his pocket, more than usual, and pressed it into her hand. His fingers lingered around hers for a moment too long. Then he turned and pushed through the velvet curtain, disappearing back into the labyrinth of the club.
Siena slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, her knees drawn to her chest.The money felt heavy in her hand. The scent of sex and dust and his anguish clung to her. And the two syllables he’d gasped out echoed in the silent alcove, a secret he didn’t even know he’d told.Siena.He was slipping. And so was she. The line between Selene and Siena, between fantasy and disaster, was not just blurring. It was dissolving under the heat of his hands, the darkness of his eyes, the terrifying beauty of the broken man who kept coming back to her, calling her name in the one place he should never know her. She knew, with a cold, sinking certainty, that the next time he said it, his eyes would be open. And he would be looking right at her.
And he would be looking right at her.
The dinner was Leo’s idea, a mandatory family appearance to maintain appearances at Il Giardino, a restaurant they owned but pretended was just a favorite. Siena wore a simple black dress, her hair in a sleek knot, the picture of composed elegance. She felt like a wire stretched taut, humming with a dangerous current. Every time the door to the private dining room opened, her heart seized. When he finally walked in, it felt like the air had been punched from the room.
Nico looked restored, impeccable in a charcoal suit, the violence of three nights ago scrubbed from his knuckles and hidden behind a calm, impenetrable mask. He clasped Leo’s shoulder, a familiar gesture of brotherhood. His eyes swept the room, acknowledging the other two lieutenants present, and then landed on her.
There was nothing. No flicker. No pause. Just a polite, distant nod. “Siena.” His voice was neutral, warm in the way one is warm to a friend’s kid sister. He took his seat directly across from her, unfolding his napkin with precise movements.
She nodded back, her throat dry. “Nico.”
Dinner was a parade of familiar rituals. Leo held forth on a new shipping contract. Nico offered a few concise, intelligent observations. Siena pushed her osso buco around her plate, the rich meat tasting like ash. She laughed at the right moments, asked a question about the wine, played her part. She felt Nico’s gaze occasionally, but it was the same watchful, slightly detached look he’d always given her. The man from The Grotto was gone, locked away. She began to believe, foolishly, in the reprieve.
Then it happened.
She reached for her water glass, her sleeve riding up just an inch. On her wrist, a delicate silver bracelet she’d worn for years caught the light. It was nothing special, a chain with a single, small charm: a crescent moon.
She saw his eyes drop to it. A casual glance. Then his entire body went preternaturally still. His fork, halfway to his mouth, halted. His eyes, those dark, watchful eyes, snapped from the bracelet to her face. Not her masked face, but her real one. He studied her with a new, terrifying intensity—the arch of her brow, the specific curve of her lip, the way she tucked a stray hair behind her ear with her left hand, a habit she’d had since childhood.
She saw the moment the pieces fused. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly. The color drained from his knuckles where he gripped his fork. A muscle in his jaw began to pulse, a tiny, frantic rhythm. He looked from her, to Leo, who was laughing at a story, and back to her. The realization didn’t dawn; it detonated. It was there in the sudden, stark horror that flooded his gaze before he brutally suppressed it. He looked down at his plate, his chest rising and falling in one controlled, deep breath.
The rest of the dinner was a special kind of hell. Every time she glanced up, she found his eyes on her, but now they were different. They were forensic. They were shattered. They traced the line of her neck he’d kissed, lingered on her mouth he’d claimed, dropped to the collar of her dress where he’d left a mark now faded. He didn’t say a word to her. He barely spoke at all. When Leo asked him a direct question about the Queens problem, Nico’s answer was clipped, accurate, and devoid of any real substance. His voice was a flat, cold thing.
When it was finally over, Leo kissed her cheek. “Don’t be a stranger, kid. Nico, walk her out? I’ve got a call.”
Nico stood, his movements stiff. “Of course.”
They walked through the hushed, opulent restaurant in silence. The air between them was a solid, frozen mass. At the door, the valet went to fetch her car. They stood under the awning, the city lights blurring in the damp night.
“Siena,” he said, her name—her real name—a weighted stone dropped between them.
She turned, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Nico.”
His expression was carved from granite, but his eyes were a storm. “That club you like,” he said, his voice low, barely audible over the street noise. “The one downtown. The Grotto.”
Her heart stopped. “What about it?”
“I hear it’s interesting.” He held her gaze, the unspoken words screaming in the space between them: I know. I see you. “A man could lose himself there. Forget who he is for a while.”
The valet pulled up with her car. Nico opened the door for her, the perfect gentleman. As she slid in, he leaned down, his face close to hers. His breath smelled of mint and the bitter dregs of espresso. “Room seven. One hour.” It wasn’t a request. It was a verdict.
She drove on autopilot, her mind a white-noise scream. He knew. He knew and he was still coming. The terror was metallic in her mouth, but beneath it, a treacherous, wild hope surged. He knew, and he was still coming.
The private room felt like a tomb. The fireplace was cold. She stood in the center, still in her street clothes, having shed only her coat. She’d told the server no interruptions, for any reason. The silence was absolute, pressing in on her eardrums.
The door opened. He stepped inside and closed it, the click of the lock echoing. He leaned back against it, not moving towards her. He was still in his suit from dinner, but his tie was gone, the top button of his shirt undone. He looked at her, and the mask was gone. The horror, the anger, the betrayal, the desperate, clawing want—it was all there, naked on his face.
“Siena Marino,” he said. The words were quiet, final.
She said nothing. There was nothing to say.
He pushed off the door, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck. Fuck.” He began to pace, a caged animal. “All this time. Every fucking time. It was you.” He stopped, whirling to face her. “The bracelet. The way you tilt your head when you’re listening. That little… fucking sigh you make right before you…” He cut himself off, shaking his head violently. “Christ, Leo’s sister. Leo’s sister.”
“I know who I am,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady.
“Do you?” he shot back, a harsh laugh escaping him. “Do you have any idea what this is? What this means? If he finds out…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. The consequence hung in the air, a death sentence for them both. “This ends. Tonight. This… this insanity ends right now.”
“Then why are you here?” she asked, taking a step towards him.
He glared at her, his chest heaving. “To look you in the eye and tell you it’s over. To make you understand.”
“You’re not looking at me like it’s over.”
He took a step forward, closing the distance. His hands came up as if to grab her shoulders, but he stopped, fists clenched at his sides. “You lied to me. Every time. You let me… fuck, Siena, you let me say those things. You let me…” His voice broke. The memory of his whispered confession by the fire—You feel like home—hung between them, now grotesque, now beautiful in its ruin.
“You never asked who I was,” she whispered. “You just wanted Selene.”
“I didn’t know I needed to ask!” he roared, the control snapping. The sound was raw, painful. He turned away, his shoulders tense. “I can’t. I won’t. This is a line. The one line. He’s my brother. He trusts me.” He was trying to convince himself, building the wall brick by brick with his words.
She watched his back, the powerful set of his shoulders, the way his head was bowed in defeat. The wire inside her snapped. A calm, clear certainty settled over her. If this was the end, she would meet it on her terms. She would be the one to burn the last bridge.
Slowly, deliberately, she reached for the zipper at the back of her simple black dress. The sound was loud in the quiet room. He went still, his back rigid.
“What are you doing?” His voice was strangled.
She didn’t answer. She let the dress pool at her feet. She stood before him in only her bra and panties, then reached behind to unclasp the bra. It joined the dress. She hooked her thumbs into the sides of her black lace panties and slid them down her legs, stepping out of them. She was completely naked. Then, she walked to the chaise where her Selene robe lay folded. She picked it up, the sheer black silk. She turned to face him, holding it.
He had turned around. He was staring at her, his expression one of utter devastation and consuming hunger. His eyes drank her in, every curve, every line he’d explored in the dark but never seen in the light.
“This is who you wanted,” she said, her voice low. “This is Selene.” She let the robe slither through her fingers and fall to the floor. “And this is Siena.” She gestured to her own naked body. “They’re the same person. And you want them both. You want me.”
A tortured sound escaped him. The last of his resistance crumbled. There was no more talking, no more rational thought. There was only the inevitable gravity between them.
He crossed the room in three strides. He didn’t kiss her. He dropped to his knees before her, his hands sliding up her thighs, his mouth finding the soft skin of her stomach. He kissed her there, a hot, open-mouthed kiss that made her gasp. His hands gripped her ass, pulling her towards him. He looked up, his eyes black with need. “I’m going to ruin us both,” he said, the words a dark promise.
“Then ruin me,” she breathed.
He buried his face between her legs. There was no finesse, no slow build. It was a claiming. His tongue speared into her, licking deep, lapping at her wetness with a guttural sound of approval. “Taste yourself,” he groaned against her, his breath hot. “Taste us. You’re soaked. You’ve been thinking about this all night.”
She cried out, her hands flying to his hair, fisting in the dark strands. He was right. She was dripping, her arousal a slick, aching proof of her own treachery. He feasted on her, his tongue circling her clit with relentless, brutal precision before plunging back inside. He added a finger, then two, curling them, fucking her with his hand while his mouth worked her over.
“That’s it,” he snarled, his voice muffled against her flesh. “Come on my tongue, Siena. Let me taste you come. I know you can. I’ve felt it. I’ve fucking drunk it.”
The obscenity, the use of her real name in this most filthy of contexts, shattered her. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and convulsing. She ground herself against his mouth, her cries echoing in the silent room. He held her through it, drinking every pulse, until she was limp and shuddering.
He rose, his mouth glistening. He kissed her, letting her taste herself on his lips. It was the most intimate, degrading, perfect thing she’d ever experienced. He walked her backward until her knees hit the chaise lounge and she fell onto the crimson velvet. He tore at his clothes, buttons flying, fabric ripping. He freed himself, his cock thick and angry red, jutting from his body. He didn’t enter her. He knelt on the chaise, straddling her hips, and took himself in his hand.
“Look at what you do to me,” he demanded, stroking himself, his gaze locked on hers. “Look at how hard I am for you. For Leo Marino’s sister. My best friend’s fucking sister.” He spat the words, his hand moving faster. A drop of clear fluid beaded at his tip. “I should be putting a bullet in my own head. But all I can think about is being inside you.”
“Then do it,” she challenged, spreading her legs wider, offering herself. “Be inside me. Fuck your best friend’s sister. Make her scream your name.”
With a roar of pure anguish and desire, he positioned himself and drove into her. The penetration was deep, unforgiving, a homecoming and a violation all at once. He didn’t move, buried to the hilt, his body trembling with the effort of holding still. He looked down at where they were joined, watching himself disappear into her.
“Mine,” he growled, the word a primal, broken thing. He began to move, a slow, deep, rolling rhythm that was fundamentally different from anything before. This wasn’t a frantic fuck or a possessive claiming. This was a communion. Each withdrawal was agony, each thrust a solace. He braced himself on his forearms, cradling her face, his eyes never leaving hers.
“You’re so fucking tight,” he whispered, his breath mingling with hers. “So perfect. You ruin me. You ruin everything.” He kissed her, a deep, soul-searing kiss. “I’ve thought about this. About your face. Your real face, underneath me, coming apart.”
He shifted, hooking her legs over his arms, opening her wider, sinking deeper. She gasped, the new angle overwhelming. “Right there,” she moaned. “Oh, god, Nico, right there.”
“Say my name again,” he panted, his pace increasing, the slow burn igniting into a fierce, driving need.
“Nico! Nico, please…”
“Tell me whose cunt this is.” His voice was rough, filthy, desperate.
“Yours! It’s yours, Nico!”
“And whose cock is inside you? Whose fucking seed is going to fill you up?”
“Yours! Only yours!”
His control shattered. The pace became frantic, pounding, a desperate race towards the abyss. The chaise groaned beneath them. She was close again, the coil tightening impossibly fast, fueled by the raw truth of it all. He was everywhere—his scent, his weight, his voice, his cock stretching her, the truth of their betrayal making every sensation a thousand times more acute.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his rhythm faltering. “I’m gonna come inside you, Siena. I can’t stop it.”
“Do it,” she begged, clawing at his back. “Fill me up. I want to feel it.”
Her permission was the final key. With a cry that was equal parts agony and ecstasy, he plunged into her one last time and held, his body convulsing as he emptied himself in hot, pulsing jets deep inside her. The feeling of him coming, of his release flooding her, triggered her own. She climaxed with a silent scream, her body clamping around him, milking him, a wave of pleasure so intense it felt like pain.
He collapsed on top of her, his full weight pressing her into the velvet, his face buried in her neck. They lay there, fused, slick with sweat, their hearts hammering against each other in a frantic, syncopated rhythm. The silence returned, now filled with the sound of their ragged breathing and the awful, beautiful truth.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. He rolled to the side, pulling her with him, keeping her close. His hand stroked her hair, her back, as if memorizing her. For a long time, neither spoke.
Finally, his voice, hoarse and raw, broke the silence. “Siena.” He said it softly, with a final, aching certainty. It was no longer a question, or a mistake, or a shocked realization. It was an acceptance. A surrender.
She turned her head to look at him. His eyes were open, clear, and filled with a terrible, wonderful dread. He knew exactly who she was. And he was still there.
“Nico,” she whispered back.
He closed his eyes, a faint, grim smile touching his lips. “We’re so fucked.”
She nestled closer, her head on his chest, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart. Outside, the city moved on, oblivious. In this velvet-lined tomb, their world had just ended, and begun.