Chapter 12: Blood-Stained Breakfast
The scent of gun oil and lemony cleaner hit her before she fully entered the room.
Ela paused in the archway of the dining area, the silk robe Marco had left for her tied loosely around her waist. Morning light, sharp and clinical, cut through the usual gloom of the penthouse, illuminating dust motes dancing over the dark table.
Marco sat there, his back to the city. He was focused, head down, hands moving with a precise, practiced rhythm. The components of a handgun lay spread before him on a soft black cloth—the slide, the barrel, the spring. A bottle of Hoppe’s No. 9 sat open, its pungent, chemical smell cutting through the air.
He was cleaning a Glock.
Her eyes dropped to his hands. They were meticulous, wiping each part with a lint-free patch. But under his nails, rimming the cuticles, was a faint, rusty brown. Not dirt. It was too uniform, settled deep.
As if feeling her stare, he looked up.
His expression was calm, almost relaxed. But his eyes held the flat, distant focus she recognized from the night before, after the phone call. The business focus.
“Morning,” he said, his voice slightly rough. He didn’t stop what he was doing. He slotted the barrel back into the slide with a soft, metallic click.
“Morning.” Her own voice sounded small. She hugged herself, the silk suddenly feeling flimsy. “You’re up early.”
“Had an errand.”
She took a few steps closer. The blood under his nails was unmistakable now. Dried. “Your hands…”
He glanced at them, flexing his fingers. A faint, dark line cracked in the crease of a knuckle. “It’s not mine.”
The simplicity of the statement was a door slamming shut. She knew better than to ask whose it was. The answer was in the cold, cleaned pieces on the table.
“Christian’s lawyer,” Marco said, picking up the spring and examining it against the light. “Martin Fry. Ambitious guy. A little too creative with confidentiality clauses and blackmail.”
He placed the spring down and reached for the frame.
“What happened to him?” The question left her lips before she could stop it.
Marco looked up, holding her gaze. “He just disappeared. Don’t look at me like that, princesa.” A faint, humorless smile touched his mouth. “He’s sunbathing in Majorca. Permanently.”
The euphemism hung in the air between them, ugly and final. The lawyer wasn’t on a beach. He was in the ground. Or in the sea. The blood under Marco’s nails was his signature on the deed.
Ela’s stomach turned, a cold wave of nausea rising. This wasn’t a threat in a boardroom. This wasn’t a blacklisted contract. This was a man wiped off the earth because he’d been on the wrong side of her mess.
She pulled out a chair and sat down heavily, the wood cold through the silk. She watched his hands, those same hands that had worshipped her skin hours ago, reassembling the weapon with terrifying familiarity.
Click. Snap. Schick.
The sound was deafening in the silent room.
“You asked me to burn him,” Marco reminded her softly, not looking up as he pushed a pin into place. “You said to make him regret he ever said your name. This is the kindling.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“You did.” He finally looked at her, his gaze unwavering. “You just didn’t know what the words meant. You spoke in metaphor. I don’t live in metaphors, Ela. I live in consequences. Fry was a consequence. A message.”
She stared at the gun, now whole in his hand. It was just an object, cold and machined. The horror was in the casual expertise, the blood as an afterthought under his nails. This was his reality. The world he’d tried to shield her from when she was a kid, the world she’d run from.
And she’d asked to be brought into it.
“Are you scared of me now?” he asked. He didn’t sound worried or hopeful. He sounded like he was taking inventory.
She thought about it. The fear was there, a bright, sharp thread. But it wasn’t of him. It was for him. For the man who did this to protect her. For the soul that carried this weight.
“No,” she said, and found it was true. “I’m scared for you. What this does to you.”
He blinked, the cold focus in his eyes fractoring for a second, revealing something startled and raw beneath. He placed the assembled Glock carefully on the cloth.
“It doesn’t do anything to me,” he said, but the words were automatic, hollow. He looked at his hands again, as if seeing the blood for the first time. “It’s just maintenance.”
He stood up abruptly, the chair scraping on the floor. “I need a shower.”
He walked past her towards the bedroom. She heard the bathroom door shut, then the immediate blast of water.
She stayed at the table, staring at the gun. The sun gleamed off its black finish. On the far edge of the table, partly hidden by a stacked portfolio, she saw a folded piece of heavy linen paper. She recognized it. The letter he’d written her years ago, the one she’d never opened, that still sat on his desk as a monument to her absence. He’d moved it here.
She reached out, her fingers hovering over it. She didn’t touch it.
The shower ran for a long time.
When he came back out, he was dressed in dark jeans and a grey henley, his hair damp. The blood was gone from his hands. He smelled of soap and his own clean, warm skin. He looked younger. Tired.
He went to the kitchen island, not looking at her or the dining table, and started making coffee. The normalcy of the act—the grind of beans, the hiss of the machine—was surreal.
“He’ll try something else,” Marco said, his back to her. “Christian. He’s panicking. Losing his lawyer like that… it’s a loud statement. He’ll either run or strike back harder. Probably strike back. Men like him hate feeling weak.”
“What do we do?” Ela asked. The ‘we’ felt strange in her mouth, but right.
“We live.” He brought two mugs over, setting one in front of her. He finally looked at the gun, then casually swept the cloth around it, bundling it up. He carried the package to a safe panel concealed in the wall by the bookcase. It clicked open, he placed it inside, and it hissed shut. “You have a fitting today for the De La Cruz campaign. You’re going to go. You’re going to be stunning. You’re going to act like the world is exactly as it should be.”
“A fitting? After everything?”
“Especially after everything.” He sipped his coffee. “Normalcy is armor. If you hide, he thinks he’s won a round. My driver will take you. Rafael will be with you all day.”
“Your bodyguard.”
“Your shadow. Today, at least.”
She wrapped her hands around the warm mug. The coffee was rich, bitter, exactly how she liked it. He remembered. “And what will you do?”
“I,” he said, leaning back against the counter, “will have a conversation with the editors of two tabloids. And then I will pay a visit to Christian’s biggest investor. A social call.”
The way he said ‘social call’ made the skin on her arms prickle.
“You can’t just… disappear everyone, Marco.”
“I don’t.” He shook his head. “That’s messy. Inefficient. I apply pressure. I create… compelling reasons for people to change their minds. Christian’s world is money and reputation. I just have to show him how fragile those are.” He paused. “The photos won’t run. The story is already dead.”
She believed him. The cost of that certainty was sitting in a hidden safe, and in a permanent vacation in Majorca.
She stood up, carrying her coffee to him. She stopped close, looking up at his face. The fatigue was deeper in his eyes up close, the weight of his morning etched in tiny lines.
She reached up and touched his cheek. He leaned into her palm, closing his eyes for a brief second.
“The letter is still there,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes. “I know.”
“Are you ever going to give it to me?”
“No.” He took her hand, kissed her palm. “It belongs to the past. To the boy who wrote it. I’m not that boy anymore. You’re not that girl. We have what’s here. Now. It’s bloodier. It’s real.”
He pulled her into him, holding her tightly, his face buried in her hair. She could feel the steady, strong beat of his heart against hers. It was the heart of a man who had just committed murder for her. It was also the only heart that had ever felt like home.
“Go get dressed,” he murmured into her hair. “Wear the black suit. The one that looks like armor.”
She nodded against his chest.
As she turned to go, he caught her wrist. His grip was gentle.
“Ela.”
“Yes?”
“If you want to leave,” he said, the words clearly costing him something. “After seeing this. The door isn’t locked. It never will be.”
She looked at their joined hands, then back at his tired, honest face. He was giving her an out. The final one.
She thought of Christian’ carefully arranged lies, the gilded cage of his world. She thought of the cold, clean smell of gun oil, and the warm, beaten heart under her ear.
She leaned forward and kissed him, softly, on the lips.
“I know,” she said. Then she walked towards the bedroom to put on her armor.
Then she walked towards the bedroom to put on her armor.
The black suit hung in his walk-in closet, a severe slash amidst his dark wardrobe. She traced the sharp lapel, the fabric cool and weighty under her fingertips. It did feel like armor, precisely cut and designed to deflect stares.
She dressed slowly, the silence of the penthouse pressing in. The memory of his blood-crusted hands superimposed itself over her reflection in the full-length mirror. She fastened the last button at her throat, feeling both shielded and exposed.
When she emerged, he was by the windows, phone to his ear. “Understood,” he said, voice low. He ended the call and turned. His eyes traveled the length of her, a slow, approving scan. “Perfect. You look like you could bankrupt a man with a glance.”
“Is that the goal?” She smoothed the jacket, her voice lighter than she felt.
“Today, yes.” He walked over, straightening an already immaculate lapel. His touch was warm through the fabric. “Rafael is downstairs. The car is ready.”
“Marco.” She caught his hand, holding it between hers. The worry, a cold stone in her gut all morning, finally found its voice. “I’m not scared of you. But I am… worried for you. This weight you carry. What it costs you to do these things.”
He started to pull away, to deflect, but she tightened her grip.
“I see the tiredness in your eyes,” she continued. “The part of you that has to go cold to get through a morning like this. I don’t just want you with me. I want you to be happy. Or something close to it.”
He was very still, listening. His gaze was guarded, vulnerable.
“We need a getaway,” she said, the idea forming fully as she spoke. “Somewhere the sun is so punishing it burns all the thoughts out of your head. Somewhere with white sand and water so blue it hurts to look at. Somewhere where the only required clothing is… optional.”
A slow, genuine smile broke across his face, erasing the fatigue. It reached his eyes, crinkling the corners. “I like that last part. The optional part.”
“I thought you might.”
He chuckled, a rich, warm sound that seemed to startle him. He pulled her into an embrace, his chin resting on top of her head. “A place too hot to think. I can’t remember the last time I was somewhere without an agenda.”
“Can we?” she asked, her voice muffled against his chest. “Just for a few days. Before he strikes back, or you strike again. A breath.”
He was quiet for a moment, his hand stroking her back. She could feel him thinking, calculating, rearranging his dangerous world to make space for this.
“My family has a villa,” he said finally. “On an island. No one knows about it. It’s not on any of our business ledgers. It’s just a place. The water is that blue. The sun is that cruel.”
She leaned back, hope flickering in her chest. “Really?”
“Really.” He kissed her forehead. “Finish your fitting. Charm De La Cruz. Let Rafael scowling in the corner. I’ll make the arrangements. We’ll leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” The suddenness was a shock.
“If you give a man like me an idea, Ela, I execute it.” His smile turned wolfish. “Consider it a tactical retreat. And pack light. I’m holding you to the dress code.”
A laugh escaped her, bright and unexpected. The cold stone of worry dissolved. For a moment, the future wasn’t a tangled knot of threats and blood. It was blinding sun and his hands on her skin, with no shadows in sight.
Her phone buzzed from the console table. A reminder for the fitting.
“Go,” he said, giving her a gentle nudge toward the elevator. “Conquer something beautiful and superficial. I’ll be here, plotting our escape.”
She pressed the call button. The doors slid open silently. She stepped inside and turned just as they began to close. He was already reaching for his phone, his expression shifting back to that focused intensity, but the ghost of their shared smile still played on his lips.
The elevator descended, and for the first time in years, she looked forward to a runway.