Chapter 36 No more almost
Lina’s POV
The fall knocked the air out of me. I hit the dumpster lid, rolled, and slammed onto the wet pavement of the alley. Pain burst through my hip and shoulder, but I forced myself to move. The gas was already burning my lungs.
Footsteps crunched nearby.
“Well,” the man from the car said, voice amused, “that was dramatic.”
I staggered up, knife still in my hand. My vision swam, but I kept it pointed at him.
“Where is he?”
He smiled like we were discussing the weather. “You really think he’s coming back?”
A car door slammed behind him.
The man didn’t flinch.
I did.
A second later, two men stepped out of the shadows at the alley entrance, guns raised — not at me.
At him.
The man's smile dropped. A familiar voice cut through the night. “Step away from her.”
I didn’t turn right away. I knew that voice when it was calm like that. It meant someone was about to die.
The man laughed nervously. “Well, that’s inconvenient.”
I turned.
Carlino stood at the mouth of the alley, suit jacket gone, sleeves rolled, gun steady in his hand. His face was unreadable, but his eyes — his eyes were ice and murder.
“You used my lighter,” he said.
The man raised his hands slowly. “Symbolism. Thought you’d appreciate it.”
Carlino shot him in the leg.
The crack echoed off the brick walls. The man screamed and dropped.
I flinched. Carlino didn’t.
“You pumped gas into a building,” Carlino continued, stepping closer, “with something that belongs to me inside.”
“You know she doesn't belong to you, Carlino,” he said, unhinged.
Another shot. Shoulder this time. I swallowed hard, but I didn’t look away.
Carlino stopped a few feet from him. “She does, every hair in her, every fiber of her being belongs to me.”
“Carlino,” I rasped. “The basement — there were others—”
“I know. Niel has gone to pick them up.”
Sirens wailed faintly in the distance. Not police. His people. He grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him toward the car like a sack of trash. Then he looked at me.
Not at the knife. Not at the bruises. But at my face.
“You jumped,” he said.
“You took too long,” I shot back.
For half a second, something almost like relief cracked through his control. Then it vanished.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t. But I did anyway. He opened the back door of the car. I stopped. “Is he in there?”
“Yes.”
I looked at the bleeding man half-conscious in the front seat.
Carlino’s gaze sharpened at that. “Get in, Lina.”
I slid into the back. He got in beside me instead of the front. The car peeled out of the alley fast enough to make my head spin.
Only when we turned onto the main road did he finally speak.
“They never had me,” he said.
“I figured.”
“They wanted you to panic. Flush you out.”
“It worked,” I muttered.
His jaw tightened. “You broke a window and jumped into an alley with armed men.”
“You left a goodbye note.”
Silence filled the car.
“I needed you ready to run if I didn’t make it,” he said.
“You don’t get to decide that alone.” His eyes flicked to mine. Sharp and assessing.
“You would’ve stayed.”
“Yes.”
“That’s the problem.”
I looked away first. The bungalow gates opened before we even slowed. Lights were on everywhere. Guards outside. Inside. The front door flew open before the car stopped.
Bella ran down the steps. “Donna, look at you—”
“I’m fine,” I lied, climbing out on shaking legs.
Carlino’s father sat in the doorway, posture rigid on the wheel, legs covered in blankets, eyes scanning me like damage assessment. “Inside. Now,” his words were directed to Carlino.
The house felt too warm after the night air. Too bright. Too normal.
Bella pressed a towel into my hands. “You’re bleeding—”
“Not mine.” The words came out faster than I intended them too.
Carlino handed one of his men the keys. “Basement. Interrogation room three.”
The bleeding man groaned weakly as they dragged him away. I watched until he disappeared.
Carlino touched my elbow. Light. Brief.
“Come.”
He led me through the hallway. Not to a guest room.
To his room.
I stopped at the door. “I can take another—”
“No.”
That was it. Just no.
Inside, the room smelled like clean linen and deep scented cologne. Solid. Safe. My body seemed to realize it before my brain did — the shaking started hard.
Carlino closed the door quietly behind us.
“Sit,” he said.
And I did.
He crouched in front of me, checking my shoulder, my hip, my arms with quick, efficient movements. Not lingering. Not soft. Just making sure nothing was broken.
“You inhaled some gas,” he said. “You’ll feel dizzy. Headache. Nausea.”
“I already feel like I fought a truck.”
“You fought worse.”
I huffed a weak laugh. “You’re in a weirdly talkative mood.”
His mouth twitched into w empty o Bella knocked and slipped in with a first aid kit. She worked in silence, cleaning cuts, wrapping bruises. When she finished, she squeezed my hand and left.
The room went quiet. Carlino stood by the window, looking out into the dark grounds.
“You should sleep,” he said.
“You almost died.”
“So did you.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It is to me.”
The words hung there. He didn’t turn around. I slid off the bed and crossed the room before I could overthink it. Stopped a step behind him.
“I’m tired of almosts, every time we were targeted, we barely escaped. Some way or the other we are always getting targeted,” I said quietly.
He went still.
“For one night,” I added. “No plans. No ‘when this is over.’ No pushing me away like I’m a liability.”
His shoulders rose and fell once. Slow breath. “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“I understand exactly.”
A long pause. Then he turned.
There was no heat in his expression. No hunger. Just exhaustion and something raw he didn’t know how to hold. He stepped forward anyway.
When he pulled me into him, it wasn’t desperate. It wasn’t urgent. It was quiet.
Like two people who almost didn’t get the chance.
I pressed my face into his chest and felt his heartbeat — steady, controlled, alive. As I buried my face into his chest, the thoughts struck me. A few weeks ago I'd never let myself get this close to him but now, here I was.
His hand rested at the back of my neck, bringing me back to reality. His touch wasn't claiming. It was just there.
We stood like that for a long time. No promises. No future. Just warmth in a world that kept trying to turn cold.
\~~~
I woke up alone.
Morning light filtered through the curtains. The other side of the bed was empty, sheets cool. For a second, I wondered if I imagined everything.
Then I saw his watch on the nightstand.
I sat up slowly, body aching, heart heavier in a different way. Outside the door, voices carried through the house. Low and tense. I followed them.
Carlino stood in the study with his father, a map spread across the desk. Men moved in and out, armed, focused. He didn’t look at me when I entered. But he knew I was there.
“I want a location by tonight,” he said. Calm. Final. “I’m done reacting.”
His father studied him. “You’re sure?”
Carlino’s gaze hardened into something lethal. “I’m going to look Kailen in the eyes,” he said. “And end this.”
I felt the room shift. Not relief. Not safety. The kind of stillness that comes right before a war starts. Somehow, I knew… this time, there would be no almost.