Chapter 108 -
Neither of them slept much that night. Nia lay curled against Leo's side, his arm wrapped around her, her head on his chest. She could feel his heartbeat, beating alive and steadily beneath her ear, strong and stubborn like the rest of him.
He wasn't asleep either. She could tell by the way his fingers traced slow, absent-minded patterns on her shoulder, and by the way his breathing changed whenever she shifted even slightly.
"Leo."
"Mmmmmm..."
"Don't pretend you're asleep. You're terrible at it."
A faint huff of amusement left him. "I wasn't pretending."
"What are you thinking about?"
"How many ways this could go wrong."
She lifted her head to look at him. In the dim light from the monitors, his face was all shadows and angles, jaw tight, eyes open and fixed somewhere far beyond the ceiling.
"That's comforting," she muttered.
"Didn't mean it to be."
"You rarely do."
He glanced down at her. "You want me to lie instead? Tell you everything will be fine and we'll ride into the sunset?"
"I'd settle for something slightly less apocalyptic."
He exhaled slowly. "I don't do slightly."
She settled back against him but didn’t close her eyes.
"Talk to me. And I'm not talking about Santiago or any of that. Just… talk."
"I'm not good at that."
"I know. But you can try anyway. Use actual words. Full sentences, even."
He was quiet for a long moment. She felt the hesitation in the way his chest rose and fell.
"When I was twelve," he began finally, voice lower now, stripped of its usual steel, "my father brought me to this house for the first time. I didn't want to come. I had friends where we lived. I had a football team. I had a dog."
"You had a dog?" she asked softly.
"Yeah, his name was Bruno. He hated everyone except me."
"Of course he did."
Leo’s mouth curved faintly. "When my father told me we were moving, I thought it was temporary. I packed one suitcase. I left the rest because I was convinced we'd be back in a month."
"But you didn't go back."
"No, I didn't" His fingers slowed on her shoulder. "Don Emilio needed us close. My father was his right hand. So we moved just like that. There was never a room for debate or discussion."
"Did you resent him?"
"At the time? Yes, I so did. I thought he chose power over me." He paused. "Later I understood he was choosing survival. There isn't much room for sentiment in this world."
She tilted her head slightly. "And this house?"
"I hated it for the first year. The halls were too big. The people were too quiet. Everyone watched you like they were measuring your worth. Everything felt like a test I didn't know I was taking. It was mentally suffocating."
"And then?"
"And then I met Andrea. She was persistent and annoyingly cheerful. She would find me hiding in the library and drag me outside. She refused to let me sit alone. She'd talk about school, about music, about stupid things. She made me feel like I wasn't just another soldier in training."
"She really does sound special."
"She was." He paused. His gaze shifted slightly, not distant, but careful. "She didn’t treat me like I was already shaped into something. She treated me like I still had options."
Nia looked up again. "I know that already. I'm not trying to be her."
"I'm not comparing," he said quickly, his hand finding her face, thumb brushing her cheek in slow reassurance. "I'm saying what I feel now is different. With her, it was easy. Natural like breathing. We were young. There was no weight attached to it. No consequences tied to every decision."
"And with me?"
He didn't answer immediately. His jaw tightened slightly.
"Leo."
"It's hard," he admitted. "It's complicated. It makes me question things I’ve never questioned. It makes me hesitate in places I never used to hesitate. And it scares the hell out of me because it feels like something I could lose."
She searched his face. "You could lose anyone."
"Not like this." His voice dropped. "With most things in my life, I expect loss. I prepare for it. I build around it. But with you… I don’t know how to brace for it."
She swallowed.
"With you," he continued, "I feel like I’m standing on unstable ground. I don’t know where it leads. I don’t know if I deserve it. I don’t even know if I know how to keep it. And I hate not knowing."
"You hate not being in control," she corrected gently.
"That's how very much I'd put it myself."
She held his gaze. "And you think loving someone means losing control."
"I think caring makes you vulnerable. And vulnerability is a weakness in my world."
"It doesn't have to be."
"It usually is."
She should have been offended. Instead, something softened in her chest.
"Very good then," she whispered.
"Why very good?" he asked, genuinely confused.
"Because easy things don't last. They drift away when the wind changes. They feel nice, and then they’re gone. As for complicated things… you fight for them. You choose them again and again. Even when it’s inconvenient. Even when it costs something."
He studied her like she’d just revealed a strategy he hadn’t considered.
"When did you get so wise?" he murmured.
"Foster care, I presume. It's either you learn fast or you fall behind and break. You learn how to read moods before words are spoken. You learn how to adapt before you're told to leave."
His arm tightened around her instinctively. "But you didn't fall behind and break."
"No." She settled against him again. "I got angry instead. I learned how to survive rooms I didn't belong in. I learned how to sit at tables where no one wanted me and still keep my head up."
"And now?" he asked quietly.
"Now I'm in a room I probably still don't belong in," she said, her voice softer, "but at least I'm not pretending I don't want to be here. That’s the difference."
He brushed his lips against her hair, lingering a second longer this time. "Anger works."
"It does, but so does stubbornness."
"You're very stubborn."
"You can say that again, but so are you. That's why this works. Neither of us backs down easily."
"That’s not always a good thing."
"It is if we’re standing on the same side."
He was quiet for a moment. "And we are?"
She lifted her head just enough to meet his eyes. "Aren’t we?"
His answer came without hesitation. "Yes."
They stayed in silence for a while before Nia broke it again.
"Leo?"
"Yeah?"
"When this is over, if we're both still here… what happens?"
He shifted slightly beneath her. "You're planning that far ahead?"
"I need to know there's something on the other side of all this. Something that isn’t just survival."
“We'll see how it goes and where this leads us, for better I hope.“