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I send some of my men to guard them as Mika and I go back to my house. We’re quiet as I move to the bar, grab twoglasses, and pour vodka in his and whiskey in mine. I hand him the glass and he tosses it back in one go.

“You’re my best friend, my partner, but if that bullet had grazed Dahlia…” He lets the threat dangle in the air.

“I know what she can do. I trust her ability. So don’t threaten her, brother. I’ll spill the blood of everyone who dares to come after her, even yours. I don’t care about the consequences.”

He gives me an unimpressed look, but the violence in his cold eyes is unmistaken. “The same goes for Dahlia. That was risky and with her, I don’t take risks. As her brother, neither should fucking you.”

I raise my glass to him. “I have you to fill in, don’t I?”

Mika pours himself some more and slumps on the sofa, drinking and sulking. “I can’t believe she’s that fucking good.”

He stares at my pendant with a deep frown. “With the show she put on, it’s obvious she never misses.” He points at my neck. “Do you think she knew what she was aiming at?”

This has crossed my mind whenever I’ve seen her hit dead center every time at the range. Her words from earlier have played on repeat in my mind.

If I let that small belief grow, it will take root in my chest, changing every fucking thing. Do I regret my actions? I am not one who regrets anything. But while I take and she gives, I haven’t offered her the one thing she wants, to be my woman.

I know that because she looks longingly whenever I write anything on her ass other than that, and she mumbled once, “Would it kill you to write ‘woman’ one fucking time?” I ampretty sure she wants that even more than finding out about her family, and that messes with my head.

Fuck, she made herself a home here, despite all the hardships and obstacles.

She’s sharing my bed, is my fucking shadow, has taken part at every meeting in and out of the city. While I wanted to show her what she missed as my partner in it all, the lines blurred once again.

The only way to keep up the sham of control has been to keep that one word away from her, that she’s indeed my woman. That’s what she is. I love her with every broken piece of my rotten heart.

I take a long gulp of whiskey, the taste burning my throat. Mika stands and places his empty glass down on the coffee table. He squeezes my shoulder. “Decide.”

“Will you stand by me?”

“Through fucking anything, brother,” he says, and my stomach knots.

I don’t deserve his loyalty. Soon I might lose everything I worked hard to get, but nothing will hurt more than having to live without her a second time.

“Oh my god, that was incredible,” Dahlia says, looping her arm around mine as we walk to the car that’s waiting for us.

“I did it for you, just so we’re clear,” I say, sensing something is going on between her and Mikail. She challenges him at every turn, and I’m not sure if Enzo is naive or simply refusing to see it.

She elbows me playfully. “And to show my brother he’s a blind idiot.”

That too. It was her suggestion when I complained about his stubbornness.

“So?”

“You’re my best friend, but”—she sighs, her eyes swimming in sadness—“Mika and I will never be together. What happened to me made sure of that. Behaving like that with him is my stupid attempt to show him that one action shouldn’t shapeour lives. I guess he thinks the only way we’ll share something again is in misery.”

Her words take me by surprise because the guy basically threatened Enzo, his best friend, and everything they stand for if something happens to Dahlia.

I don’t want to ruin our girl time, so I drop it for now. I’ve never had a friend before, but she makes it easy with her bubbly personality. She’s complex like any person with demons and she’s so freaking talented. Her playing is haunting, chilling, yet captivating at the same time. It’s like she gets in touch with a raw and deep pain and turns it into a masterpiece.

“Let’s show him what he’s missing.”

“Please, I doubt my brother treats you like a porcelain doll.”

I am not a blusher, but the reminder has heat creeping up my neck, warming my cheeks. He fucks me like anything other than that, as if he wants to find out where he ends and I begin.

Passion shrouds our nights—a fervent, wild one that always leaves me wanting to connect on another level too. But after one month, it appears to be unreachable.

“You should tell him the truth,” she says, nodding to herself as if that will end my predicament.