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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I STOOD IN the kitchen doorway, unseen but watching.

Zeynep sat on the counter stool, legs swinging slightly, her small hands wrapped around a cup of something. She looked at ease, her soft voice carrying through the kitchen, weaving between the sounds of sizzling meat and the occasional scrape of a spatula against the pan.

Josie stood at the stove, grinning as he stirred whatever the hell he was cooking. He was good at this, talking, making people laugh, making them feel like they belonged. That easy charm, the kind that pulled people in without even trying.

And she was talking and laughing with him.

Something twisted in my gut.

Josie was young. Good looking. No scars, no weight of past regrets carved into his skin. He was solid, dependable, had a damn good head on his shoulders. He’d make some woman real happy one day.

Even Drago, he may be a fucking bastard but his face and body wasn’t scarred to hell.

And me?

I was a wreckage of a man. Ruined. Marked by war, by mistakes, by every bad choice I had made since high school. I had a face that made people look twice, and not for the right reasons.

I didn’t belong in the same breath as her, let alone in whatever the hell this was between us.

Because that’s what I kept asking myself—was this real? The way she looked at me, the way she reached for me like I was her safe place, like she felt the same as me… was I just imagining it?

Or was she just desperate? Latching onto the first man who wasn’t trying to hurt her?

I clenched my jaw, shifting slightly, ready to turn away. Maybe I had been a fool for thinking—

Then she saw me.

And everything else in the room ceased to exist.

Her eyes landed on me, freezing me in place. There was no hesitation, no flicker of uncertainty. Just warmth. Recognition. Like I was something familiar, something steady, something special.

That look, it wasn’t the way a woman looked at a man she didn’t feel something for. It wasn’t how she looked at Josie.

It was how she looked at me.

Something deep inside me tightened, the air in my lungs turning sharp. I hadn’t earned that look. I didn’t deserve it. But fuck, I wanted to.

Josie, oblivious, glanced over his shoulder. “You hungry, man?”

I pushed off the doorframe, clearing my throat, trying to shake whatever the hell just passed between me and Zeynep.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

Zeynep set her cup down, sliding off the counter, her movements slow, deliberate. Like she saw only me.

And just like that, the doubt in my head started to lose its grip.