Page 93 of Only for Him

Rosa lingers at Roman’s left shoulder, as if she’s always belonged there. Her eyes flick between the screens, between him and me, shining with a camaraderie that makes my stomach churn.

That’s what makes your stomach turn, Giselle? Not the violence? Not the cameras? Her?

Yes. Her.Them.

Because I’m an extremely fucked-up person who is capable of being jealous of a broken woman being close to a monster.

No. Notamonster.

Mymonster.

“I’ll take her from here, Romochka” she says, the words slipping off her tongue with an authority that feels foreign and uncomfortable.

Romochka.

I bristle. Heat flashes up my spine.

“No,” I snap. “She needs professional protection. Not… this.”

Rosa’s expression tightens. She crosses her arms, the posture practiced. Dismissive.

“You don’t know what you’re up against. We’ve been doing this far longer than you’ve been wearing that badge.”

“The NYPD?—”

“Is compromised,” Rosa says, rolling her eyes like I’m a petulant, naive teenager. “Corrupt. You go to your captain, you lead them here.”

She spits out that word—corrupt—like acid.

A hot flash of anger bolts through me. “You think I’m an idiot? I know how to run counter-surveillance. I know how to encrypt a phone call.”

But she looks at me like I’m someone to be patted on the head and toldyou’ll learn. Her tone drips with experience I haven’t earned, and the shape of her voice when she uses his diminutive still echoes in my ears.

How did she get those scars on her cheeks? Why am I begrudging this woman her role, whatever it is?

I can’t logic my way out of this feeling. I certainly didn’t logic my way into it.

It’s pure craving, territorial instinct.

It burns. God, it burns.

She’s standing at his shoulder like it’s hers. Like she’s earned the place.

And maybe she has.

But I want it anyway.

Roman makes me feel like I’ve never known anyone else, and it hurts to think that he doesn’t feel the same.

I bite my tongue and look at Dakota instead. Her eyes are wide, glassy, flickering like a blown fuse. She’s why we’re all here, right?

Only because he brought her to you. You would’ve wound up here, with him, no matter what.

I shake off the intrusive voice in my head feeding me inconvenient truths.

“We need to keep her safe,” I say. I try to steady my voice, make it sound like I have authority, but I don’t think it works. Not with Rosa, or with him.

Dakota doesn’t look at me. Her gaze is fixed on Rosa now. There’s something in the way they look at each other—recognition, maybe, or just the understanding of women who have lived through the same brand of hell.