Page 59 of Shadowed Hearts: Frost (Nightfall Syndicate #2)

forty-one

Vanessa

" W hen are you getting married, anak?" Tita Malou's voice cuts through the overlapping conversations like a blade, jasmine perfume overwhelming as she leans closer.

My fingers freeze around my fork, lumpia suddenly tasting like cardboard. Around the crowded dining room, twenty-six pairs of Filipino eyes turn toward me like spotlights waiting for a performance I'm not ready to give.

"We're just...taking things as they come." The words scrape my throat raw.

Mom sets down her plate with more force than necessary. "Taking things as they come? Vanessa, you're twenty-eight. At your age, I already had two children and a stable career."

The familiar fragmentation starts. Code sequences offering better hiding places than this suffocating room. My leg bounces under the table, nervous energy with nowhere to go.

"Vanessa, stop moving your leg," Mom snaps without looking at me. "You're shaking the whole table."

Sorry. Can't help it. Brain won't stop.

"She's always been like this," Tita Carmen sighs, reaching over to still my knee with her hand. "Never could sit properly. Even as a baby, always wiggling, always restless."

"It's because she doesn't focus," another aunt adds. "If she just concentrated better, tried harder to be still..."

Their disappointment settles over my shoulders like a familiar coat.

Twenty-eight years of being too much, too scattered, too different.

The daughter who couldn't sit through mass without fidgeting, couldn't pay attention in school without doodling, couldn't be the quiet, respectful girl like Ate Kaela.

I'm trying. I'm always trying.

"Where is Asher tonight anyway?" Dad's voice cuts through the chatter. When Marco Reyes speaks, the room falls quiet. "Doesn't seem very committed to be missing your birthday."

Heat floods my cheeks. He's committed. He's so committed he's risking his life right now on some elimination job he couldn't reschedule. But I can't say that.

"He had to work late. Important client."

"On a Sunday?" Kuya Migs raises an eyebrow from across the room, his doctor instincts picking up on my stress levels.

"Some jobs don't follow normal schedules," I manage, my voice smaller than I intended.

"Real jobs do," Tita Malou sniffs. "Professional jobs have professional hours."

Unlike your fake job serving coffee to college kids, the unspoken judgment hangs in the air. Another way I've disappointed them all.

My chest tightens until breathing becomes work. Every beat of my heart echoes in my ears like artillery fire. The familiar anxiety spike hits—pulse racing, palms sweating, that crushing sensation of being trapped in my own skin.

Gabe catches my eye from across the table and pulls out his phone, typing rapidly. A second later, my phone buzzes.

Want me to fake an emergency?

I almost smile despite everything. But before I can respond, salvation arrives.

The deep, aggressive rumble of a Ducati Panigale V4R cuts through the suburban quiet like a knife through silk.

My heart stops. Actually stops for three seconds before slamming back to life so hard I taste copper. That specific engine note—I'd recognize it anywhere.

He made it.

The conversations around me fade to white noise as the bike gets closer, then cuts off somewhere near the front of the house.

Relief floods my system so fast it makes me dizzy. Eight hours of wondering if he was safe, if the job went sideways, if he'd get here at all. One miscalculation means never coming home. And now he's outside.

The doorbell rings.

Every conversation stops instantly.

My limbs refuse to cooperate, adrenaline making everything feel underwater. Mom rises to answer the door, her expression cycling through curiosity and barely contained excitement.

The front door opens, and Asher's voice carries clearly. "Good evening, Mrs. Reyes. My apologies for being so late."

Formal. Polite. But underneath that control, something else. The subtle edge that comes from recent violence, carefully hidden behind perfect manners.

"Asher!" Mom's voice pitches higher with delight. "Come in, come in! You're just in time for dessert."

The sound of his footsteps on our tile floor is measured, deliberate. Military bearing that cuts through the chaos of my family's energy like a blade through silk.

When he appears in the doorway, everything else ceases to exist.

Dark jeans and a button-down shirt the color of storm clouds. No visible signs of whatever work kept him away, but I know how to read the subtle tension in his shoulders, the way his gaze sweeps the room before finding mine.

Those dark brown eyes catch every detail, and right now they're focused entirely on me with an intensity that makes my heartbeat stumble. There's something predatory in the way he moves through space, something dangerous barely contained beneath that calm exterior.

"Sorry I'm late, little bunny." The nickname in front of my family makes heat crawl up my neck.

He moves through the maze of aunties and cousins with careful steps, a wrapped package balanced in his hands.

Each step closer makes my breathing more erratic, my body recognizing his proximity like a prey animal sensing a predator.

But instead of fear, there's something else.

Something that makes heat pool low in my belly.

When he reaches me, the world narrows to just us. His clean peppermint and sandalwood scent cuts through the heavy aroma of Filipino cooking, but underneath it there's something else. Something metallic and dangerous that makes my pulse spike.

He places the wrapped package in my hands with his usual deliberate care, fingers brushing mine with enough pressure to make my breath catch.

"Happy birthday."

My fingers shake as I peel back the tape, hyperaware of every eye in the room watching. Inside the box: the latest RTX 4090 graphics card. The one that launched last week with a waitlist thousands deep.

My breath catches. "How did you—"

"I have my ways." His mouth twitches in that almost-smile that's become my favorite expression, but there's something darker behind it. Methods and connections I can't even imagine. "Figured you could use the upgrade for your...projects."

He knows exactly what this means for my hacking work. He moved heaven and earth to get something impossible because he pays attention to what matters to me.

"I still don't understand why you waste your MIT education serving coffee," someone adds with that Filipino aunt judgment that could slice steel. "Such a smart girl, but what's the point if you don't use it?"

"She could have been a doctor like Miguel," another voice chimes in.

"Or an engineer like her cousin Robert."

"Instead she makes lattes for teenagers."

Each comment lands like a physical blow. My shoulders hunch, body instinctively trying to shrink away from their disappointment. The familiar shame claws through my chest: their American Dream daughter who picked the wrong path.

MIT scholarship wasted. Brilliant mind serving coffee. Another disappointment in the long line of ways I've failed them.

Asher's posture changes. Subtle, nothing my family would recognize, but I know that shift. The way a sniper goes still before taking a shot. The predator awakening, this time aimed protectively around me.

"Actually," his voice fills the room with quiet authority that makes every conversation die, "Vanessa isn't wasting anything."

The temperature drops. When Asher uses that tone—the same one he probably used right before pulling triggers tonight—people listen whether they want to or not.

"She's the most brilliant person I've ever worked with.

She sees patterns that others miss, solves problems that would break most people's minds.

" He pauses, letting that sink in, his hand settling on my lower back with possessive heat.

"The coffee shop job? That's just how she chooses to spend her mornings.

Her real work happens when the rest of the world is asleep. "

His thumb moves along my back through the sweater fabric, marking me as his in a way that sends lightning through every nerve.

"Vanessa helps people. She saves lives with that incredible brain." His eyes lock on mine, dark and intense and full of truth he can't fully speak. Truth about the kind of monsters we hunt in the shadows. "She's exactly where she's supposed to be, doing exactly what she's meant to do."

The room has gone completely silent. Even the cousins have stopped fidgeting.

"Your restlessness isn't a flaw to be fixed. It's your superpower. The way your mind works, the way you see connections no one else can—that's not something to be ashamed of."

His fingers press against my spine, grounding me in ways that make my pulse race for entirely different reasons.

"You're not too much. You're not broken. You're not disappointing anyone who matters." The words cut through years of internalized shame like a blade. "You're perfect exactly as you are."

Tears blur my vision before I can stop them. Not the messy sobbing kind, just overwhelming relief spilling out because someone finally sees me. Really sees me.

"The family just wants what's best—" Dad starts.

"What's best," Asher cuts him off with respectful firmness that still carries an edge, "is supporting someone who's already changing the world in ways you can't imagine.

Vanessa, you don't need to be fixed or redirected or doesn't need to be fixed or redirected or made to fit into boxes that were never built for someone like her. "

He turns those dark eyes back to me, and my heart stutters to a complete stop.

"I love your restless mind. I love how you talk to your computers like they're teammates.

I love that you see patterns in chaos and make the impossible look easy.

" His voice gets softer, more intimate despite our audience.

"I love that you care so much about strangers that you'll work all night to help them.

I love your terrible sleep schedule and your Star Wars obsession and the way you bounce your leg when you're thinking. "

My chest feels like it might explode from sheer emotion.

"I love every brilliant, chaotic, beautiful thing about you. And I'm done pretending that conventional success means more than the life you've built helping people."

The kiss is soft, reverent, completely inappropriate for my family's living room. But absolutely perfect. His lips move against mine like a promise, like a declaration, like claiming something precious and dangerous all at once.

When we break apart, applause erupts around us. My ridiculous family finally getting the show they've been waiting for.

"Well," Dad says after a long moment, clearing his throat. "I guess we don't need to worry about whether he's serious."

Mom wipes at her eyes with her napkin. "Such beautiful words. You're good for our girl, Asher."

"She's good for me too," he murmurs, forehead still touching mine, his thumb still tracing patterns on my spine that make me want to melt into him right here in front of everyone. "Better than I deserve."

For the first time in my entire life, my mind goes completely quiet. No racing thoughts, no fragmented code sequences, no anxiety spirals. Just perfect stillness centered on this moment, this dangerous man who sees beauty in my chaos.

"I love you," I whisper against his lips.

"I love you more than order," he whispers back, and there's something dark and promising in his voice. "More than control. More than safety."

And surrounded by my chaotic, loving, impossible family, with the taste of his dangerous promise on my lips, I finally understand what it means to be enough.