Page 23 of The Chief (Those (Damn!) Texas Dantes #3)

And he’d said the words like she was nothing. Like she didn’t matter. But she did.

To Cade, she mattered more than anything.

Not just because of what she remembered.

Not because of the kill order. But because of the fire she kept hidden behind quiet eyes.

Because of the way her body had molded to his without hesitation.

Because every breath she took beside him made everything primal in him tighten.

He wanted to protect her. But hell if he didn’t also want to touch her, taste her, lose himself in every inch of her until she forgot the name of every man who’d ever tried to hurt her.

He’d kill whoever thought otherwise. And not just for what had been done to her.

But for daring to touch what was his. For ever thinking they could own her, mark her, destroy the fierce, intelligent woman curled against him now.

Because protecting her wasn’t just duty anymore.

It was need. It was blood-deep and bone-raw and tangled with every beat of hunger she didn’t know she gave him.

She was fire and ache and heat and memory.

And one day, she’d come fully awake and burn the whole goddamned world down.

“Marcello.” She’d whispered the name again, like a ghost at the edge of memory. She repeated it once more in her sleep.

And it took everything in him not to tear the room apart.

The sound of her voice still echoed in his ears, soft and broken and thick with buried terror.

It twisted something in him. Rage, yes, but also heat.

A fierce, aching want he didn’t dare name.

He wanted to wake her. To touch her. To demand answers and chase away every ghost that still haunted her breath.

But that wasn’t what she needed. Not yet.

So he waited. Waited for the light to shift, for her breath to change. It came slowly, a hitch, a flutter, the barest tremor in her lashes. And when she stirred, small, careful, like someone expecting pain, he didn’t move or speak. He just watched, steady and silent, until she fully woke.

“Elise.”

Her gaze flicked to his. Still guarded, though only half-waking.

“You said something last night. About your memory.” Cade’s voice was velvet-wrapped steel. He needed her to hear this, but not retreat from it. Not flinch. Not with him.

His gaze lingered on the curve of her mouth, the softness of her lips still shaped by sleep. Her warmth radiated into his side, and now, tension flickered just beneath her skin. It made him careful.

“You said you remembered everything,” he murmured. “But I need to understand what that actually means.”

“I already explained it to you,” she whispered, burrowing into him like he was the only safe place she’d ever known.

Reluctance underscored every syllable of every word, but her body contradicted it, seeking his warmth, his steadiness, like she needed to disappear into him before she could speak the rest.

He paused, watching the way her lashes lowered like she wanted to disappear. “I need more. Because last night… you said his name. Marcello. Over and over. And you didn’t just remember it. You felt it. Like it cut. Like it hurt. Badly.”

A beat. A breath. The tiniest flinch when he spoke the man’s name.

“This man, he’s tied to all of it, isn’t he? The Latin. The kill order. The reason you were shot instead of me.” Cade leaned in, eyes locked on hers. His voice dropped a notch with something dark and fierce. “So help me understand. Help me see what you remember.”

His hand brushed her knee, not by accident. Just enough to pick up on the heat of her there. Just enough to steady her. “Because this matters, Elise. You matter.”

Cade studied her face as he spoke, watched the way her gaze slid toward the ceiling like she was already preparing to shut down.

But he saw it. The tightness around her mouth.

The stillness in her shoulders that wasn’t quite natural.

She didn’t want to talk about it. Any of it.

And yet, beneath that reluctance, there was something else flickering in her eyes, hesitation laced with heat.

That barely-there awareness she was trying not to acknowledge.

Like she didn’t know whether to give into the pull between them or run from it.

Like she wasn’t sure yet whether he was danger… or sanctuary.

He’d seen people guard their secrets before, seen them go tight and quiet and mean.

Elise wasn’t mean. She was fragile. Brave, but fragile.

And right now, with her bare skin brushing his, her breath catching faintly when his fingers shifted, she wasn’t just holding back truth.

She was holding back want. That push-pull tension shimmered between them, silent and electric.

And Cade experienced every ounce of it, soft, insistent, and unbearably intimate.

And beneath that, something about her made his chest ache. Like she was half-convinced she’d break if she spoke it out loud.

He didn’t soften his tone, though. Didn’t let her off the hook.

He pushed, gently but insistently. “Is it just facts? Or is it voices? Faces? How does it work?” He brushed his knuckles down the inside of her arm, a light touch that was half question, half claim.

“I need to know what that means. From you. Now. Not whispered through painkillers. Not halfway to sleep.” His eyes held hers.

“Sorry, sweetheart, but I have to know.”

She sighed, quiet but sharp. Turned her face to the ceiling. “It’s called echoic memory. It means I don’t get to forget what’s said,” she said. “Not anything. Not ever.”

But as she admitted it, her hand moved. Gradual, hesitant. She dragged her fingers lightly over the inside of his wrist, a touch almost accidental. Except it wasn’t. Her breath hitched, like she knew exactly what she was doing, and hated herself a little for needing it.

Cade stilled.

She was letting him in. Just an inch. And every part of him tightened with the effort it took not to push for more.

“Explain.”

“I remember voices before faces. Cadence before context. I’ll hear something once, and it doesn’t just stay. It sticks. Whole conversations. Word for word. My brain holds onto it like it’s trying to survive off it.”

“Give me an example. A different one from the reception.”

She turned to him now, gaze sharper. Her body shifted too, subtly but unmistakably, like the words hurt more when she said them out loud, and the only shelter she trusted was him.

She leaned into his side, pain and need threading through her, desire flickering somewhere deep in her eyes, unsure if she wanted comfort or distraction.

“Every awful thing I ever heard my father say. Every threat. Every lie. Every time he told me I was nothing.”

Fury rippled through Cade and he shoved it down deep. “You said he hit you.”

“Because I couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear. I’d repeat something he said verbatim and he’d know I remembered too much. That I’d always remember.” Her voice dropped. “And the wrong memory at the wrong time? That got me hurt.”

Cade moved then, like a man approaching a wounded animal.

But his eyes never left hers. Not once. There was something else stirring behind the concern now.

A pull. A hunger he hadn’t fully let himself explore until this moment.

Not just to protect her, but to touch her.

To know her skin the way he knew her strength.

Still, he didn’t speak. Just extended his hand, palm open, and waited. Her fingers didn’t move at first, curled tight against the blanket like she didn’t trust herself to reach back.

But when he touched her, when his hand wrapped gently around hers, she didn’t flinch.

Didn’t pull away. Instead, she leaned into it—into him—like her body was answering a question her mind hadn’t dared ask.

Like some instinct deeper than fear recognized where she was safest, and it was here, against him.

In his hands. With his heat curling around her like armor.

His thumb traced once over the backs of her knuckles, grounding her.

Grounding himself. The contact was small, but it buzzed through him, sharp and unmistakably intimate.

Not comfort. Not entirely. Something more volatile.

More dangerous. Her skin felt cool, almost too cool, and her grip uncertain, as though she were holding on without knowing why.

He looked at her face, studied the shadows beneath her eyes, the tension still clinging to her brow, the way her gaze had gone too still again.

She wasn’t retreating. Not yet. But something was just beginning to crack.

Like the first splinter in a dam holding back too much.

He could see it in the way her lashes fluttered, in the way her throat moved when she swallowed.

She was holding it together with muscle memory and nothing else.

And he hated that this, the quiet, trembling intensity she wrapped around herself, was something she’d had to weaponize to survive. Not something she’d ever been allowed to give freely. Not something anyone had ever made room for.

What she’d done instead was play the fool.

Wore a mask of air-headed smiles and feigned confusion that made her seem harmless.

Carefully forgettable, as if she’d designed herself to be overlooked.

Dismissed. A woman with more smile than substance.

Until you looked too close. Until you noticed the staggering beauty that made ignoring her impossible.

Like she didn’t see what others missed. Like she couldn’t remember every word they said.

It kept her safe. But it also kept her hidden.

She didn’t pull away. If anything, her fingers flexed around his like she needed him, that touching him was the only way she could keep herself from unraveling.

Her breath skipped, her gaze flicked to his mouth and back again, fast and guilty, like her body had betrayed something she hadn’t said out loud.

And Cade felt it, the echo of her need, the heat blooming under her skin, the way want and wariness tangled in the space between them.

She was just as aware of the current sliding between them as he was. Maybe more.

“That name,” Cade said quietly. “Marcello. You spoke it like it hurt to say.”

Her shoulders tensed.

He watched her carefully, every shift in her expression, every flick of her eyes.

This wasn’t just a name. It was a crack in the wall she’d built around her memories.

And now he could see the light bleeding through.

Without a word, he reached for her, gathering her gently into his arms. Not like a rescue, but a shield.

Like he could wrap himself around her tightly enough to keep the past from touching her again.

She let him, curling in like she needed it just as badly, the tremor in her body betraying everything she didn’t say.

“I need to know why,” he pressed. “Who is he, Elise? Where did you hear his name? Was it just in the hallway, or does it go deeper? Because whatever’s tied to him—whatever he said—it’s connected to all of this.”

Elise froze. Her eyes widened, something flickering behind them, shock, recognition, maybe fear. Cade couldn’t tell which landed first.

Her mouth opened, then shut again, and her breath stuttered. She looked like she might deny it, but then her gaze dropped to his chest, unfocused.

“He was there,” she whispered. “Marcello was the man in the hall... the one who said the phrase.”

Cade’s spine went rigid. He tightened his arm around her and kissed the top of her head, like he could shield her with that one gesture. “Marcello was in the hallway?” he asked, voice quiet, lethal. “You’re certain?”

She nodded, a single definite movement. “He spoke the Latin phrase. I didn’t realize then what it meant. I didn’t realize I’d remembered his name until you said it. But now... it’s clear. It was him.”

“Have you ever heard his voice before?”

She looked at him now, full-on. “Yes. But I don’t remember where.”

“We’re going to have to figure that out.”

When she started to protest, he silenced her the only way he knew she wouldn’t fight, by catching her mouth with his, not just to stop the words but to remind her she didn’t have to carry this alone.

His hand came up to cradle her face, his lips warm and firm against hers, coaxing her into stillness.

She melted a little under the pressure, the protest slipping away, not because she agreed.

But because she trusted him. Because she needed him.

Just for this moment. “We won’t try and figure it out right this moment,” he said.

“But soon. We need to know if that memory is connected to his kill order.”

She moistened her lips, the tip of her tongue catching the corner of her mouth, as if tasting the kiss they’d just shared, savoring it, trying to decide if she wanted more or needed to run.

“I only heard it once before. And normally… that would be enough. His voice—his words—they don’t go away.

Not ever.” She paused, frustration tightening her features.

“But this time... it’s not locking into place.

Not yet. Sometimes I need the exact phrase, the rhythm, something specific to trigger it.

It’s like my brain’s holding the memory just out of reach, waiting for the right thread to pull. ”

His grip on her tightened. Not painfully, never that, but with just enough pressure to bind her to the moment, to him.

His thumb brushed along the delicate inside of her forearm, a calming stroke that was also a claim.

Her thighs shifted slightly against his, pressing closer, not consciously maybe, but unmistakably.

Cade felt fury surge, yes, but also a darker pull.

A possessive throb that made his chest ache and his blood pulse hotter.

She was here, with him, in his arms. And that meant everything that had been done to her, all the pain, the memory, the threat, it had to go through him now. Every bit of it.

“He tried to erase you,” Cade said. A beat passed. ”And instead, you’re the one who remembers everything. That first memory will come. And when it does...”

“And when it does,” Elise said softly, the spark behind her eyes hardening, “he’ll have no place left to hide.”

Because if her memory came back, if that moment sharpened, Marcello wouldn’t just be exposed. He’d be dismantled. Word by word. Step by step. And Cade would be the one to make it happen, with Elise at his side. Her memory, his wrath. A reckoning neither of them would walk away from unchanged.