Everyone keeps warning me like I don’t already know the risk.

Like my heart hasn’t already chosen him.

But the more they say it… the harder it is to silence the voice in my head that’s wondering.

.. what if they’re right. What if we really are fighting a losing battle, one that will inevitably end with our destruction?

The mirror’s still fogged from the shower, softening the harsh lines of my expression into something unrecognisable. I twist the towel tighter around my chest, water dripping from the ends of my hair to the tile below. My breathing stays quiet...controlled. Even now.

I hear the door open. Not the bathroom door, the one to the bedroom. Heavy boots against the floorboards. The familiar rustle of movement I used to crave the sound of.

Then his voice, rough, low, cautious.

“Bambina?”

I don’t move. Ares waits. I can feel him just beyond the door. I don’t need to see him to know he’s standing there, watching, trying to read the air through the silence.

“Jordyn?” I reach for the moisturiser and start smoothing it into my skin, slow and deliberate. “Ehi, che c’è che non va, tesoro?” Hey, what’s the matter, sweetheart . He asks, gentler now. “Jordyn?” He says again firmer this time. “You’re really not going to look at me?”

Still nothing.

I hear Ares exhale slowly. “Okay, clearly you’re pissed.”

I roll my eyes at the mirror. No shit.

“Bambina, will you say something.”

I tighten the towel again when he steps further into the bathroom. His voice shifts, gruffer now. A little harder. “Stop fuckin’ ignoring me, Jordyn.”

I set the bottle down with a sharp clack against the sink and finally look up. Not at him, at the mirror. At his reflection standing behind me in the doorway, eyes hard. The image of a man who thinks his silence is a justifiable currency for mine.

“Stop ignoring you ?” I intone, my eyes narrowing. “Is this coming from the man who has been ignoring my calls and text messages?” I hiss, not bothering to mask my annoyance. “You’ve been gone for three days,” I inform him, my voice clipped. “No text. No call. Nothing .”

“I had business?—”

“Yeah,” I cut in flatly, “and I had a pulse. Guess we both stayed busy.” Ares stares at me, unmoving. I see the flicker in his eyes. Not quite guilt. Just… tension that’s contained and controlled.

“You could’ve checked in,” I add, still not looking at him directly. “But I guess I forgot, emotional well-being isn’t part of the job description.” He steps forward, shrinking the space between us.

“I was out handling the people who made the mistake of touching what’s mine. Keeping you safe. You think that comes with time for fucking texts?”

I finally turn to face him, towel still wrapped tight around me, water still dripping from my hair. I meet his eyes without flinching.

“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through the last few days?

I thought something happened to you, Ares.

You can’t just cage me in your fortress and have me sit here and play quiet little house pet while you disappear for days on end and don’t even bother to check in and let me know you’re at least alive. ”

I see his jaw stiffen, but he doesn’t speak.

“I wasn’t asking for a bloody sonnet. Just a text, one word.

It would’ve taken two seconds of your precious time to send a message.

Just enough to let me know I wasn’t about to open the door to Dante saying they found your body in pieces.

” The silence that follows is heavy, much heavier than if we were screaming at one another.

I step past him, brushing his arm with mine on the way out. My voice is soft, but the edges are sharp.

“Don’t worry, though. I got real good at talking to myself while you were gone.”

Ares doesn’t follow me right away. The door doesn’t creak open. The floorboards don’t groan under his weight. Just silence, the thick, biting kind that settles into the cracks of the room like smoke after fire.

I walk slowly, every step a deliberate act of control. My towel clings to damp skin, but I don’t care. I don’t rush to get dressed. Don’t hide. Let him stand there and sit in what he’s done, or didn’t do.

By the time I reach the dresser, I hear it. The shift. The low sound of him finally moving. The breath he lets out, slow, heavy. The creak of the floorboard as he closes the space between us.

“Jordyn,” he says, voice low.

I don’t turn. “Look at me.”

I stare at the wardrobe, fingers brushing over the handle but not opening it. My towel slips further down my chest, but I don’t bother adjusting it. Let him see my back if that’s all he gave me for three days.

“You’re angry,” he says. “I get it.”

I let out a quiet, dry laugh. “No, you don’t. You wouldn’t know what to do with someone else’s anger if it slapped you across the face.”

He’s closer now, I feel the heat of him behind me, the tension radiating off his body like a live wire.

With a sigh, I pull open the dresser drawer, the sound loud in the silence, and grab a tank top. My towel slips slightly, water still dripping onto the floor. Still, he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Just stands there behind me, all heat and stillness.

When I finally turn to face him, my voice is quiet, measured. No venom, just truth.

“I understand that you’re not used to this.” His eyes narrow slightly, but I keep going. “You’re not used to someone waiting up. To someone who cares if you’re alive or not. Who worries when you’re out there doing whatever it is you do.”

“But you do now.” I hold his gaze, steady despite the sting in my throat.

“You have someone who waits for you. Who worries. Who sits here for days with her chest caving in, imagining the worst. And that’s what being with someone means, Ares, whether you’re ready for it or not.

” My voice drops, barely above a whisper.

“If you want me in your life, you need to start letting me in. Communicating. Because I can’t survive another three days like the ones I just had, not if you want me to stay sane. ”

Something flickers in his expression, too fast to name. A shadow of something that might be regret. Or maybe it’s just the first crack in all that ice he loves to hide behind.

And then he takes one slow step forward, then another. His voice is low, like it’s coming from somewhere deeper than he meant to reach.

“You want someone who knows how to talk about their feelings? That’s not me.” Another beat. His voice drops. “I told you at the start that I don’t do soft.” He looks down for the first time, like the weight of it finally hits him. “This is who I am, Jordyn, I don’t know how to be any other way.”

I don’t answer him. Not because I don’t have anything left to say,

But because the longer I look at him, I’m starting to forget all the reasons I’m angry in the first place.

So, I tear my gaze away and sidestep him, crossing the room without another word. My towel brushes against my thighs with each step, damp and clinging, skin still flushed from the shower and the heat of him standing so close.

I push open the bathroom door and step inside, flicking on the light. The mirror’s fogged again. Perfect, because I don’t want to see the look on my face.

I reach for the lotion bottle, fingers fumbling for the cap like focusing on something else might hold me together.

But then I hear it. His footsteps. Slow, heavy, each step deliberate.

He enters the bathroom without asking, like it’s his right. I mean, it is his house, his bathroom, so he is well within his right to just stroll in without a single fuck given.

I feel him before I see him. The air shifts, tightening around my skin.

Then, softly, his hands find my hips, settling there over the towel. His touch is steady, warm and anchoring.

He leans in and presses a kiss to the top of my head, and I go still.

Then another kiss. Lower this time, my shoulder. Then his nose drags slowly along the column of my neck, a breath escaping him as he exhales against my skin.

“I hate leaving you, bambina.” he whispers, voice low and raw. “Hate it more than you’ll ever know.” I close my eyes. My grip on the lotion weakens when every brush of his lips against my heated skin. And slowly he turns me around so I’m facing him.

I peer up at him while he looks down at me for a moment. I resist the urge to close my eyes when his hand comes up to stroke my face before he leans in and his mouth finds the edge of my jaw. Then moves to the soft spot just beneath my ear.

Another whisper, this time softer, like a secret.

“It doesn’t matter where I am, you’re on my mind, always.”

I swallow hard. “And if I had a choice, believe me, I wouldn’t leave your side.”

He shifts in front of me slowly, one hand sliding around to neck, the other still resting on my hip. His head dips, and he kisses the corner of my mouth, once, gently. Not asking. Not pushing. Just there.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he murmurs. “But I want to. For you .” Another kiss, my cheek this time, warm and firm. “You’re the only thing that makes this life feel less like a fucking prison.”

My guard fractures. Just slightly. My shoulders drop. My pulse stutters.

“Tell me what you need, bambina. I’ll give it to you. I swear to God, I’ll give you everything I’ve got, even if I have to bleed it out one piece at a time. Just don’t give me the silent treatment. Be patient with me.”

And just like that, I’m unravelling.

My head tilts toward him before I can stop it. My lips part. My body leans into his like it’s been waiting, aching, for this exact kind of softness wrapped in steel.

I don’t pull away, either. And that’s how he knows he’s still got me.

Ares reads the shift in me instantly, like some unspoken thread has pulled taut between us. The second my head tilts toward him, just barely, he moves.

His mouth finds mine in a kiss that doesn’t ask. It claims . There’s no hesitation, no room for thought, just heat and the weight of everything unspoken crashing into the space between us.