Page 135 of Veil of Obsession

“Don’t do that.” My voice cracks. “Don’t you dare pretend this is normal.”

He pushes past me into the room, dragging the chill in with him. “You done?”

“No,” I snap. “Not even close.”

He shrugs off his jacket and drops it on the chair. “Didn’t realize I needed to check in like a damn teenager. I was working.”

“You could’ve said that. A call. A text. Anything.”

He finally looks at me. Really looks. His jaw’s tight, hair damp from the rain, shirt clinging to him like he ran through a storm without stopping.

“I wasn’t playing around,” he says, voice low. “You need to learn some patience.”

I flinch like he slapped me. My arms cross over my chest automatically, like they can keep the words out.

“Patience? You left me here with nothing. No information. No protection. Just a half-broken lamp and a vending machine that doesn’t work.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he growls. “You think I don’t want to be in a fucking palace instead of this cockroach graveyard?”

“Then why aren’t you acting like it?”

He steps forward, eyes dark. “I’m out there making sure we survive. That we get a life after all this. And you’re in here...what? Taking inventory of motel flaws and writing me off?”

“You don’t get to gaslight me,” I say, voice rising. “Not when you disappear for hours without a word. You don’t get to make me feel like I’m crazy for caring.”

Silence. He breathes through his nose, fists clenched.

“I didn’t mean that,” he mutters.

“Yes, you did.”

“No,tesoro. I didn’t.”

The nickname lands somewhere between a wound and a balm.

I shake my head, arms trembling now. “You always do this. Shut down, act like you’re the only one carrying weight. Like I’m just…here.”

He swallows, chest rising. “You want the truth?”

“Yes.”

“I was meeting with a guy from the inside. Getting confirmation that Vegas is fractured worse than we thought. I’ve got three people who want my help putting it back together and a brother breathing down my neck for betraying the family. I’m not just juggling this for fun.”

I stare at him. The motel light flickers above us like it’s listening.

“I didn’t know,” I say quietly.

“I didn’t want you to,” he replies, just as soft. “Because if you did, you’d look at me the way you’re looking at me now: like I’m one mistake away from turning you in to them.”

I inhale sharply. “Lucio…”

He runs a hand through his hair and sits on the bed like he’s aged a decade in a day. “I didn’t ask for any of this. But I chose you. And I’d do it again.”

I want to tell him I’m scared. That I’ve spent every hour since New York waiting for him to regret me. That I don’t know what we are anymore when the dust settles.

But I don’t. Instead, I sit beside him, our knees touching, barely breathing.

“You smell like smoke,” I whisper.