Page 138 of Veil of Obsession

I hesitate. Then I follow. Because for all the broken pieces, all the cracks, all the nights like this…we’re still here. Still together. And in this godforsaken motel room at 3:14 am, with Vegas still holding its breath, that has to count for something.

The bed creaks as I settle in beside him, both of us staring up at the water-stained ceiling like it’s got answers. It doesn’t. Just more silence, more things we’re both too tired to say out loud.

Lucio rests one arm beneath his head, the other splayed across the mattress, fingers close enough to touch, but not quite reaching.

My limbs feel too heavy, my skin tight with leftover adrenaline and bitterness. But now, in the hush between us, I also feel something else. Like maybe we’re learning how to breathe again.

His voice cuts through the dark. “Do you ever wish we could go back?”

“To what?” I ask, staring hard at the ceiling crack that looks like a spider’s web.

“Before all this. Before New York. Before the war. Before blood started costing more than loyalty.”

I glance at him. His profile is shadowed, all sharp lines and quiet regret. I trace it with my eyes: jaw clenched, mouth tight, the faintest crease between his brows.

“I don’t know,” I say after a beat. “Sometimes. But then I remember going back wouldn’t fix any of it. The people who betrayed us were already that way. The ones who died…they were already marked.”

He hums in agreement, low in his throat. “Yeah.”

I roll to my side, facing him now. “But I do wish it hadn’t taken this much to find out who we really are.”

His eyes flick toward me. “You mean whoyouare. You’ve been sure since day one.”

I laugh—bitter, short. “That’s not confidence, Lucio. That’s survival.”

He turns fully then, facing me too, one hand lifting to brush the hair from my cheek. “Still. You’re the strongest thing in my life. You always have been.”

I don’t know what to do with that, so I look away.

“I saw Frankie’s stuffed rabbit in the glove compartment,” I whisper, needing to shift gears before I crumble under his gaze.

His throat tightens visibly. “Yeah. I didn’t want to leave it behind.”

“She wouldn’t sleep without it.” My voice is quieter now. “The last time we moved, she cried until she passed out.”

Lucio closes his eyes for a second. “I know.”

We both go quiet again. I hate this kind of quiet—the kind where we’re just waiting for the next hit. The next loss. The next reminder that we’re still fugitives with blood on our hands and a child who doesn’t deserve a single bit of the chaos we’re dragging her through.

“What if we don’t make it?” It slips out before I can stop it. “What if this ends with her alone? With us buried?”

Lucio shifts closer, reaches out, and grips my hand so tightly I can feel the shake in his fingers. “We will make it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” he says, his voice suddenly cold steel. “But I’ll kill every person between us and that outcome to make sure we do.”

There’s a pause, like something just cracked deeper under the surface.

I nod slowly. “Okay.”

He doesn’t let go of my hand. “You scared?”

I look at him—really look. He’s exhausted, hollowed out from everything we’ve lost and still burning from everything we’re holding onto.

But underneath that? There’s a fight in him. Always has been.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “But not of you.”