Page 152 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
He turns toward the door but pauses on the threshold. "There is someone waiting for you."
The door opens again, and a breath I didn't know I was holding slips from my lungs as Aria steps inside.
Luca steps past her, not speaking.
Aria moves slowly, and the light catches the curve of her cheek, the shadow beneath her eyes, the tremble in her hands.
And then, she's running to me.
Aria crashes into me without hesitation, her arms locking around my shoulders like she thinks I might vanish again.
Her cheek presses to mine, her body curled into me, and the softness of her breath against my throat feels more real than anything that has happened since Corsica.
I close my eyes and let her hold me, let the world dissolve into the rhythm of her heartbeat against mine.
Her fingers are in my hair, her lips at the corner of my mouth, not desperate, not wild, just present. Just there.
"You idiot," she whispers, and her voice is wet. "You absolute, beautiful idiot."
I huff a sound that would have been a laugh if my ribs didn't ache like they had been rearranged with a hammer. "Good to see you, too."
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her eyes searching every inch of my face like she's cataloguing the damage.
I know what she sees—pale skin, faint bruises beneath my eyes, the stubborn cut near my collarbone that refuses to heal properly. Her hands slide down my arms, over the blanket, checking for things she can't fix but needs to touch anyway.
"I ran to Luca the second I heard," she says, her voice low, her hands trembling against my chest. "You were still bleeding. They told me you might not make it through the night."
"I didn't mean to make a dramatic entrance," I murmur, my throat dry but functional. "I had intended something quieter. Maybe a postcard."
"You bastard," she breathes, and the kiss that follows is softer than anything I deserve.
I kiss her back, slowly, letting the shape of her mouth remind me what I fought for.
When she finally draws back, she rests her forehead to mine, and we stay like that, suspended in the quiet, the kind that comes after a storm that nearly broke the hull.
"I thought I lost you," she whispers.
"You didn't," I answer, and for the first time, I believe it myself.
She moves to sit beside me on the edge of the bed, and I take her hand, letting my thumb brush along her knuckles.
The silence stretches again, but it doesn't ache anymore. It breathes.
"I'm done, Aria," I say, not as a confession but as a declaration. "Luca gave me the out. He said if I ended Cesare, I could walk."
Her head turns slowly, her eyes narrowing. "And?"
"I'm walking," I say, simply. "I'm not staying to collect medals. I'm not looking for a throne. I'm done breaking bones and disappearing into alleyways. I've had enough blood on my shoes to last a lifetime."
"And what will you do instead?" she asks, though I think she already knows.
"I'm thinking a house with a roof that leaks when it rains. A stubborn lemon tree in the back. Gabriel coming home with dirt on his jeans and stories about a girl he likes. And you, barefoot in the kitchen, swearing about the burned bread."
"You don't bake," she says, lips twitching.
"No," I agree, "but you will, and I will eat whatever you make, even if it's charcoal."
She leans in again, her hair brushing against my jaw. I take a breath. It smells like something warm. Like firelight and the end of a long night.
