Chapter 4 - Stripping the ArmorThe safehouse on Elm Street was a fortress disguised as a modest brownstone. Inside, it was all polished concrete, high-tech security monitors, and minimalist furniture.
"Sit down," Declan commanded, gesturing to a leather sofa while he locked the reinforced steel door.
"Let me look at your shoulder," I insisted, crossing the room to stand in front of him. "You took a bullet for me."
"It went through the meat of the shoulder. It's nothing," he gritted his teeth, tearing away the ruined fabric of his shirt to reveal a jagged, bleeding flesh wound.
Without waiting for his permission, I grabbed a first-aid kit from the bathroom shelf, filled a basin with warm water, and knelt before him. For eighteen months, he had been the untouchable king of the South Docks; tonight, he was bleeding in a safehouse, stripped of his suits and his untouchable aura.
"This is going to sting," I warned softly, dipping a gauze pad into the antiseptic.
"Do your worst," he muttered, though his eyes never left my face.
As I gently cleaned the wound, scrubbing away the grime and blood, the tension between us shifted from explosive panic to something much more intimate and fragile.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked quietly, keeping my eyes on the task. "Why let me think you loathed me?"
Declan caught my wrist, stopping my hand. His grip was feather-light this time. "Look at me, Nora."
I raised my eyes to meet his.
"When your father forced this marriage on us, I was an upstart controlling the docks, and you were the collateral he used to secure his territory. I knew Mercer and the North Side syndicates were watching. I knew that if they saw me care about you—if they saw me look at you the way a man looks at his whole world—they would carve you up to get to me."
He swallowed hard, his voice cracking slightly. "I thought if I acted like a cold bastard, if I gave you a home that felt like a prison, they would ignore you. I thought you'd be safe."
"Safe?" A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "Declan, being invisible in a house that big is its own kind of death. I was drowning every single day."
"I know," he whispered, his free hand coming up to cup my jaw, his thumb tracing my lower lip with a tenderness that nearly broke me. "And every night, I sat across from you at that massive table, hating myself for every second I pretended you didn't matter, just so I could keep you breathing. I was a coward. I thought control was enough."
"And tonight?"
"Tonight, when I saw Mercer's hand on your arm, something inside me snapped," Declan confessed, his gaze burning into mine with terrifying honesty. "I didn't care about the syndicates, the territory, or the rules anymore. I wanted to burn Chicago to the ground just to keep another man from touching what is mine."
May you like
The words hung in the air, wrapping around my heart like a warm, irrevocable vow. All the loneliness, all the ice of the past eighteen months melted away in the heat of his gaze.
I leaned forward, closing the final inch between us, and pressed my lips to his.
