The safe house was nothing like I had in mind. No cold concrete bunker or nondescript hotel room. Instead, Tony brought me to a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, with exposed brick, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and riverfront views.
"My grandmother's house," he said, locking three different deadbolts leading out of the room. "I inherited it from her. Few people even know that the house exists."
I was standing in the middle of the living room, with my body covered in the dust of broken glass and blood that wasn't all mine, and suddenly, I couldn't hold it together anymore. The adrenaline rush had dissipated, leaving only the crushing effect of everything that had transpired.
A sob burst from my throat.
"Katherine." Tony was there in an instant, pulling me against his chest. "You're safe. I've got you."
"I almost died." The words broke from me. "We both almost died. And for what? Because I went to your club three weeks ago? Because I wanted a promotion?"
"Because I made you a target." His voice was rough with guilt. "This is my fault. All of it."
I pulled back to look at him, really looked at him, his clothes disheveled, blood spattered across the dress shirt underneath, the cut over his eyebrow trickling with a steady dose of slowed but still-thickening blood. Yet his green eyes shone fierce, full of life, fixed on me as if I were the only connection holding him to the ground.
"I lost everything," I whispered. "My job, my apartment, my safety. My car, even, was smashed to pieces. All six years, everything I've worked for... gone."
"I know... and I'm sorry," he said, his thumbs swiping away my tears. "God, Katherine, I'm so sorry."
"But you know what the worst part is?" My hands fisted in his ruined shirt. "I'd do it again. I'd lose everything again just to have this. To have you."
Something shifted in his face. "Katherine-"
"I love you." The words burst from somewhere deep within me. "I know it's crazy. I know we hardly know each other. But I love you, and I almost died without ever letting you know."
Tony went utterly still. For one horrifying moment, I was sure I had made a terrible error of judgment. Then he kissed me.
Not gentle. Not careful. He kissed me as if he was suffocating and I was oxygen. His hands swept through my hair, turning my head, turning me toward his desperate claim on my mouth. I kissed him with the same urgency, my body pressing against his, needing to feel him solid and real and alive.
"Say it again," he insisted against my mouth.
"I love you."
"Again"
"I love you, Tony Marvin." I pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. "Now you say it."
His face was raw, exposed in a way that I had never seen before. "I love you. I've loved you since you walked out of my club and told me to go to hell. I love you so much, it terrifies me."
I kissed him then, pouring three weeks of fear, longing, and desperate need into the kiss. His hands moved down my body, drawing me closer, and his desire was hard against my hip.
"Katherine." My name was a prayer itself. "I need you. Need to feel you alive under my hands,"
"Yes." I was already working on his shirt buttons. "Yes."
We barely made it to the bedroom. Our clothes slid off us in a trail from the hallway - his jacket, my blouse, his shirt revealing the tattoos I'd glimpsed before but never really seen. We tumbled onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and desperate kisses.
Tony's hands explored the contours of my body with the avid urgency of devotion. "So beautiful," he breathed against my neck. "Every inch of you. So fucking perfect."
His mouth followed the path of his hands, pressing kisses along my collarbone, over the curve of my breasts, down the gentle swell of my belly. I arched into his caress, my fingers weaving through his dark hair.
"Tony, please."
"I've got you." He began to move back up my body, positioning himself between my legs. "I've got you, baby."
When he finally slid inside me, we both gasped in response. He held completely still, allowing me to adjust, his forehead pressing against mine.
"Okay?" His voice was tightly controlled.
"More than okay," I rolled my hips, making him groan. "Move."
He did. Slowly, almost pensively, but I pushed him faster. Harder. I had to feel this, had to be reminded we had made it, that we lived, that we were alive, that we were together, that we were safe.
A rhythm grew between us, desperate and beautiful. Tony's mouth covered mine as we moved in sync, swallowing my cries of pleasure. His hand slid between us, and then I was shattering, screaming his name in release.
He followed soon afterward, my name ripping from his throat as he plunged deep inside me.
We collapsed on each other, panting, our hearts beating in unison. Tony rolled onto his side, gathering me to his chest, his arms surrounding me as if he'll never let me go.
"I love you," he murmured in my hair.
"I love you too."
We lay there in the dim lighting coming from the curtains, and for the first time in weeks, I felt safe. My fingers traced lazy paths over his chest, and I could feel the raised lines of ink there.
"Tell me about these," I said quietly, tracing the tattoo on his shoulder - an intricate compass rose.
Tony's hand covered mine. "My grandmother gave me a real compass when I was eight years old. Said it would help me find my way if I were lost somewhere. This is for her."
"And this one?" I fingered the Roman numerals on his ribs.
His face clouded over. "The date of my first kill. I was nineteen years old. My father told me to never forget that moment. The moment I ceased being just a boy, the moment I became what my family required."
My heart ached for him. "Tony-"
"And this," he went on, pointing my hand to the complex crest on his back, "is the oath of the Marvin family. Loyalty above all, blood before all, everything, really. It's the oath we take once we are inducted into the business."
I turned to look at it properly – beautiful and terrible, a work of art that represented everything dangerous about his world. "Do you regret it?"
"I used to think it made me strong." He pulled me closer. "Now I think it just made me alone. Until I met you."
I kissed his shoulder, the ink warm beneath my lips. "You're not alone anymore."
"Neither are you."
We drifted off tangled together, his heartbeat steady beneath my ear, his arms wrapped around me as if I were something precious. And for the first time since I had walked into his nightclub, I felt maybe, just maybe, we could weather the storm.
I woke to the early morning sunlight to an empty bed.
"Tony?" I sat up, holding the sheet to my chest.
However, he was neither in the bedroom nor the bathroom. A slight panic began to build inside my chest until the voices from the living room reached me.
I pulled on Tony's shirt from the floor and made my way down the hallway, but came to an abrupt stop once I realized who was sitting in the armchair by the window.
Thomas Marvin. A folder was in his hands, pictures scattered across the coffee table. Pictures of me, Tony, me leaving his apartment, me in the restaurant, us kissing in his car.
He had been watching us. Documenting everything.
"Miss Blaire." His voice was icy calm. "Please, sit down. We must talk about your future, and the survival of my son."