The house was quiet in that expensive, American way—thick walls, money-muted floors, the sort of silence Jack Nelson had bought with blood and patience. Outside, the city hummed. Inside, it knelt.

Jack stood at the foot of the bed, jacket already off, suspenders hanging loose, cuffs unbuttoned. He didn’t rush. He never rushed anything worth having.

You were already under the woollen blanket—the one with the faded florals you’d sewn yourself, needle steady, stitches perfect. Yellow and orange flowers, stubbornly bright, like they refused to know what sort of man slept beneath them. You lay on your side, long neck exposed, dark hair loose against the pillow, hands folded calm at your chest. Still. Waiting.

Christ Almighty, he thought, slow and reverent. Look at you. Built like you were meant to endure me.

Jack sat, the mattress dipping under his weight. He reached out, not touching yet. Just close enough to feel your warmth through the wool.

He had spoken to senators that day. Men who smiled with teeth and hid knives in their pockets. He’d spoken about money, about order, about keeping the reds from ever thinking this country could be theirs. He’d shaken hands with men who wore God like a lapel pin.

None of them had ever made his hands shake.

First man I ever killed wore a collar, Jack thought, jaw tightening. And I found God right after. Or maybe He found me. Hard to say.

You shifted slightly when he lay down beside you, the blanket rising, falling. He slid an arm around your waist, pulling you back until your spine fit against his chest like it had been designed there. Broad shoulders, strong arms, solid as oak. Not fragile. Never fragile.

His forehead rested against the back of your neck. He breathed you in.

Almond cookies. Pineapple sage. Home.

They think I’m a machine, he thought, almost amused. They think I climbed because I wanted power. Fools. I climbed because I was cold. Because I was alone. Because I was fuckin’ starving for something clean.

His hand settled over your heart, large palm spanning ribs and breath and life. Steady. Always steady. He listened like it was a prayer he’d learned by heart.

You didn’t speak. You never had. His poor Lynda - mute since birth. And God help him—he loved you for it. Loved that you never lied, never flattered, never tried to shape him into something softer. Your silence wasn’t absence. It was choice. It was discipline.

She sees me, he thought. Not the speeches. Not the suits. Me. And she stays.

Jack’s fingers traced your forearm, feeling muscle there—earned, not decorative. Hands that knew work. A woman who’d grown up counting pennies and still learned how to count laws. A woman who could break a man’s balance without ever raising her voice. A woman who filed property taxes by day and stitched color into his nights.

“You’re the universe apologizin’ to me,” he murmured, voice low, Irish cadence softened by America but never erased. “For every time it took somethin’ first.”

You tilted your head just slightly, cheek brushing his wrist. Acceptance. Not submission. He knew the difference.

His grip tightened—not hard, just sure. Possessive in the way gravity is possessive. Inevitable.

I don’t need absolution, he thought. I need this. I need her breath under my hand, her weight against me, so I don’t forget what I’m buildin’ all this for.