She pushed the door open like she had every right to be here. Like this place — this life, this ruin of a man — belonged to her now. And maybe it did.

She stood there, in the fog of my vices, with her eyes lit like fire and her hands shaking just enough for me to see the truth: she was scared. But not of me — of what I might do to everything we’d built just to prove I could still destroy something.

I slammed the bottle down harder than I meant to. Glass clinked. Liquid spilled. She didn’t flinch. “You shouldn’t be here,” I said, my voice low, but sharp enough to cut. “And yet I am.”

I paced. Smoke curling from the cigarette between my fingers, knuckles aching from a night that didn’t go how it was supposed to. There were bodies in the alley. Deals blown wide open. My name on lips that should’ve never known it. And her — walking in here like love was still something I could offer.

“I told you what this was,” I said, spinning on her. “I told you how this ends.” “No,” she said, stepping closer. “You told me to run. You never said why.”

I snapped. “Because everyone I get close to dies!” I shouted, my voice echoing off the stone walls, louder than anything I’d said in years. “Because this world doesn’t let you love something without bleeding for it. Because I’ve got men watching me from rooftops and ghosts that won’t stay buried and if they see you in this room one more time—”

I stopped. Not because I was out of rage. But because she was crying now. Silently. No gasps. No sobbing. Just tears on a face that still looked at me like I was worth saving. And I hated her for it. Hated her for seeing the man under the monster when even I’d forgotten he existed. “I didn’t come here to save you,” she said, voice cracking. “I came here because I was already burning.”

I turned away. Put my fist through the drywall like it owed me something. Blood smeared down my wrist. I didn’t feel a damn thing. “You think this is love?” I muttered. “This is war. With suits and money and corpses in trunks. There’s no space in this life for what you want.” She walked right up to me, pressed a hand against my chest, over the scars inked in black and red. “I don’t want space,” she whispered. “I want you. Even if it kills me.”

And right there, in that dark room with the smoke and the silence and the taste of blood in the air, I realized what scared me most. It wasn’t losing her. It was keeping her. Because in this life, love isn’t a soft thing. It’s the gun they use to shoot you in the back. She didn’t back down. Even after the yelling. The broken wall. The blood dripping from my knuckles onto the floor like punctuation to a warning she refused to read.

She stood her ground. Hand still pressed to my chest like she could keep the devil inside me from clawing out. I should’ve left. Walked out into the night, found a fight to bleed in, a deal to close, a bullet meant for someone else. Anything but this — her eyes, those goddamn eyes, looking at me like I wasn’t a monster but a man worth loving.

“Say something,” I muttered, jaw tight. “I already did,” she said softly. I looked at her, hard. Looking for the crack. The weakness. The opening that would let me push her away before it was too late. But there was nothing. Just a woman who knew the fire she was standing in — and chose to stay anyway. A knock at the door, sharp and wrong. Not the kind that waits for permission. Not in this world.

I moved fast, grabbing the pistol taped beneath the table. The sound of metal scraping free broke whatever moment we’d been caught in. She didn’t scream. Didn’t even blink. Just stepped back and let me handle it like she already knew the rhythm of this life.

She just looked out the window like she was saying goodbye to the life she never really had. I could feel it — the end creeping up behind us. Not today maybe, but soon. This wasn’t a rescue. It was a countdown. “I don’t deserve you,” I said suddenly, words pulled from some place I kept locked. “You don’t,” she said. “But I’m here anyway.” Then for the first time in a long, long while… I wasn’t scared to die.