I took off my jacket and set the pistol on the counter. Her gaze closed in on it. Her tears came faster. Holding onto her, I stepped into the shower with her. I stood fully clothed and forced her beneath the stream as she held me, as if she would fuse us together, as if she were unable to stand on her own.

“You needed to see, Gia.”

She nodded, burying her face in my chest.

“You needed to know what I’m capable of.”

“You think I didn’t know?”

Her voice was full of anguish as she turned her emerald eyes to mine.

“Then…I don’t understand. I thought you’d want to see—”

“I do. I owe it to Mateo. I swore it to myself. I just…I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can pull the trigger on Victor. I don’t think I can keep my promise to kill him.”

Something inside me broke open, and I held her tight to me, cradling her head, rocking her as she wept. Her pain, it had this strange impact on me. It made me feel. For the first time in my life, I felt another person’s pain.

“You don’t have to,” I said in a whisper.

“I do. I swore vengeance.”

“You’ll have it, but you don’t have to be the one to do it. You don’t have to have blood on your hands.”

She shook her head and pushed us out of the stream of water. “No matter what, the blood will belong to me.”

“Shh. No.”

“I’m weak,” she said quietly, looking up at me, her hands on my cheeks now.

“Killing doesn’t make you strong, Gia.” I wiped the tears from her eyes and held her sweet face.

“I won’t be weak.”

“Maybe it’s time you let someone take the weight. Maybe it’s time to let go, and let me carry it. Let me carry you.”

She pushed wet hair from my face and looked like she was about to say something, but then stood on tiptoe and covered my mouth with hers, her kiss soft and testing. I liked kissing her like this. Kissing her like we weren’t battling as her hands fumbled with the wet buttons of my shirt until she pushed it off my shoulders, halfway down my arms. We kissed like we couldn’t stand to separate, as if we needed to be touching while I lifted her and carried her into the bedroom, laying her dripping wet on my bed as I tore off the rest of my clothes and climbed between her thighs, her legs and arms wrapping around me, drawing me down to her, her mouth locking on mine again as I thrust into her, never letting her go, not once, not until we lay spent on the bed.