Dark Heart, Gentle Hands
Chapter 27: Dilemma

Chapter 27: Dilemma

Enzo’s POV

I’ve been lying on my back for what feels like a lifetime, the ticking sound of the clock on the wall count out the seconds with its lazy, uneven ticks. Outside, the afternoon light has slanted into gold, then bruised itself purple, and still Alaric hasn’t come back. Every creak in the hallway startles me half upright; every motorcycle engine three blocks away drags hope through my aching ribs then lets it go.

He said he was going to "take care of" the man who hurt me. At the time those words had sounded protective, almost gentle, but hours later they ring metallic in my skull. "Take care of" can mean flowers and soup; it can also mean blood and concrete. I was beginning to worry more than I should have to. I digged under my pillow for my phone, I wanted to call him or text him but then in clicked on me, I don’t have his phone number.

Think, Enzo. How do you reach a man who lives in shadows? How do you stop him once he’s slipped beneath the surface to hunt?

My chest tightens. Worry is useless static buzzing in my veins, but it’s either move or drown in it. I swing my legs over the mattress, joints protesting, and press bare feet to the cold terrazzo floor. The apartment is pin-drop silent l no humming fridge, no neighbor’s radio just the hush that comes after violence, when everything waits to see if the nightmare is really over.

"I need air," I mutter, voice rusty from disuse.

The balcony door sticks a little old paint, swollen wood then groans open. Cool night wind slides over my face like a balm. The view isn’t postcard-worthy: a modest tangle of rooftops, flickering streetlamps, neon signs already losing letters. But the breeze smells of fried plantains, diesel, and faint sea salt, and for a moment that’s enough. I brace my elbows on the railing, hug myself against the chill, and watch traffic trudge along the main avenue. Horns, laughter, snatches of music drift upward life happening at full volume while mine’s been paused.

My fingertips graze the bruises blotched across my neck. They’re sore, swollen ridges of the terror I had to go through. Instantly the memory unfurls, vivid and intrusive: the man’s fingers tightening, death clogging his every breath, his hissed threat in my ear, the way he warned me to stay away from Alaric. I swallow hard, force the scene back into its box. A single shiver slips down my spine.

"Who was he, anyway? Alaric’s lover? A jealous ex?" The thought escapes before I can leash it, drifting into the night like a question for the stars.

Arms coil around my waist quiet, sudden. They’re chilled from the open air yet unmistakably strong. My pulse kicks. I didn’t need to turn to know who they belonged to.

"What took you so long?" I whisper, trying to keep the relief out of my voice and failing.

Alaric’s chest rumbles against my back. "First things first," he says, low, deliberate, "Philip is neither my lover nor my ex."

I twist in his hold, ignoring the sharp stab in my ribcage, to see his face. Shadows hood his eyes, but I catch the glint beneath the first warning. "What are you talking about?"

"You wondered out loud." He lifts his hand, gloved in moonlight, and tilts my chin side to side, inspecting the bruises like crimes he means to solve personally.

"I I didn’t realize I’d said it," I murmur.

"I stayed longer because I had unfinished business," he continues, tone calm in a way that curls my stomach.

The words land heavy. I step back, but he reels me closer with effortless strength. My palms flatten against his chest; my instincts shoot up, did he do what I think he did?

"What did you do, Alaric?"

"I gave Philip exactly what he earned," he says. "No more, no less. He had no right to touch you no right to make choices that belong to me."

Anger burns behind the quiet; veins stand in sharp relief along his neck. Night sounds fade. It’s just us, and the two heartbeats thundering too loud.

"Did you kill him?" The question scrapes out raw, a secret carved into the dark.

"Why are you so concerned for a man who left you bleeding in your own house?" He releases me and stalks inside. Shock freezes my feet before I follow, the balcony door banging shut behind us.

"Calm down, Alaric. I’m not concerned for him I’m concerned for you." My voice trembles, but I keep it low, wary of neighbors. "The threats you made before you left they scared the hell out of me. I needed to know if you meant them."

He turns, a panther’s prowl in slow motion. "You say you don’t care about him then why are asking if he’s alive? And Enzo..." He draw out my name.

He suddenly started taking slow steps towards me, the way he said my name and the look on his face scared me to death so I started slow steps backwards until my back his the wall. He stood in front of me he hands buried in pockets, shoulders loose he didn’t locked me in with his hands, I could run away from him but I couldn’t. The look in his eyes, the way stared at me grounded me.

"You killed him?" I repeat, quieter than a prayer.

"What he did demanded an answer." he was inches away from me, I could feel his breath on my face. "Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks they can touch what’s mine. They won’t even share your air."

Then contradiction incarnate he cups my face with hands unexpectedly gentle and claims my mouth in a hard, searing kiss. The taste is an eclipse of everything else: copper, adrenaline, a promise of dark salvation. For a heartbeat I melt into it, into him then sense jolts back. Panic. I shove him away with every bit of strength I had left in me. My cracked ribs sent a bolt of pain that left me screaming. The world tilts; I collapse to the carpet, coughing for air.

"Enzo," he called out, worry lace his voice.

Without permission without effort Alaric scoops me up. I beat weakly at his shoulders; he doesn’t flinch. Mattress springs sigh as he settles me on the bed. I thrash, but he straddles my hips, pinning me with ease, my wrists yanked above my head and trapped in one brutal hand.

"Stop," I gasp, voice shredding. "I don’t want"

He bends, lips brushing my ear, heat and danger coiling around the words. "Breathe, little human. You’re safe with me."

Safe. Such a fragile claim from the mouth of a man who may have murdered tonight. My pulse thrums beneath his palm like a captured bird. Anger, fear, desire all tangle until I can’t name which is louder.

Alaric kisses me again slower, claiming rather than conquering while I hang in the suspended moment between resistance and surrender, between terror of the monster he’s shown me and the magnetic pull of the protector he insists on being.