I’ve never heard a louder silence.

My breath is the loudest thing in the room. That, and the pounding pulse of Sia’s heartbeat under her neck. I feel it more than I can hear it. It adds an undertone to the quiet that reminds me—we are still alive. We are still alive. Now, and now, and now. Still now.

I don’t bother looking back at Sia’s uncle, at my father. If they’re reaching for guns, let them reach. If they’re preparing themselves for a kill shot, let them kill. But they’ll have to kill us both.

I’m not going to let her die alone.

I’ll die right along with her.

What other option could I possibly have? Life without her would be nothing. Life without her sleeping form next to me in bed would be empty, colorless. Life without that laugh, without that smile, without the little stories she tells me about Fun Freeze...nothing could replace it. Nothing. Nobody on the planet.

The realization comes with a twist. I’d rather die than be without her. The intensity of it takes my breath away and gives it back in the next moment. I know the truth about myself now. I also know the truth about what I need to do.

There is only one thing I need to do, standing here in this kitchen, in full view of my father.

I kiss my wife.

“I love you,” I murmur against her mouth. I hope it’s sweet. How could it not be?

Her lips are soft and warm underneath mines and she sighs. I taste her relief on my tongue as she parts those same lips to let me in. “Oh, god, Gio,” she whispers, her lips brushing against mine. “I love you, too.”

“I’m sorry.” It’s the least I can say. How much time do we have? I don’t know. My attention is swallowed up in the same blue eyes I’ve loved since we were teenagers. There are hundreds of things I want to apologize for. For being Marco Moretto’s son. For the fact that her father felt so desperate. For the fact that our families have been on a collision course for generations. I don’t feel angry about it, not in this moment, but Jesus, I could. I thought I would become a man who was always in control. Instead, I have become a man whose destiny is decided by bloodline. By name. And if she had any other name, any other name at all…

Sia looks into my eyes, her hands sliding up to cup my face. “I’m not.”

My heart bursts, breaks, and I kiss her again, backing her up toward the wall. It’s not a smart move.

We’re making an easy target of ourselves, but she kisses me like there’s no tomorrow.

For all I know, this is the last today we’ll ever live.

So what do I do?

I kiss her back.

Again.

Hard.

Deep.

It’s fucking inappropriate, is what it is. My father is in the room. Her uncle is here. I’d bet anything they’re on the verge of clearing their throats to interrupt our display. That’s all this is to them, a display. For me, it’s everything. It’s all of the most important things in my life distilled into a single moment.

Is this what dying feels like?

Is this what it’s like to be presented with your own demise?

Is the clarity always this sharp? This good? How can it feel good, feel gentle, this knowing? This holding her in my hands, in the full knowledge that this could be the last moment I touch her?

There’s a scrape of chair legs against the kitchen tile and my heart picks up. He’s getting up. This is it. This could be it.

I’m afraid, somewhere deep down at the core of me. Even Sia’s kiss can’t stop that primal fear. But her love covers it, overwhelms it, and if I’m going to die, then there’s nowhere else I’d rather die. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. If this is the last moment of my life, I’ll spend it tasting the sweetness of her tongue, pressing my lips into the softness of hers, relishing the way she opens up for me.

If only I could fuck her on the floor. That would be the way to go out.

“Gio.” My father says the word like a reprimand but it hardly breaks the surface of my thoughts. Fuck that guy. Fuck him, and fuck his complicated backstories, fuck the way he never gave me all the information to make a decision by myself.

He sighs, the only sign of impatience, but at the same moment Sia presses herself against me with a little noise in the back of her throat and I am lost. Lost.

I might actually lay her down on the kitchen floor.

That’s how lost I am.

Who the hell cares?

The front door slams open with a hard crack and a splinter of wood. Sia sucks in a breath, her arms tightening around my neck.

Footsteps, coming through the living room, too quickly for anyone to stop. But they’re light. It’s not one of my brothers. I know it instinctively, the way you know someone’s walk from a distance.

A summer breeze coils in from the open door. It smells like cut grass and darkness and a second chance. A new hope.

I’m still underwater in Sia’s kiss and it’s a struggle to surface. It was heavy, the acceptance that our lives were going to end that way, tasting each other’s lips, pressed so close together that anybody on earth would have been embarrrased to see it. Even now, her hips are flattened against mine, and I’m pushing her back against the wall.

There’s movement in the corner of my eye, and I tear myself away from Sia. It’s like tearing myself away from the oxygen I need to breathe, but I have to look.

A woman stands in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. She’s gorgeous. Auburn hair. Black outfit that makes her look like fire. And a gun, trained on my father. It’s sheer adrenaline, sheer relief, that makes me bend to kiss her again.

The woman interrupts.

“Holy Christ, Romeo. Let her breathe so I can save you.”