Lena knew something was wrong the moment she reached the building.
It wasn't obvious. Most people walking past wouldn't have noticed anything strange.
But she noticed.
The outer door, hung slightly open.
Just a few inches.
Enough to feel wrong.
Lena stopped on the sidewalk, her stomach tightening.
She had lived here for three years. Long enough to know every cracked tile on the steps, every loose hinge, every sound the door made when it opened.
It was never left like that.
Her heart began to pound.
Run.
The thought hit her instantly.
Call the police. Walk away. Don't go upstairs.
But Marco was inside.
Marco still recovering, still pale from blood loss, still waking in the night with pain written across his face.
If someone had come for him
Lena swallowed hard and stepped inside.
The hallway smelled faintly of damp wood and old paint, the same as always. The stairs creaked under her weight as she climbed them slowly, forcing herself to breathe.
Each step felt louder than the last.
Her apartment door stood closed at the end of the hallway.
She walked toward it carefully.
No sound came from inside.
No voices.
No movement.
Just silence.
Lena pressed her ear against the door.
Nothing.
Her hands trembled as she pulled her keys from her bag.
This is stupid, she thought. You should leave.
But she slid the key into the lock cautiously
The door clicked open.
She pushed it inward.
And froze.
Two men lay on her living room floor.
For a moment her mind refused to understand what she was seeing.
Then the details crashed into place all at once.
Blood.
So much blood.
It soaked into the old rug she'd bought from a thrift store years ago. Spread across the floorboards beneath it.
One man lay on his back, his eyes still open, staring at the ceiling.
The other had collapsed sideways, one arm twisted beneath him.
Both were young.
Both wore dark clothes.
One had a black tattoo curling up the side of his neck.
Standing above them was Marco.
He held a gun loosely in one hand.
Blood speckled his shirt dark stains across the fabric.
Not his blood.
His expression was calm.
Almost empty.
He looked up when the door opened.
Their eyes met.
"You're back early," he said.
Lena tried to scream.
Nothing came out.
Her throat closed completely.
All she could do was stare at the bodies, at the blood, at the man she had spent two weeks nursing back to health.
The man she had thought she understood.
"Lena."
Marco's voice was steady.
"Look at me."
It took effort to drag her eyes away from the bodies.
When she finally looked at him, something inside her chest felt like it was cracking apart.
"These men came here to kill you," he said quietly.
The words sounded unreal.
"They knew about you. They planned to use you."
He paused.
"I couldn't let that happen."
Her voice finally returned, but it came out broken.
"You…" she whispered.
Her gaze dropped to the blood again.
"You killed them."
"Yes."
"In my apartment."
Marco didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
The room tilted around her.
Lena stumbled backward until her shoulder hit the doorframe.
Her legs gave out beneath her.
She slid to the floor, staring at the scene in front of her.
Two dead men.
One gun.
And a stranger wearing the face of someone she cared about.
Marco took a step toward her.
She flinched instantly.
He stopped.
His jaw tightened.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said quietly.
His voice lowered.
"Those men worked for Salvatore Bianchi. The man who ordered the attack on me. They found you somehow."
He looked down briefly at the bodies.
"If I hadn't been here"
"If you hadn't been here, they wouldn't have come!"
The words exploded out of her before she could stop them.
"This is your world!" "Your enemies, your violence, your blood!"
Her voice broke.
"I didn't ask for any of this!"
Marco looked away.
Just for a moment.
When he looked back, something in his expression had changed.
"You're right," he said quietly.
"You didn't ask for this."
His voice dropped lower.
"I brought it to your door."
He exhaled slowly.
"And I'm sorry. God, Lena… I'm so sorry."
"But I can't undo what's already happened," he continued. "All I can do now is protect you from what comes next."
"What comes next?"
A strange sound escaped her.
Not quite laughter.
"More bodies?" she demanded. "More blood on my floor? Am I supposed to learn how to shoot now?"
Marco's answer came without hesitation.
"If that's what it takes to keep you alive."
She stared at him.
At the man she had dragged home from an alley.
The man whose fever she had broken with cold clothes and whispered reassurances.
The man who had said her name like it mattered.
"You need to leave," she said finally.
Her voice was quieter now.
"You need to take your gun and your war and these bodies and get out of my home."Marco didn't move.
"I can't do that."
"Yes, you can."
Her voice sharpened.
"Walk out that door. Go back to your world. Pretend you never met me."
His gaze softened slightly.
"I can't forget you."
The words were almost too quiet to hear.
"Don't you understand that yet?"
He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.
"I spent two weeks here with you. Two weeks being someone other than who I am out there."
He gestured vaguely toward the city beyond the window.
"And for the first time in years… I didn't hate waking up."
His eyes returned to hers.
"I don't want to go back to that life."
A pause.
"But I can't stay either. Not when it's putting you in danger."
Lena wrapped her arms around herself.
"I'm not afraid of you," she said slowly.
Her voice trembled slightly.
"I'm afraid of what happens when I stop being afraid."
Marco studied her face carefully.
Then he asked the question she had been avoiding.
"What do you want, Lena?"
She looked at the bodies again.
Then the blood soaked into her rug.
Then back at him.
"I want this to be over," she whispered.
"I want to go back to before."
Marco shook his head gently.
"That's not possible."
Her throat tightened.
"Then I want the truth."
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
"All of it," she said.
"No more protecting me. No more pretending."
Her voice steadied.
"I want to know who you are. What you've done. And what's coming."
Marco stood very still for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
"Okay."
And he told her everything.
The De Luca family.
Three generations of power built on loyalty, fear, and blood.
His father's murder when Marco was twenty-two.
The war that followed.
The enemies who circled like vultures the moment the old leader died.
He told her about the choices he had made.
The men he had killed.
The orders he had given.
The families destroyed in the crossfire.
"I've killed more people than I can count," he said quietly.
"Some deserved it."
His voice grew heavier.
"Some were simply in the way."
Lena sat on the couch, arms wrapped around herself, listening.
"I've done things that would make you sick if you heard the details," he continued.
Then he looked at her again.
"But when I was lying in that alley… bleeding out… the last thing I saw was your face."
His voice faltered slightly.
"And the last thing I thought was… maybe it's over."
He swallowed.
"Maybe I won't have to be that person anymore."
"And then I drag you home,"
Lena murmured.
"And then you drag me home."
For the first time since she walked in, the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
"And now I don't know who I am anymore," he admitted.
"The man I've been… or the man I could be."
His gaze softened.
"With you."
Lena looked down at her hands.
There was still dried blood beneath her fingernails from the night she stitched him up.
His blood.
"I don't know if I can accept what you've done," she said slowly.
Her voice was quiet now.
"I don't know if I can be with someone who lives like this."
Her eyes drifted toward the bodies.
"But I also don't know if I can walk away."
Marco held her gaze.
"Then don't," he said gently.
"Not yet."
She studied him for a long moment.
"What do we do now?"
Marco stood and walked to the window.
Outside, the streetlights flickered on as evening settled over the city.
"Now," he said quietly, "we clean this up."
He looked back at her.
"We get rid of the bodies."
A pause.
Lena drew in a slow, shaky breath.
Her entire life had changed in one afternoon.
But somehow..
She nodded.
"Okay."