Page 23 of Unholy Night
When they crash through the door, Leonardo is barely conscious, blood pooling beneath him.
"Kitchen table," Tomas barks, and we work in perfect synchronization, clearing the surface, lifting Leonardo's dead weight.
I'm humming as I work, "Away in a Manger" threading through the chaos as I apply pressure to wounds. The melody feels right somehow. Sacred music while I'm elbow-deep inblood, trying to keep someone alive because he matters to the man I love.
Love. The word stops me cold for a second. When did that happen? When did I fall in love with a man who quotes philosophy while loading weapons, who kills but holds me like I'm precious?
"Don't stop," Tomas says, and I realize he means the pressure on Leonardo's leg wound.
"Will he make it?"
"He's a Rosetti. We're hard to kill." But his voice carries doubt.
"Can they get in?" I ask, worry lacing my voice as I nod toward the outside.
Tomas shakes his head. "Place is a fortress. Looks like a cabin, works like Fort Knox."
The gunfire outside has stopped. Either we've won or they're regrouping. Through the broken windows, snow begins to fall again, covering the bodies like nature's own burial shroud.
Leonardo's eyes flutter open. "Did we win?"
"We survived," Tomas corrects. "Dom's going to be pissed."
"Dom's always pissed." Leonardo coughs, blood speckling his lips. "Worth it though. They won't underestimate us again."
"They won't get the chance," I say, and both men look at me. "Next time they come, we'll be ready. Next time, I'll be better."
Leonardo laughs, wet and pained.
We staunch the bleeding and wrap a bandage around Leonardo's leg. I finish work on Leonardo while Tomas and I secure the perimeter.
Three more Santos soldiers made it to the tree line before dying. Their bodies join the others, a massacre's worth of evidence that would have once had me building cases for decades.
Now I help Tomas drag them into a pile for burning.
"Seventeen," he says, surveying the carnage. "Plus the three scouts from earlier. Twenty men."
"And we killed them all."
"You killed six of them." His voice carries something like awe. "Six men, Natalie. Do you understand what that means?"
"That I'm evil?" I guess.
"That you're magnificent." He pulls me against him, heedless of the blood covering us both. "That you're deadly. That you're perfect in ways I never imagined possible."
His mouth finds mine, and this kiss is different from the desperate one in the armory. This is claiming, possessive, a seal on whatever we've become. I taste violence and victory and something like forever.
8 - Natalie
Ican feel Tomas watching me from the doorway, his gaze burning hotter than the blood still drying on my hands. Six kills today, and all I can think about is how desperately I need him inside me.
My fingers move over the weapons, checking magazines, counting rounds, but every movement is for him. Every deliberate action is a performance, showing him what I've become. The metal is cold under my touch, but my body burns everywhere his eyes track. The person I was three days ago would be building cases against the woman I am now. The thought makes me smile.
"Silent Night" threads through my lips, the melody automatic as my fingers work. Holy night, all is calm. Except nothing is calm. My pulse races, adrenaline still burning through my veins hours after the last shot, metallic and sharp on my tongue. All is bright. The blood on my hands catches the fluorescent light, dark and damning and somehow beautiful.
I killed for him. For us. And the wetness between my thighs says I'd do it again.
His breathing changes behind me, rougher, less controlled. From down the hall, Leonardo's labored breathing reminds us we're not alone, that consequences wait beyond this moment. But right now, all that exists is the electric tension crackling between us.
