#####Chapter 5

Elena

The kitchen went very, very quiet.

Damien didn't move. His hand was still on my back, warm and solid, and I could feel the moment he decided not to step away. It was a conscious choice—a statement made in the language of touch and proximity.

"Liam," I said, and I straightened up, moving away from both of them. "Nothing is happening. We were just—"

"You were just what?" Liam's voice had taken on a sharp edge I'd rarely heard before. His eyes moved between his brother and me with the dawning realization of someone putting together pieces they hadn't known existed. "How long has this been going on?"

"It hasn't been going on," I said. "I've only—"

"Four days," Damien said calmly. "I came to check on Elena after you showed up at her place in a meltdown. We've spoken a handful of times since."

"You've been investigating her," Liam said, and he was looking at Damien now, fury radiating off him. "That's your thing, right? Finding out secrets about people?"

"I don't investigate her," Damien replied, and there was something dangerous in his tone. "I know her. There's a difference."

"You barely know her," Liam snapped. "She's been my best friend for fifteen years. I know her. I know how she takes her coffee. I know her favorite books. I know—"

"You know all the surface details," Damien interrupted, and his voice was quiet but absolute.

"You know how she takes her coffee but you don't know why she takes it that way—because her mom used to make it for her when she was sick, and it became this comfort thing. You know her favorite books are fantasy, but you don't know they're about escape, about worlds where the main character is chosen, really chosen, instead of just tolerated. You know she's your friend, but you don't know what it cost her to be that friend for so long."

My eyes stung.

"How is that possible?" Liam said, and he looked genuinely confused. "You've barely spent time with her."

"I listen," Damien said. "I notice. I don't take her for granted."

"And that was supposed to happen in four days?" Liam's voice cracked. "You're just going to swoop in and make me look like an asshole for not... what, worshipping at her feet? Elena and I have something real."

"You have a comfortable dynamic," Damien corrected. "That's not the same as something real."

"Stop," I said, because I couldn't listen to them argue over me like I was a prize neither of them had known they wanted until the other one showed interest. "Both of you, just stop."

They both looked at me.

"Liam, I love you," I continued. "But I'm not in love with you. And Damien—" I turned to him. "I don't know you. Not really. I know that you showed up at my door with Thai food and you know things about my life that should probably be alarming, and you make me feel seen in ways that Liam never did. But that's not the same as knowing someone. That's not the same as—"

"Being in love with them?" Damien finished, and there was something absolutely certain in his tone. "Give it time."

"That's not a promise you can make."

"I can make any promise I want," he said. "I plan to keep them."

Liam made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

"This is insane," he said. "Elena, he's not... he's not like me. He doesn't do relationships. He does... I don't know, whatever he does, but it's not love. It's not stable. He travels constantly for work, and he has enemies, actual enemies, people who want him dead—"

"You don't know anything about what I do or why," Damien said coldly.

"I know you were special forces. I know you work in security and possibly some other shit you don't talk about. I know the last woman you were with left because she couldn't handle the paranoia and the secrets and the fact that you disappeared for months at a time."

"That was six years ago," Damien said. "And I was a different person."

"And now?"

Damien looked at me. "Now I'm not letting go of things that matter."

"Stop," Rosa's voice came from the doorway. She was standing there with her hands on her hips, sixty-five years old and radiating the kind of maternal fury that made even Damien look slightly less like a dangerous professional assassin. "Everyone stop right now. Liam, go set the table. Damien, help me with the sauce. Elena..."

She looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.

"Come talk to me in the living room."

The living room was quiet and empty, just the two of us and the rain pattering against the windows. Rosa patted the seat next to her on the couch, and I sat, terrified of what she was about to say.

"My oldest son," she began, "has been in love with you for approximately two years. I knew before he did. A mother knows these things."

I felt my stomach drop.

"He has a very particular way of talking about you. It's different from how he talks about anyone else. And he watches you when you're not looking—he's been doing it at family events for a long time. Very carefully, very quietly, because he's convinced that you belong to Liam."

"I don't belong to anyone," I said quietly.

"No, you don't," Rosa agreed. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. You've been allowing Liam to convince you that you belong to him, and it's made you very sad. I see it every time you come to our house—this sadness under the smiling."

Tears slid down my face.

"Damien is not easy," Rosa continued. "He's a good man, but he's not easy. He's intense, and he can be cold, and he keeps things to himself. But when he loves someone, he loves them completely. And I think he might love you."

"He barely knows me."

"He knows you better than Liam knows you, and he's only been paying attention for a few days. That should tell you something about the difference between the two of them." Rosa took my hand.

"But Elena, I need you to understand something very important. You cannot choose a man because the alternative is lonely. You can only choose him if you want him. Truly want him, not just because he's choosing you."

"I don't know what I want," I admitted.

"I know," Rosa said gently. "That's why I'm going to tell you that you should go home. You should take some time. And you should figure out who Elena is when she's not trying to be what someone else needs her to be."

It was the kindest rejection I'd ever received.

I left before the meal was finished. Damien tried to follow me to the door, but I told him no. Liam watched from the kitchen with an expression that was some complex mixture of relief and devastation.

As I was driving away, my phone buzzed.

Unknown number: Elena, it's Damien's ex. Don't do it. Trust me. You have no idea what you're getting into.

I stared at the message for so long that I almost drove off the road. Who was this? How did they get my number?

Elena: Who is this?

Unknown: Someone who thought she could handle Damien Russo. Someone who found out the hard way that she couldn't. Whatever you're thinking about doing with him—don't. You'll only get hurt.