CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR (ELI'S POV)

Sunlight streamed in through the parted curtains, warm and golden, casting soft streaks of light across the bedroom floor. It was the kind of soft light that made everything feel slower, more delicate—like the world had hit pause just for us.

I stirred before he did.

Ricci—Enzo—was still asleep, his breath steady, chest rising and falling in a rhythm that seemed almost too peaceful for someone who had slaughtered thirty men the night before. His arm was draped loosely around my waist, the other bent behind his head. His face, usually so hard and unreadable, was relaxed now. The lines of violence, command, and danger erased by sleep.

I studied him in silence.

The faint stubble on his jaw, the little injury on his lip that had started to scab, the faint bruises already forming on his ribs. Every inch of him told a story—and yet, here in this quiet morning I could almost forget what he was capable of.

Almost.

A part of me wanted to move. To slip out of bed, sta