CHAPTER FOUR

Dax Pov

The silence between us had shifted into something brutal. It didn’t sit politely in the air. It sslow, corrosive and scraping under my skin like sandpaper dragged across bone. There was no comfort in it. No relief. Just a vast, aching absence where words should have lived.

We hadn’t really spoken since the press event. Not in a real way. Not in even the way Elian and I had come to understand talking to ourselves in… through insults disguised as questions, through charged silences that said more than most people dared. That had all stopped.

Elian stopped throwing his barbed remarks like darts meant to kill. I stopped pretending I wasn’t watching his every move like a man tracking fault lines, trying to predict where the earthquake would split next. We became two tectonic plates drifting toward disaster. Close. Quiet. Unstoppable.

I sat in the den, cleaning my Glock for the third time. My hands moved on instinct, field-stripping the metal like it might offer clarity. The repetition calmed something primal inside me, the residue of years in the military, years pretending I could still control chaos.

Outside, the city blazed. Los Valles, with its glass towers and polished lies. But inside this house? It was all tension and ghosts. Especially tonight.

Suddenly, a sharp crash broke through the silence interrupting my thoughts. Then came the sound of glass splintering and a low, guttural shout.

I was up before my brain caught up, gun in hand, feet already moving. Training erased hesitation. My body moved like a blade. The sound came from the east hallway. Elian’s study.

I found him there, barefoot, eyes wide, the pale marble of the floor littered with shards. His chest heaved like he was drowning in air. He didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. He was wrecked. But silent.

“Stay down!” I barked.

He didn’t move. I surged forward. Shoved him behind the console table, shielding him with my body. I could feel the rapid thrum of his heart against my back, hot breath fanning against my neck. Too fast. Too unsteady.

Footsteps sounded from behind me and one man lunged from the shadows, knife raised.

I pivoted. Blocked and disarmed him. I slammed his skull into the drywall hard enough to make the frames fall.

The second intruder fled, vanishing into the night before I could catch more than a silhouette.

By the time sirens pierced the night air, Elian hadn’t moved. He stood frozen, a porcelain statue barely held together. I gave the police the rundown, then dismissed them all with sharp, clipped orders. I didn’t want them here. Not now.

Back inside, the quiet came back with a vengeance. Elian was on the couch, trying to light a cigarette with trembling hands. Over and over, the spark died out.

I crouched in front of him. “Give it,” I said, voice soft, low.

He didn’t look at me. Didn’t respond.

The lighter dropped. I picked it up and tossed it across the room. He didn’t flinch. Just sagged against the couch, slowly loosing himself. Every thread pulled loose.

Then finally, he broke. “What the hell am I even doing?” he said, voice rough, frayed. “Why is this my life?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. I reached forward and pulled him into me. At first, he resisted. Tension coiled tight in his limbs. Then he collapsed fully. He came undone in my arms like a man who didn’t know how to hold himself up anymore.

His breath was sharp against my collarbone. Labored and real. “I don’t know how to breathe properly when you’re here,” he murmured. The words ghosted against my skin. "And I hate that."

I swallowed. My throat burned. He pulled back just enough to see my face. His eyes were rimmed with red but clear, defiant in their vulnerability.

“You always protect me.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Because it’s my job.”

But that wasn’t the whole truth.

The air shifted. Dense. Charged.

He leaned in slowly, like he didn’t want to scare whatever this was between us. Like this moment might vanish if he moved too fast. Our lips met… tentative and aching.

His kiss was soft and… boken. A question disguised as contact.

And I answered. I kissed him back like I was desperate. Like I had been waiting. Like I was parched and he was the first rain. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t pure. But God, it was real.

When we pulled apart, he looked stunned. His lips were red, eyes shining with something close to fear.

He stood up too fast. The world tilted around him. I could see it in the way his shoulders locked.

“That didn’t mean anything,” he said, voice low cold. A lie so clear it could’ve shattered glass.

“Right,” I said. Matching him. My voice cracked anyway. “Nothing at all.”

He turned halfway. “Say it again,” he demanded. Quieter this time. It was more of a dare.

And I didn’t. I couldn’t.

Instead, I crossed the room and kissed him again. Crushing his lips harder this time. 

This wasn’t the cautious kiss of men who didn’t know where they stood. This was fury. Longing. Need pressed against guilt like fire to paper.

He grabbed my shirt and pulled me in. We stumbled back into the wall. His mouth moved over mine with a kind of violence that felt like truth. Like exorcism. His hands trembled but didn’t stop. Neither did mine.

He kissed me like I was the only real thing left in his world. And then half way,I stopped.

My hand landed on his chest, flat and firm. I took a step back like I was remembering who I was supposed to be. A husband. A father. A man who’d promised himself he’d never cross this line.

“I can’t,” I said, breath ragged. “This can’t happen.”

He laughed. A sharp, brittle sound that held no humor. Just pain.

“Then don’t,” he said. His voice cracked with fury. He didn't push. he just walked away.

He left like it didn’t mean anything. But I knew better.

Because that kiss meant everything. And that kiss could break my marriage for real. 

Elian's Pov 

I stood there long after the door clicked shut behind me

The air was still thick with his cologne, his breath, the heat of his mouth on mine. I could still feel the drag of his hands over my skin, the way his lips trembled when they pulled away. He tasted like violence and longing and all the wrong things I’d spent years pretending I didn’t crave.

I pressed the heel of my palm against my chest, like I could shove the memory back down where it belonged.

God. What the hell just happened? What the hell did I let happen?

I sank to the floor like my knees had finally remembered how to fail me. The tile was cold and unforgiving. I wanted it to hurt. Because what I’d done wasn’t brave or romantic. It wasn’t redemption or love. It was twisted and selfish and reckless.

And yet… I didn’t regret it. Not one second of it.

Not the taste of his mouth.

Not the way he held me like I was the last thing holding him to this world.

Not even the ache it left behind.

What scared me wasn’t that we kissed.

It was that the moment his lips touched mine, everything made sense. The noise quieted. My mind stilled. For a breathless minute, the world narrowed to him and me and the unbearable possibility that maybe, just maybe, I’d been wrong all this time. Maybe I never moved on. Maybe I never even tried.

But he stopped. He didn't want what I wanted and I understood. Because if I let myself believe that kiss was real, if I let myself believe he still wanted me, still burned for me the way I did for him, then everything I built to survive would fall apart.

And I’m not sure I’d survive it a second time.

I dragged myself up, staggered to the sink, and threw cold water on my face. My reflection stared back at me- wild eyes, red-rimmed mouth bruised from need. 

I was used to control but today, I didn’t look like someone in control.

I looked like a man loosing his sanity. 

My phone buzzed twice and I almost ignored it. But something in my gut twisted. I wiped my hands, grabbed the phone, and unlocked it.