Chapter 112: 112 ~ Mira
The guest room door clicked shut behind me, and for the first time all night, I was alone.
I leaned against the door, fingers still trembling as they clutched the knob. The echo of what had happened only hours ago replayed in my head on a vicious loop. The men in my apartment. Their footsteps chasing me down the secret passageway. The way I had to hold my breath under the staircase, convinced it would be my last moment if they so much as turned their heads.
It took me laying on the bed in Jace’s guestroom for the realization to fully dawn on me. I almost lost my life hours prior.
I held my head in my hands as the tears stung my eyeballs and roll down my cheeks.
I could’ve died.
The thought lodged itself in my chest, raw and sharp. I reallu could’ve died tonight.
I got up again and dropped my bag on the armchair and pressed my palms to my face, willing the tears back, but they betrayed me anyway. They came hot and fast, streaming down my cheeks as my knees gave out. I sank onto the edge of the bed, curling forward, shaking with sobs that felt years overdue.
My entire life, I had been running. From the memory of my parents’ blood on the floor. From the nightmares. From Jace. From Massimo. Every step forward had been survival, nothing more. But tonight, survival had almost failed me.
I dragged in a breath that hurt. My chest felt caged, like the air couldn’t reach deep enough. My hands dug into the sheets until the silk bunched beneath my fists.
What if I hadn’t made it out?
What if the secret passage hadn’t opened fast enough? What if I hadn’t thought to duck under the staircase? What if those men had dragged me back to Massimo before I even realized what was happening?
The thoughts swirled tirelessly in my mind. So many possibilities.
My stomach turned violently, bile threatening to rise again.
So I was disposable?
The word scraped against my mind, cruel and accurate. To him, I was nothing but leverage. And the second leverage became a liability, it was cut loose.
I pressed a hand over my mouth to stop another sob from breaking out.
The room swam in the dark, faint light spilling in from the city outside the tall windows. Los Angeles glittered, loud and alive, but all I could feel was dread. For the first time, I realized how thin the thread of my life really was.
One wrong step. One wrong choice. And I would’ve been gone.
My hands went instinctively to my stomach. Empty. Still empty after all these years. I thought of the baby I had lost, the one whose heartbeat had been stolen before I even got to hold them. A different kind of grief pierced through me, sharp and merciless.
If I had died tonight, it wouldn’t have just been me. It would’ve been everythin. The last traces of my parents, the child I’d never hold, the girl I used to be before all of this. All of it erased, like I never existed.
I curled onto my side, dragging Jace’s oversized jacket tighter around me. I still smelled him on it and I hated that it gave me even a shred of comfort.
Because I should hate him.
I did hate him.
But tonight, when his arms had wrapped around me outside the hotel, when his voice had cracked as he told me not to scare him like that again, a part of me had felt safe.
And I didn’t know if that made me weak or simply human.
"Stop it," I whispered to myself, squeezing my eyes shut. "Don’t be stupid, Mira."
Safe wasn’t the same thing as free.
With Jace, I wasn’t free. I never had been. He had dragged me back into his orbit like I was still his possession, like he could hold me here and the world would bow to his command. His words in the car still echoed in my head.
God, the audacity of that man.
And yet, my traitorous body still remembered what it felt like to lean into him. To breathe him in. To believe, just for a flicker of a second, that I didn’t have to carry this alone anymore.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling. My tears had dried, leaving my face stiff and my throat was aching.
I hated him.
But I also needed him. That was the cruelest part of all this.
Because tonight, when it really mattered, when I could’ve lost everything, it wasn’t Massimo who came. It wasn’t my brother. It wasn’t anyone else.
It was Jace.
And even though I wanted to scream at him, claw at him, shove him out of my life forever, the truth lingered like smoke in my lungs.
Part of me felt safer in his penthouse than I had in that apartment Massimo gave me.
And that realization scared me more than the men who had tried to kill me.
I turned to my side again, pulling the sheets over my head, curling into the smallest version of myself I could manage.
~
Hours passed and the room was too quiet.
That was the problem.
I kept expecting to hear the creak of footsteps outside the door, the muffled thud of boots storming in, the chaos of being dragged away again. But the silence stretched, unbroken, until it became a sound of its own.
Sleep wouldn’t come. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw shadows moving in the corners, heard the echo of boots against concrete, felt the weight of terror in my lungs all over again.
I sat up, dragging the sheet tighter around me. My body was exhausted, but my mind was a battlefield.
The knock was so soft I almost thought I imagined it.
My heart skipped. I glanced at the door. Another knock followed, firmer this time, but still careful like whoever stood there didn’t want to scare me.
"Mira."
I heard his voice. It was low and raspy.
For a long moment, I stayed frozen. I didn’t know if I wanted to scream at him or let myself drown in the comfort of that voice. Finally, I slid out of bed and opened the door.
Jace stood there in sweatpants and a black T-shirt, looking disheveled in a way that made my chest ache. His hair was tousled, shadows carved beneath his gray eyes. He hadn’t slept either.
"You should be resting," he said quietly, though the weight behind his words was more for himself than me.
"I can’t," I whispered back.
He studied me for a beat, his gaze softening as it lingered on my face. Then, without asking, he stepped inside.
The room shrank around him instantly. He carried his presence like a storm. It was loud even in silence, impossible to ignore. He leaned against the dresser, crossing his arms, but his eyes never left me.
"You were shaking earlier," he said, voice low. "When I held you outside the hotel. I didn’t like it."
I let out a bitter laugh. "Sorry for making you uncomfortable."
His jaw ticked, but he didn’t rise to the bait. "I just need to know you’re okay."
I hugged my arms around myself, staring at the floor. "I could’ve died tonight, Jace."
The words slipped out before I could stop them, raw and heavy. My throat tightened as I said them aloud, like speaking them made the terror real all over again. "If I hadn’t found that passage... if they had caught me—"
"Mira." His voice snapped sharp, but not unkind. He pushed off the dresser, closing the space between us until he was standing just a foot away. "Don’t. Don’t finish that sentence."
I lifted my chin, meeting his eyes. "It’s the truth."
His expression cracked then, pain flashing across his face. "Do you have any idea what that thought does to me? That I almost lost you?"
Something inside me wavered. He looked wrecked, stripped of all the armor he wore so easily. For once, he wasn’t the Don. He was just Jace. And the raw honesty in his voice made it harder to breathe.
But then I remembered. His world had put me in danger in the first place. His father had destroyed my family. And no amount of late-night softness could erase that.
"I don’t want to talk about this," I muttered, turning away.
But Jace reached out, his fingers brushing my arm. I froze. His touch wasn’t demanding this time. It was hesitant, almost fragile.
"I couldn’t sleep either," he admitted, voice low. " Not after seeing you like that."
I pulled my arm free and wrapped my arms tighter around myself. "You shouldn’t be here."
"Maybe not." His voice softened. "But I am."
Silence stretched between us. It was heavy and charged.
Finally, I whispered, "I don’t feel safe anymore."
The confession cracked something open inside me. My voice trembled, but the words spilled anyway.
Jace’s face hardened, his jaw clenching, his eyes burning with something fierce. "As long as I’m breathing, Mira, nothing will happen to you. Not ever again."
I almost laughed, but the sound died in my throat. Because he wasn’t lying. He meant it. He would burn down cities to keep me alive.
But keeping me alive wasn’t the same thing as giving me freedom.
And I couldn’t let myself forget that.
I turned back toward the bed, too tired to argue anymore. "Go to sleep, Jace. We both need it."
But when I lay down, I heard his footsteps linger. Felt his eyes on me, even through the dark.
And then, quietly, I felt the mattress dip.
He didn’t touch me. Didn’t cross the invisible line between us. But he sat there, close enough that I could feel the heat of him, steady and grounding.
We stayed like that for a long time. Two insomniacs, haunted by shadows, bound by something neither of us wanted to name.
Eventually, my eyelids grew heavy. The last thing I heard was his voice, low and rough, barely a whisper.
"I can’t lose you, Mira. Not again."
And for the first time that night, I let myself drift off.