Xavier walked back to the guards wing.
He gently opened the door if his room and securely locked it once inside.
He sat on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
The room was silent.
Too silent.
No radios.
No commands.
No footsteps outside his door.
Just him.
And the weight in his chest that refused to settle.
He exhaled slowly and leaned back, staring at the ceiling like it might offer answers.
Why exactly am I feeling like this?
He scoffed quietly to himself.
"She's just a delivery girl," he muttered. "Nothing more."
The words sounded wrong the moment he said them.
Nothing more?
He closed his eyes.
And there she was.
Isabella, standing at the gate with flour-dusted hands. Isabella, biting her lip when she was nervous. Isabella, smiling gently even when the world was pressing down on her shoulders like it wanted to break her.
Her charm—not loud, not demanding.
Her smile—careful, earned.
Her hair—always tied back, as if beauty was something she didn't have time to acknowledge.
Xavier groaned and dragged a hand down his face.
This was ridiculous.
He had faced gunfire without flinching. He had stood his ground in rooms full of men who could ruin him with a word.
Yet one girl—one quiet, determined girl—had undone him without ever trying.
He sat up suddenly.
"No," he said aloud. "This is stress. Anger. Guilt."
That had to be it.
Andrea's arrest.
Marcello's failing heart.
Otilla's cruelty.
His mind was searching for something gentle to hold onto.
That was all.
And yet—
When he imagined relief, it wasn't victory he saw.
It was Isabella safe.
Isabella smiling without fear.
Isabella not having to carry everyone else on her back.
The realization struck him slowly.
Terrifyingly.
"Oh," he whispered.
He laughed once, breathless and stunned.
"Oh no."
This wasn't admiration.
This wasn't sympathy.
This was the quiet, irreversible kind of knowing that settled deep and refused to leave.
He had fallen in love.
Not suddenly.
Not dramatically.
But in fragments—over conversations meant to be forgotten, over silences shared too closely, over the way she had warned him even when she was the one in danger.
Xavier pressed his palms against his eyes.
He had fallen in love before he had even allowed himself to realize it.
And now—
Now he loved a girl whose life was being crushed by the very world he served.
He dropped his hands and stared into the darkness.
"I'm sorry," he whispered—to her, to himself, to whatever fate had decided this timing was fair.
Because loving Isabella Rossi wasn't just dangerous.
It was a line he could never step back from.
And somewhere deep inside, despite the fear tightening his chest—
Xavier knew one thing with absolute certainty:
He wouldn't want to.