Breathe With Me

Chapter 1 Natalia

The devil picked a hell of a day to drag me back to Hell.

After a grueling 12-hour ER shift that stretched to 15—one that included the death of a child hit by a drunk driver—my muscles ache, my bones hurt, and I have no fucks left. The only things I want are a hot shower, a cold beer, and to sleep until next Christmas.

I kick off my shoes the second I step through the door, spraying the soles with bleach water from the waiting bottle. Who knows what nasty shit I brought back from the ER? The smell of the sick and the dying—blood and other fluids—clings to me like a second skin. I don’t bother turning on the lights. I can’t spare the energy.

My feet drag across the floor as I head straight to the washer in my kitchen—the one thing I refuse to compromise on when renting a new apartment. I strip off my scrubs, sports bra, and my preferred granny panties—I value comfort above all else. I’m certainly not trying to be sexy for my fuck-buddies. Still warm from the summer heat, I suddenly shiver in the chill of the apartment’s A/C. I don’t measure the detergent, just dump it in, add the hospital-grade disinfectant I swiped, and slam the washer door shut.

The sound of the machine breaks the low silence of my place, and I roll my neck, debating whether to take a beer into the shower with me.

It isn’t until I turn around, completely naked, that I hear the low, deliberate cough—someone clearing their throat. My blood turns cold. My heart jumps into my throat.

I grab a clean bath towel from the laundry basket and wrap it around myself in one swift motion. In the same breath, I reach under the kitchen counter for the handgun I keep stashed there. My fingers curl around the cool grip. I flick the safety off, heart pounding as I flip on the lights.

I recognize the three men immediately. The two suits sitting in those ugly chairs that came with the apartment are members of my family’s security force. I don’t know their faces, but each wears the crest pin of a made man on his lapel.

The third man leans casually against the kitchen counter, arms crossed like he has all the time in the world. Madoc Rossetti. My uncle’s Second, and a familiar face from my childhood—a too-handsome playboy with salt-and-pepper hair, emerald eyes, and a knowing smirk.

Fuck. They found me.

Instead of lowering the gun—like someone should when seeing an old friend—I tighten my grip, my finger settling on the trigger. My eyes lock on Madoc’s face, fury rising like a wave.

“Shit, Nat, where are your clothes?” Mac rolls his eyes, barely glancing my way as he waves a hand dismissively, turning his head like he’s seen it all before. He doesn’t even blink at the SIG Sauer aimed at his face—and somehow, that pisses me off more.

When a naked woman points a gun at you and doesn’t bother with clothes, you should take her seriously.

I don’t move. I’m no prude, and the towel covers enough for me to stand my ground without flinching.

“Get the fuck out of my house, Mac.”

He raises an eyebrow, utterly unfazed. “Technically, it belongs to the Cotillard Syndicate.”

“Since when?” I shoot back, eyes narrowing. I checked before renting this place. I always check. And I never work in Cotillard territory.

“About an hour ago,” he replies, that infuriating smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Fuck you.”

He just grins wider, then gestures lazily toward the bedroom. “Put on some clothes. We gotta talk.”

“Get. Out.”

I use my most dangerous voice—the one that promises consequences. The one that gets psych patients to calm down, gangbangers back in bed, and lets the assholes know they’ve fucked up. The two security guys shift uncomfortably in their seats, exchanging uneasy glances.

But Mac? He doesn’t flinch.

“Not gonna happen, Natalia.”

His voice drops. Shit. He used my formal name. For a split second, I see something else in his expression—compassion, maybe regret. He doesn’t want to be here any more than I want him here. But we both know neither of us has a choice.

We stare at each other for a moment, then I lower the gun.

“Fine,” I snap, though my pulse still pounds in my ears. “But if you want me to listen to whatever shit reason you have for invading my life, I get to shower first.”

“Stall all you want,” he says, already helping himself to a handful of cereal from the box he just stole from my cupboard. “Not gonna change things.”

He tosses a sugar-coated piece into the air and catches it in his mouth like he owns the place.

True.

Running away, changing my name, living as a totally different person—it was all pretend. A vacation, at best, from the life I was born into. I never really had a future. There’s no escape for someone like me: daughter of a Padrino of the Cotillard Syndicate. I’ve always known, deep down, they’d find me. That they’d drag me back. This day was inevitable.

Freedom was always an illusion.

But damn, it felt real.

It felt so fucking real.

I shower and throw on my favorite jeans and a t-shirt that says I Call the Shots with a picture of a nurse holding a syringe. I make sure the gun is back in its holster on my hip, concealed under the hem of my shirt. My bones practically burn from exhaustion, and I’m too numb from the day to feel anything but annoyance that my uncle’s men are in my living room.

Give me a few hours of sleep, and I’ll have just enough energy to spiral into a panic attack. Won’t that be fun.

When I come out of the bedroom, I see they’ve already packed most of my stuff. The two suits slip into the bedroom and I hear them rustling through my dresser and closet, boxing up the rest of my meager possessions. I hope they get my vanity set. I had it custom made.

My kitchen’s empty—except for the food.

Something about Mac packing my favorite My Little Pony dishes suddenly makes me giddy.

More likely, I’ve crossed into the crazy part of fatigue.

“Padrino Cotillard sent us to get you,” Mac says, calm but final. “Time to come home.”

I roll my eyes, pull a beer from the fridge, and pop the top. Foam spills over as I take a swig. “No shit. Why?”

Mac shifts—uncomfortably, for the first time—and my stomach twists. Something’s wrong. He’s rarely rattled. And when he is, it’s always something big.

“We’re joining another Syndicate,” he says, voice low.

The words hit like a punch. There are several reasons a Syndicate might merge with another—and none of them are good.

I nod slowly, wiping foam from my lips.

“Things haven’t been good for a while, but when the Matroni died…” Mac trails off, watching my face. He knows better than anyone what my relationship with my mother was like.

A lump forms in my throat. My mother took up the Oath after my father’s death, when I was three. She ruled as Matroni of the Cotillard Syndicate until her sudden death—a raw, gaping wound I’ve never let fully heal. Much like our relationship.

I wasn’t there when she died. I found out from one of those Secrets of the Syndicates documentaries almost a year later. We had a shit relationship, sure—but still, three years on, something about it still eats at me when I let myself think too long. So I don’t.

“The debt your father took on—it came due. We can’t pay,” Mac says, and the rawness in his voice catches me off guard. There’s no sugar-coating. No pretense. Just brutal honesty. “Per the agreement, since we can’t pay… we Forfeit.”

I swallow hard, trying to ignore the icy knot forming in my chest.

“How much?” My voice sounds steadier than I feel, even as the question lands heavy between us.

He frowns, meeting my gaze for a beat too long. “All of it.”

“To who?”

“The Valko.”

“Fuck,” I mutter. That’s so much worse than I thought.

My father—a good man, but inept as a Padrino—put up the entire Syndicate as collateral for the loan. Default meant surrender of all Cotillard assets. All of them. Including me.

I take another long swig, not letting Mac see the impact those words have. Either way, this was always inevitable. But something’s off. I glance at him sideways, narrowing my eyes. He’s holding something back.

“And what, I gotta be there to prove y’all still have me? Can’t just send a picture?” I ask, trying to sound unaffected, though my heart hammers in my chest.

He hesitates a second too long—long enough for me to know he hasn’t told me the worst.

“They’ve demanded a marriage bond. A blood bride.”

My heart slams against my ribs, hard enough to hurt. I try to catch the breath that’s been snatched from my lungs.

“Me,” I whisper, my voice rough and raw. The room spins, the walls closing in around me.

“You’re to be wed to Alexius Valko. Mr. Valko’s eldest. He’s the Padrino now,” Mac says quietly.

I swallow hard, fury and panic tangling in my chest like barbed wire. I can’t think. Can’t breathe. My body shakes with the weight of it, my hand tightening around the beer can like it’s the only thing tethering me to reality.

I want to scream. To throw something. To stab him with a kitchen knife—a dull one. Something that would really hurt. Not that I’d actually win in a fight against him, but damn, I’d feel better trying.

Instead, I force myself to take another swig, trying to steady the chaos inside me.

I was right. It is bad. And I’m furious.

“You guys run out of other Cotillard women to throw on the altar? Just scraping the bottom of the barrel now?” I snap, narrowing my eyes at him.

“They want pure blood.”

I don’t answer. Mac gestures to the two meatheads, and they start hauling my suitcases out. I hear them clomping down the stairs.

Then he turns back to me. “Nat, I know this isn’t what you wanted. Or what we planned for. And if your—”

“Don’t fucking say it,” I snarl, tipping the beer back, letting the cold hit my empty stomach. The warmth from the alcohol spreads through me, but it doesn’t touch the chill in my bones.

I knew, deep down, I’d have to go back to Port Harmony someday. But not like this.

Not as the sacrificial lamb.

Not sold in marriage to my family’s rival.

Not as recompense for a debt.

Not to pay for someone else’s shit mistake.

I see the way he looks at me. I know what he’s thinking—about who should have been sent as the bride. The perfect one. The one who could’ve handled it. The one who died, shattering my heart into a thousand pieces when she left—pieces I still haven’t put back together.

And I, the failure. The screw-up. I’d hoped my inadequacies would be enough to spare me.

But in some things, blood matters more than accomplishments. Maybe if I’d tattooed Fuck Off across my forehead—or gotten a hysterectomy—they’d have reconsidered.

“What happens if I refuse?”

Madoc shifts, his eyes darkening. “Don’t.”

“You gonna come after me?”

“Don’t make me, Natalia.”

His tone sends a shiver down my spine. He would. Not because he wants to, but because if he didn’t—someone else would. Someone who wouldn’t be kind. Or understanding.

I wonder if he’s waiting for me to make a scene, like I used to when I was a kid—when I got pushed too far and my anger overcame my fear.

But this is one fight I’m not going to win. I’ve never won against him.

And it wouldn’t be fair to make Mac suffer for something that isn’t his fault. He doesn’t want this for me any more than I do. For most of my childhood, he protected me. Often, he was the only one who did.

He’s earned my mercy.

And I don’t really have the energy anyway.

I drain the last of the beer, the can crumpling in my grip before I toss it in the trash. A glance around the apartment confirms it—they really did pack everything. Not that I owned much. I’m a travel nurse, after all. Always moving. Never staying long enough to form attachments.

I thought that would keep me ahead of them. Changing cities. Using an alias. Stupid.

“Did you know where I was?” I ask.

“Always.” Mac nods. “Since the day you left.”

“You told?”

“Nope.” He shakes his head. “Took Louis’s people over a year to find you.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why keep it a secret?”

He gives me a look like I should already know the answer. I do. I just want to hear him say it.

“I wanted you to have a life, kiddo. Even if it was only for a little while.” His voice softens, and I swallow at the sound of that nickname. “I wanted you to be happy—for as long as you could.”

I swipe a hand across my cheek, brushing away invisible tears. The real ones will come later.

“Thank you.”

He steps forward and wraps his arms around me. For a moment, I’m eight again—hiding from my mother, waiting for him to come find me. His scent—tobacco, gunpowder, and cedar—washes over me. He’s one of the few things from my old life that I actually missed.

Then he steps back and jerks his head toward the door.

“We need to go.” His voice is an unspoken command.

I don’t answer. I just push past him, moving through the apartment on autopilot, double-checking everything.

Pathetic, really, how easy it is to uproot my entire life.

No friends to say goodbye to in this job. No ties in this city. Just a few suitcases and my favorite dishes.

Tomorrow, the weight of it all will hit me.

Tomorrow, I’ll feel the suffocating panic. The raw hurt of being ripped from the life I built—a life I loved.

Tomorrow, I’ll scramble to hold on to the woman I’ve worked so damn hard to become, and not wither back into the girl I was ten years ago.

I’ll cry. I’ll scream. I’ll break.

But tonight?

Tonight, I’ve hit my limit. I can’t absorb any more bad shit.

There’s nothing left.

When I come back out, Mac is holding out my purse.

I snatch it from his hand and peek inside. All my medication is there, rattling like bones. I nod. I’m gonna need them. I give him a look that says I’m done fighting—for now.

At this point, I’m okay following the Devil himself to Hell as long as he’ll let me sleep on the way.

Sucks for me—because that’s where I’m going. A place that kills everything good in a person.