She thought about the ocean.
About his body dragging beneath the waves.
About how easy it would have been to remain safely on shore.
She had not known his name then.
That had been the point.
“You never owed me your life,” she said.
Matteo looked up.
“I pulled you out because you were there.”
“That is precisely why I owe you.”
Elise shook her head.
“You owe me one thing.”
“Name it.”
“Never make a decision for me again because you think you know what’s best.”
For a man used to having people obey him, the silence that followed was almost comical.
Then Matteo extended his hand across the counter.
“Agreed.”
Elise looked at it.
The last time those fingers had closed around her wrist, he had been half-dead on a beach.
This time she chose to take his hand.
“Agreed.”
He finished his coffee and left ten minutes later.
No threats.
No dramatic promise.
No declaration that she belonged anywhere near his dangerous world.
Outside, two black SUVs waited around the corner exactly as he had admitted.
Elise watched him disappear into the night, then returned to wiping down the counter.
Her life had not become his.
It had become hers again.
And for Elise, after the ocean, the wreckage, the surveillance, and the fear, that was the only ending that mattered.
