#vinkez

“Ms. D’Amore.”

Kez blinked and released zir hold on the footboard of the bed, shaking out zir hands as ze turned to face the owner of the voice behind zir. Ze was getting distracted, not even hearing someone coming into the room, and that was dangerous. This hospital wasn’t on enemy turf, but it wasn’t on Vincenzo’s either; ze had to be alert.

Luckily, it was only Tig, one of Vincenzo’s boys, his most trusted bodyguard and enforcer.

“You were saying something?” Kez asked after a few long moments, and Tig’s face changed. It was a sympathetic expression, and Kez had the very uncharitable urge to smack him for it.

“There was a situation earlier, down at Yoyo’s club. Carver’s people showed up and had to be dealt with,” Tig repeated, and Kez’s hackles raised. Fucking vultures, already circling. Or maybe the more accurate comparison would be sharks, scenting blood in the water.

“How serious was it?” ze asked, turning zir gaze back to Vincenzo on the bed.

“They were put down. Expeditiously,” Tig replied, and Kez nodded.

“How many civilian witnesses?” ze asked next, dreading this answer most. Civilian witnesses usually meant the cops would come sniffing around and would need to be bribed. Ze hated dealing with cops.

“None,” Tig replied, and when Kez shot a look over zir shoulder, he raised his hands defensively. “It happened in Yoyo’s office. Winters was with her, they just needed help with clean-up.”

Kez took a deep breath through zir nose and let it out slowly, nodding once. “Go to the club. Both of us being seen here will only make them bolder.”

Tig didn’t move. “I shouldn’t leave you here alone,” he eventually said, and anger rose hot and bitter in Kez’s throat.

“You will do as you’re fucking ordered, Faulkner,” Kez bit out, wringing zir hands around the foot board of the bed again.

“Boss wouldn’t like—”

“If Vincenzo wanted me to give a shit about what he would’ve liked, he wouldn’t have gotten himself shot,” Kez all but snarled, whirling on Tig and crowding him against the door. “Now, let’s try this again, shall we? Go. To the club. Now.”

Tig stared down at zir, expression closed off and tense before he nodded once. “On it, Boss.”

With that, he slipped out the door and left Kez in the room alone with zir husband.

Returning to the bed, ze stood at the side of it and stared down at Vincenzo. He looked wrong, almost small against the stark sheets, his hair an uncharacteristic mess and the hospital gown the wrong shade of blue for his complexion. He was alive, but barely, and it was terrifying staring down that possibility.

“You hear that, Vincenzo? They’re already coming for everything you built,” Kez bit out, low and quiet as the veil of numbness briefly parted, just long enough to feel the ache of zir heart shattering, and tears sprung to zir eyes.

“I love you.” “I wish you didn’t.”

It was the last thing they said to each other before Vincenzo lost consciousness, succumbing to the blood-loss. How could that man be choking on his own blood and still manage to tell Kez he loved zir? It was insane, something out of the terrible romantic dramas Vincenzo pretended he didn’t watch. And yet he did it, and Kez didn’t respond in kind, and now he might never wake back up.

“You need to wake up, Vincenzo,” Kez continued, trying to keep zir voice even as ze slipped zir hand into Vincenzo’s. “It’s all going to fall apart.”

That wasn’t true, necessarily. Or more, that wasn’t the real reason behind that grasping, clawing thing inside zir. Kez didn’t give a shit about the Organization, the Family.

Ze cared about Vincenzo. Ze cared about them, and the thought of them becoming just Kez made it feel like ze was being skinned alive.

Before ze could stop zirself, Kez crawled up onto the bed and curled around Vincenzo, pressing a wobbly kiss to his shoulder.

“You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you, Vin,” Kez whispered against his shoulder, finally letting a few tears escape as ze tangled their fingers together in zir lap. “I need you, Vin. Please, wake up.”

Approaching the tub, Keziah sits down on the edge of it and wets the washcloth before gently wiping it over his chest and up his throat.

“I can take care of myself, Keziah,” Vinny offers as zir face pinches strangely at the horrific scar from his surgery, as it always does when ze looks at him now. “You don’t—”

“Let me do this, Vin,” Keziah snaps, and Vinny immediately shuts his mouth with a click. As if realizing zir tone was a bit harsh in the afterglow, ze adds, “Please.”

If it was any other time, Vinny might laugh, tease Keziah for the manners, ask who house-trained zir in his absence, but the moment was too tenuous. Too fragile. He doesn’t want zir to get up and leave, not when they had been fighting, even while they’d been fucking.

So, he just nods and leans back, letting zir clean up his throat and face, watching zir with hooded eyes and what was likely far too much naked affection.

“It’s not more important than us,” Vinny says after a few moments, and Keziah tenses, not even looking at his face as ze waits for him to continue. “The Organization, I mean, and that fucking terrifies me, Keziah.”

“Careful, Vincenzo,” ze warns, as ze always does when Vinny is being too honest, even with zir.

“Fuck ‘careful.’ It— I was raised to put the needs of the Family above all else, that the empire my grandfather started was the priority. It should be my priority, but it’s not,” Vinny insists, and when Keziah goes to pull away, he grabs zir wrist. “Can I say my piece, Keziah? Please?”

The ‘please’ stops Keziah, just as zir’s stopped him and ze meets his gaze finally. With a slow exhalation, Keziah just nods once and motions for him to continue.

“I know the only reason I even have the privilege of being annoyed that you put everything at risk to save me is because you saved me. You did that, Keziah. You saved my life,” Vinny says, lifting a hand to cup Keziah’s cheek gently. “And if I sound ungrateful, it’s because I’m supposed to care about the Organization, this fucking empire I’ve been saddled with, and I don’t because I care about you. I love you so fucking much that even considering a future without you in it is so fucking unbearable, I don’t— I can’t do it.”

“So, I ask you again, you think I’m better off living that hell?” Keziah asks harshly, but ze doesn’t pull away this time, doesn’t reach out with a grip that hurts, keeps zir claws tucked away.

“No, Keziah. I didn’t step in front of that bullet because I thought it was going to kill me, I didn’t even think about what would happen to me. I saw the gun, saw it aimed at you, and I couldn’t let them shoot you,” Vinny says, staring up at Keziah. “I practically shouted to everyone who was there just how fucking under my skin you are, how stupid I get when you’re near me, that I would risk everything for you, even my own fucking life, and I wouldn’t even hesitate.”

Now, Keziah was watching him intensely, zir breathing slowly as ze works to keep zir expression blank. Trying not to show too much, even to Vinny, even now. Especially now.

“I killed everyone else in that room just for that reason,” Keziah says darkly, and a soft part of Vinny that still persisted after all of these years ached at that.

“You mean everything to me, Keziah. None of this,” he says, motioning around them at the opulent bathroom, “means anything without you. The thing I would become without you… that scares me the most.”

“I can’t lose you either, Vincenzo,” Keziah says, and zir voice is uncharacteristically shaky as ze tilts zir cheek into Vinny’s palm. “You keep talking about what you would become, as if I wouldn’t be a fucking husk without you, going through the motions, running your family business when I’m not even a proper heir, I’d be a beneficiary at best. You don’t even have a proper heir— that’s beside the point. Stop assuming I’m stronger than you just because I’m better at hiding my hand.”

“You’re right, as always, just… it wasn’t about dying in your place, sweetheart,” Vinny insists, and Keziah’s eyes close with a shuddering sigh. “All I could think was ‘anyone but Keziah,’ even at the risk of destroying everything.”

There was a long pause, Keziah just sitting with zir eyes closed, breathing slowly and measured. Suddenly, Keziah stands up and shrugs off zir robe so ze can step into the tube, sinking into the water to straddle Vinny’s lap. Tucking zir face into his throat, ze sighs as Vinny wrapped his arms around zir body.

“You scared me, Vin,” Keziah confesses quietly, and that jolts something in Vinny’s heart. Of all the things he was sure Keziah had been feeling up to that point, fear was never on that list. If Vinny was honest, he didn’t even think Keziah could feel fear about anything.

“I’m sorry, my love,” Vinny whispers, kissing zir forehead sweetly. After a few moments, he says, “We could always fix that, what you said about me not having a proper heir.”

Keziah lifts zir head to glare at him. “You did not just ask me to have your children like that,” ze says threateningly, and Vinny’s eyebrows shoot high on his forehead.

“I meant I could write you into my will as my heir explicitly,” Vinny replies, a little breathless at the prospect of actually fathering an heir with Keziah. He could feel himself getting hard again at the mere thought of creating something with his perfect, strong Keziah, something that was theirs, not just maintaining something that was given to them. “How would you like me to ask you to have my babies?”

Keziah blinks at him, searching his face. “You’ll be insufferable when I’m pregnant, won’t you?”

“Am I not already?” He challenges lightly, and Keziah snorts. “Would you have a child with me? If I actually asked?”

Keziah considers the question, and for a moment it looks like ze might close back off. But eventually, ze sighs and leans in for a kiss. “You know I would do anything for you, Vin,” ze confesses softly against his lips.

“Do you want that?” Vinny presses, even as he tries to deepen the kiss, sliding both hands up Keziah’s strong back and feeling the map of zir scars with his calloused fingertips.

“Ask me again tomorrow when I don’t have your cock distracting me,” Keziah replies against his tongue, getting a hand between them to wrap it around Vinny’s cock. “Right now, we have weeks of catching up to do.”

Wrapping his arms around Keziah’s waist, Vinny mouths his way along zir jaw to nibble at zir earlobe. “I’ll hold you to that,” he growls low in zir ear, sighing as Keziah slides zir cunt back onto his cock…