“Because I love you.”
Everything inside me stops. Every molecule. Every breath. Every thought.
She keeps going, stepping toward me, her voice steady and soft but stronger than anything that’s ever been said to me in my life.
“I love all of you, Alessandro. Every part. Every piece. Even the ones you think I should run from.”
I stare at her like she just said something impossible. Something forbidden. Something I’ve wanted and feared in equal measure. She reaches up and touches my bloodstained knuckles.
“You are hunting the men who attacked us,” she whispers. “But you are also tearing yourself apart while you do it.”
My throat tightens painfully.
“You can still make them pay,” she says, eyes burning into mine. “You can still protect us. You can still be the man you are.” She steps closer until her chest brushes mine. “But you will not destroy yourself doing it.”
Her hand slides to my jaw. “And you will not shut me out. Not anymore.”
I swallow hard, trying to breathe. She loves me. She fucking loves me.
And I don’t deserve any of it.
But God help me—
I want it.
I want her.
I want every version of her she will ever give me.
“Dove…” My voice breaks. “You can’t just—”
She presses her forehead to mine. “Yes,” she whispers. “I can.”
And for the first time in my life, I feel something stronger than rage. Stronger than revenge.
Her words detonates inside my chest. Not gentle. Not careful. A bomb.
Because I love you.
The world dissolves into static. One moment I am staring at her, the blood still hot on my knuckles from the animal I wastorturing in the next room—the next, I am looking at the woman who had just rewired my entire savage existence. Love.
I grip her dress, pulling her tighter against me. Wrapping my hands so tight around it that I feel like it's going to rip off her body. The blood that was once on my hands has transferred to her dress. But I don't care. I'll buy her another one.
I grab her face, her waist, her everything, and I am kissing her like a man who’s been starving for years, a man who just found salvation in the wreckage.
Her back slams against the cold, tiled wall of the small utility bathroom. She gasps into my mouth, a sound of shock and immediate passion.
I swallow the sound, devour it, devour her, because she loves me—
She loves me—
God help me, that single truth brings me to my knees.
Literally.
I drop to my knees in front of her, forehead pressed to her stomach, hands gripping her thighs as if I were holding onto the only salvation left in this blood-soaked life.
I bury my face against her, inhaling her clean, unique scent—the antidote to the metallic stench of the room next door.
