“This is a lot to sleep in,” I said, nodding to the gown she wore. It was soft, felt like cotton, and was lined with lace. Her hips were outlined by the fabric, her breasts too, and the small bulge of her stomach strained against the fit.
“Want to take it off?” She smiled sleepily at me.
“Your name should’ve been on the fucking naughty list.” I leaned down to kiss her after I put her in the bed.
She wrapped her arms around my neck, rubbing her lips against mine, not letting me move.
“There’s always next year.” Her lips moved from my mouth, up my cheek, coming to rest on my eye. “Your tears are mine,” she whispered, sounding drunk. “I’ll make it all better.”
“Scarlett,” I breathed, my hand moving under the soft fabric, along the expanse of her smooth leg, to her warm thigh, slippery with want.
A sharp rap on the door echoed throughout our room. The noise startled her enough that she squeezed my arms, her nails biting into my skin. Her eyes were suddenly alert, looking between me and the door.
“It’s probably one of the men.” I kissed her forehead. “Get some sleep, baby.”
She nodded, but I knew she wouldn’t. She was trying to feel—to figure out what this was about. Rarely did the men knock on our door after hours. Or even before.
It was Nino. He came to tell me that Luca waited for me in the office.
I should’ve expected this visit.
During dinner, an unexpected guest had showed up at Luca’s chalet, one that popped in and out of our lives. Lev, the Russian assassin Scarlett had befriended when they were children. She’d danced for his grandfather, and ever since, he was taken with her.
After Lothario had refused Scarlett’s request for men to help rescue me fromSpataro, Scarlett turned to Lev, who stepped up and took matters into his own hands.
A few men on the yacht I’d been held on were on his list as targets. Since it worked out for everyone, we were square. Occasionally, though, he would show up to check on Scarlett.
Lev wasn’t a man who felt, and Scarlett made him feel—which was the problem when it came to my wife and dangerous men.
I hadn’t missed how Lev’s usually impassive face showed a hint of shock at seeing Luca sitting at the head of the table. Or how Luca’s demeanor changed when he realized that Lev was not a common man.
Luca had pulled me aside, asking me questions. I gave basic answers. It wasn’t the time nor the place. But I could feel his displeasure with me allowing a Russian assassin around my family, especially allowing him to stay the night in our chalet.
Luca had become quiet after, distant.
It didn’t take much thought to figure out why he had come. The Russian assassin had been on his mind, and the idea of him sleeping under our roof wasn’t sitting well.
Hastily throwing on a suit sans jacket, I met him in the office.
He stood with a glass of whiskey in his hand, staring at the snow falling outside of the glass. Without turning, he knew I’d entered the room.
“You were going to cut your brother’s throat for falling for your wife.” He downed the rest of the whiskey, keeping the glass in his hands. “A simpleton could see that this Russian has feelings for her. Yet—” He rolled his shoulders, as though the custom-made suit was too tight. “—you allow him to get close.” He made athnoise with his teeth, which I knew meant trouble.
I chose my words carefully. “He has never been disrespectful of my marriage,” I replied in Italian.
Rocco had. At the time, I had no idea he was my brother. Luca had never bothered to enlighten me. The entireScarlett finds my brothers in Italyepisodewas a messy one, and one that I didn’t want to get caught up in again.
That aside, if Lev ever crossed the line as Rocco had, I would have made it clear that cutting his throat was not beneath me either.
So much had changed about the way I felt for my wife—but nothing had changed either. The ember was still the same, the core of who we were, but the fire, the passion, had only increased tenfold.
What I felt for her was only the beginning in the beginning—which meant that as my love for her grew, so did my lust for blood when trouble knocked on our door.
In this life, I had to stand as tall as my grandfather had, as my father did, not to fall at the feet of fucking monsters.
The fire in this monster’s eyes alone warned me that it was coming. Though even if I braced myself with straps, I could never brace myself enough for a man as strong as Luca to hit me with the force of a boulder going downhill.
Our bodies collided, and he pinned me against the wall with the momentum, his arm to my throat. He cracked his glass against the space next to my head, shattering it, but he kept a jagged piece close to my face.
