He wasn’t feeling so romantic that night.
Neither was I.
I was feeling fucking contained in my own skin.
He knew I wouldn’t push back. I’d let him have his way.
There was only one reason I’d ever challenge my own father, and we both knew it.
My family.
I’d made it known to him in his own house, before his table and guests, the first day I stepped foot inside his castle.
I would die for her honor.
For this? I wouldn’t disrespect him, and he knew it. If I challenged him by pushing back, I had to be ready to take the entire leap.
The thought had crossed my mind a time or two. If I did, and lived to talk about it, this moment would be mine—the man and beast inside of me warred over the prospect.
His hair was as wild as his eyes as he stared into mine. He was so close that I could feel the heat of his breath on my skin, smell the cinnamon whiskey as if I was the one who’d drank it.
“You,” he said in Italian. “You allow this danger to reside in your house. Right under your nose. He wants her. Your wife. I can feel it. And you cower from him!” I could feel his muscles trembling, but other than that, his tone was straight. “My son,my son,does not cower from any man, not even me. Tell me, my son, is this bastard stronger than your own father?”
“No, father,” I said in Italian.
“No, father,” he repeated, staring into my soul. “I beat you when you were younger. You did not shed a tear. Not one. I broke you, but you were broken onlyto me. All my men were broken by my hand only.”
His eyes were so much like my own that it was like looking in a mirror while I belittled myself.
“Your grandfather told me that he released you from your obligations. He told me that you were the perfect man for our life, but you had been made weakened by love. By a woman. I do not see that. She makes you stronger! Fiercer! Then a man comes to his father’s table, a man lusting after what belongs tomyson, and he sits and eats alongside of him. Do you share your wife? Is that it?”
A burning that had been coiling down in my stomach shot up, as fast as an explosion, and a growl emanated low in my throat, vibrating against the pressure against my windpipe.
The glass fell from his hand, and just as quickly, his arm shot back and then forward, impaling my stomach, then my ribs. I hardly moved, not going to fight back, not unless he made another comment that resembled his last.
The assault stopped as quickly as it came, but he wasn’t finished. Not even breathing heavy, he started to lean in close to me, like he was about to whisper a secret in my ear, but I knew he was about to rip a piece off.
A reminder of what cowardice costs in this life.
Better he took half my ear than an enemy steals my heart.
A swish of cream fabric came darting into the dim room, feet so light that not even Luca heard them at first. But Luca stilled instantly, in control even as he leaned in to rip my ear off, just as I grabbed my wife, who had shoved her way between us, and moved her away from him.
This small woman, who could dance on her toes and spin in tutus, was the only force standing between my demons and me.
She turned before I could stop her, putting herself between me and him anyway. Her hands were turned back, holding on to my arms, and I could feel her trembling, almost vibrating—not with fear, with fury.
Her chin jutted up in defiance. A move that I knew all too well.
“Stop,” she whispered, but there was nothing soft about it. “I know he’s your son, butstop. He’s mine too, and I won’t allow it. When you hit him, you hit me.”
“Scarlett,” I almost growled out.
She stood before him in that fucking nightgown, the fabric still swishing around her feet from running. I hated how bared she was to him, and more than her body.
“Lev,” she said, ignoring me, “saved your son’s life. I had no one—” She took a deep breath, and tears fell slowly from her eyes. “No one was willing to help me fromthisfamily, except our tight circle. Our hands were tied after Brando gave up his life for mine, to Spataro. The same way Marzio gave up his life to save Grazia. There is nothing,nothing, cowardly about the man who stands behind me. If he was going to die, I was set to die with him. Your own brother denied us the help because he was terrified that your son would rule over him. Lev was my only hope. He saved us both. So damn what Lev is or isn’t in your eyes. In my eyes, I see a friend.”
Luca knew the basic premise of the story, but not all the gory details. He knew Scarlett and my brothers saved me from Spataro after I had turned myself in, but not that Lev had had a hand in it.
