Her eyes were on mine.
I opened my arms.
She took a deep breath, another, and then she collapsed into them. I picked her up, carrying her inside to our bedroom, where I used my foot to shut the door behind me.
She cried into me, sobbing like I had never heard a woman sob before—as if her heart was tearing out of her chest, and she was trying to keep it inside. I became as still as a warrior preparing for battle, preparing for this woman to tell me she hated me, she refused to be with me, as all the while, each of her tears marked my soul. The sound of her anguish was a fiery brand inside of my skull.
“My fault!” she barely got out. “I shouldn’t have allowed Dandolo in!”
My eyes slowly fell to meet hers. I could barely get the word out. “What?”
“How can you even look at me, Mariano Fausti? I cannot look at myself!”
I forced her eyes to meet mine. “This is my fault.” I hit my chest. “I am your man. I should have been there to protect you. Protect mine! Give this to me. I’ll carry it. I’m the one being punished.”
“What?” she breathed out.
“You heard me. All those years of running around…” I turned my face away from her.
She turned it back. “No! You came for me. You came for me when I needed you the most.”
“I fucking failed,” I said.
“No.” She shook her head. “You have never failed me.”
“I refuse to allow you to leave me,” I barely got out in Italian. “To separate us.”
“I am not.” She cried harder. “I thought…I thought, perhaps…you hated me. I could not stand to even think it. If I ever lost you…”
She gasped when I brought her to my chest, keeping her pinned against me. I couldn’t even process the fucking words. All I could do was hold her close, bring her back to the bed, keep her heart pressed to mine, her bleeding palm pressed to mine. My heart would speak for me, because words were fucking useless. To mend this mortal wound, we had to use each other as tourniquets to stop the blood flow.
Her blood and mine—the healing antidote to a sickness that was attempting to tear us apart.
There was no other way.
No other fucking way.
We had hit rock bottom, but we hit it together.
We’d rise together, the sun on our faces, the stormy winds at our backs.
With a trembling hand, she reached for the quilt and covered us both with it.
Epilogue
Mariano
The fiery sun outlined my wife and made it seem as if she were on fire. She glowed in the distance. A distance Guerriero could eat up in half a second if she needed me.
My wife was sitting atop Seraphina, a hand to her cowboy hat, her boots securely in the stirrups. We were taking our evening ride along the beach, our backdrop the Tyrrhenian Sea, and she was gazing out at the azure water, her long hair braided, draped over her left shoulder, but the strong hands of the wind had untucked a few pieces. The small tendrils whipped around her face as her eyes narrowed on the horizon.
Guerriero stirred underneath me. He was fucking impatient when it came to his mare.
My wife turned Seraphina toward us, and Guerrieroinstinctually knew. He flew forward toward the mare who had somehow tamed his wild heart. He was protective of her. A true killer.
Sometime between when my wife and I had left for Fiji and our return, he had fallen in love with Seraphina. The men who worked the farm had to allow her out whenever he chose to go out. She could run back into her stall if she wanted, but he had toknow where she was, always. If she made a distressed noise, they had to be together.
When Guerriero was close enough to my wife, Seraphina backed up a pace or two, and my wife patted her side, the blood diamond glinting in the early autumn sun. My grandfather had found it. When he had returned it to me, he said fate had created our union, and no mere man could separate it. Not even with a sword. My grandfather had sent the traitorous Judas back to his people without hands. I sent him back without a heart.
