Ginni.
My heart stops beating entirely.
He’s barely recognizable. His beautiful face is a map of bruises, one eye swollen nearly shut, his lip split and crusted with dried blood. The prison uniform hangs loose on his frame, making him look smaller and more fragile than I’ve ever seen him.
But it’s the expression in his visible eye that destroys me. Hollow. Defeated. Like someone who’s given up hope entirely.
The younger guard still has his hand on Ginni’s arm, holding him in place with casual indifference to his obvious injuries. The sight sends rage through me so pure and violent that for a moment I can’t see anything but red.
“Get your hands off my wife!” I snarl.
The guard looks up at me with confusion and dawning terror, but he doesn’t let go fast enough. I move without conscious thought, my fist connecting with his jaw hard enough to snap his head back. He crumples immediately, joining his partner in unconsciousness.
Ginni stares at me with an expression I can’t read. Shock, maybe. Or disbelief. Like he’s seeing a ghost instead of the man who’s spent every waking moment of the last four days planning this rescue.
“Come on, Menace,” I say gently, reaching for him. “Let’s get you out of here.”
He doesn’t resist as I help him to his feet, but he doesn’t seem entirely present either. Like part of him is still trapped somewhere else, somewhere darker than this van.
We jump down from the transport together, and Pietro already has our vehicle positioned perfectly. I bundle Ginni into the back seat and throw myself in beside him as Pietro pulls away from the scene with the kind of smooth precision that makes him worth every penny I pay him.
In the distance, I can hear sirens, but they’re still far enough away that we should be clear long before they arrive. The whole operation took less than three minutes from start to finish. Clean, professional, exactly what Dante promised.
But none of that matters now. All that matters is the broken boy sitting beside me, staring at nothing with those haunted eyes.
I turn my full attention to Ginni, my hands moving over him automatically, checking for injuries I might have missed. The bruises on his face are the worst of it, but there are others. Defensive wounds on his arms, scraped knuckles that suggest he gave as good as he got in whatever fight landed him in solitary.
“Are you okay, baby?” I ask softly.
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even seem to hear me.
“Ginni?”
The worry in my voice finally seems to penetrate whatever fog he’s lost in. He blinks slowly, like someone waking from a dream.
“I got into a fight,” he says quietly.
“I can see that, sweetheart.” I brush a gentle finger across an unbruised patch of his cheek. “What happened?”
“They put me in solitary.”
“I’m sorry.” The words feel completely inadequate. Sorry doesn’t begin to cover the guilt eating at my chest, the knowledge that he suffered alone while I was making plans and gathering resources.
Silence stretches between us, filled only with the sound of London traffic and Pietro’s careful, yet swift navigation through the city. But there’s something in Ginni’s expression that’s setting off alarm bells in my head. Something haunted and deeply sad that goes far beyond just physical injuries.
“Did anyone...” I start, then stop. The question is too terrible to voice, but I have to know. “Did they...”
Ginni shakes his head quickly. “No.”
Relief floods through me.
“Would you still love me if they had?”
The question hits like a sucker punch, knocking all the air out of my lungs. The fact that he even has to ask, that he could doubt for even a second how I feel about him, makes my chest tight with something that feels like grief.
I cup his face carefully in my hands, mindful of the bruises, trying to pour everything I feel into my voice.
“Of course I would,” I tell him fiercely. “Nothing could ever change how much I love you. Nothing.”
