When the sedatives begin to pull me under again, my hand tightens around hers on instinct, as if my body understands before my mind fully does.
I let myself drift. Because I trust her to hold the line.
When I surface again briefly, she’s still there, still standing, still guarding what’s mine and what is hers. She calmly answers my questions, apprises me of the wonderfully impressive thing she’s achieved.
And I can’t help but lift her hand, kiss the back of it.
Then I laugh the way a man satisfied with life, even with a bullet hole doctors tell me came too close to killing me, has the right to, then calls fuck it. My dragon has found its true mate.
And somewhere beyond these walls, a terrified Isabella Bellandi who should’ve known better than to cross my wife is waiting.
And Salvatore Bellandi is ready to be put on his knees.
I see his name light up Lucia’s phone.
She does not answer.
And for the first time since I wake, I smile, knowing that whatever comes next, it will not be handled gently.
But with sublime, unstoppable Dragoni brutality.
20
LUCIA
Isabella Bellandi’s composure has not returned.
She tries, I’ll give her that, sitting straighter when I enter, lifting her chin as though pride alone might rebuild the world she has lost.
But her hands keep betraying her, fingers tightening and loosening against the arms of the chair, her breathing shallow in a way that speaks of fear she does not know how to disguise.
I close the door behind me myself. I don’t let the men do it.
This is my room.
My interrogation.
My war.
“You look tired,” Isabella says, voice brittle with forced disdain. “Is it exhausting, playing Donna?”
I pull out the chair opposite her and sit with deliberate ease, crossing my legs slowly, letting the silence stretch long enough that she begins to feel it.
“It’s exhausting,” I agree calmly. “But not for the reasons you think.”
Her eyes narrow.
“You think you’re strong,” she spits. “Because you stole him.”
I smile faintly.
“You keep using that word,” I reply. “Stole. As though Giovanni Dragoni is a necklace you misplaced, rather than a man who chose.”
Her lips peel back. “He was meant to marry me.”
“He was meant to marry whoever the hell he wanted,” I correct, my voice even. “And that’s what sticks in your craw the most, isn’t it? That, plus you confusing tradition with entitlement. They are not the same thing. And they’re both long past their use-by dates.”
Her breath shudders.
