My cock twitches. Not because of the food. Because that sound should be mine. Always mine.
“Careful, Angel,” I rasp, stepping between her knees. “Keep making noises like that, and I’ll fuck you on top of the damn pizza box.”
Her lips curve around a wicked little smile as she chews, like she knows exactly what she’s doing. “You’d ruin dinner.”
“Dinner doesn’t matter,” I murmur, gripping her thigh, sliding my hand higher until her breath catches. “The only thing worth eating in this room is sitting right in front of me.”
She smirks, wipes a smear of sauce from the corner of her mouth with her thumb, and licks it clean. My restraint fractures. I lean in, steal her lips with mine, tasting the faint salt of tomato, the heat of her mouth, all of it dizzying.
Instead of pulling me deeper, she twists in my arms and presses her palms flat against my chest, grinning up at me. “Are you really that easy, husband?”
I slide my hand lower, fingers brushing beneath the hem of the shirt that isn’t hers. “Only for you, Mrs. Marchetti.”
She laughs, tossing a napkin at me. For a beat, it’s soft. Easy.The kind of moment I didn’t know I could have. Her hair’s a wild mess. Her cheeks flushed pink from our earlier wreckage. She smells like sex and spice and mine.
My hand settles at the small of her back, slipping under the fabric to find bare skin—warm, soft, addictive. For one stolen heartbeat, nothing else exists. Just her. The way her body leans into mine. The smile that says she has no idea how fucking dangerous this peace is—how I’d kill anyone who tried to take it from me.
Then something shifts.
A flicker—barely a breath of movement—slides past the glass doors. Too fast. Too quiet. My spine locks, instinct flooding in like a tidal wave before my brain has a chance to form thought. It’s the kind of danger you don’t question. You feel it in your blood.
“Zara,” I rasp, already moving.
And then the world detonates.
A deafening boom splits the air as the balcony door explodes inward. Shards of glass rain down like knives, catching the light as they cut through the room. The thunder of gunfire follows—controlled bursts, crisp, merciless. Not random. Professional.
I don’t think.
I move.
“Down!” My roar shakes the walls as I slam my arm around her waist and hurl us both behind the kitchen island. Bullets chew through the cabinets above, splintering wood into shrapnel. A plate shatters above us. Her scream vibrates against my chest, swallowed by the storm of violence.
Her body quakes under me, fragile in a way I can’t stand, so I cover her completely, shielding every fucking inch. I wrench open the drawer above our heads with one hand, grip closing around cold steel. Safety off. Finger on the trigger. My pulse doesn’t spike—I’ve lived too many years in fire to waste adrenaline. No, I calculate. Angles. Cover. Sightlines.
“Stay down,” I growl against her hair, voice sharp as broken glass. “Stay fucking down.”
Another round punches through the backsplash above the sink, splintering tile, showering us in dust. I pivot my shoulder just enough, one eye on the line of sight. I keep my weight over Zara, keeping her pressed flat beneath me, but my arm extends—gun in hand.
The instant I catch movement past the wreckage of the balcony, I squeeze the trigger.
One. Two. Three sharp pops. Controlled. The recoil thrums up my arm, but my body doesn’t budge. Sheathed around Zara, I fire.
Her hands fist in my shirt, clutching, but I can’t look at her yet. My focus is out there—on shadows moving. They thought they’d catch me soft. They thought wrong.
“Enzo—” Her voice cracks beneath me, high with fear.
“I’ve got you, Angel,” I grit out, never taking my eyes from the breach. I fire again.
Then I hear it.
That loud whir. Fast. Heavy. My blood runs cold, a warning older than memory.
“Helicopter,” I snarl, voice rough and lethal. “They’re shooting from the goddamn air.”
Zara’s fingers claw at my shirt, nails digging deep into muscle, eyes wide and terrified.
“I’ve got you,” I assure her, flattening her to the ground as I cage her body with mine. “You’re okay. You hear me? I swear to God, I’ve got you.”
