I hear Enzo at the door, the fast controlled movement of it, the crack of it opening, a grunt of surprise, the unmistakable heavy sound of a body hitting the floor and staying there.
I stand up.
Vittorio De Luca is on his back on the cabin floor with Enzo's forearm pressed across his throat and a gun at his temple, staring up at the ceiling with an expression somewhere between fury and disbelief, his perfectly pressed suit jacket twisted awkwardly beneath him.
He's wearing a full suit. In the middle of the woods. Of course, he is.
"Bianchi." His voice comes out compressed around the pressure on his throat. "Get off me."
Enzo doesn't move immediately. He holds his position for one long beat, looking down at Vittorio's face with those flat assessing eyes, calculating. Then he stands, steps back, and holsters the gun without offering a hand up and without apologizing.
Vittorio rises from the floor slowly, with the exaggerated dignity of a man who needs everyone in the room to understand that being tackled does not in any way diminish him. He straightens his jacket, adjusts his cuffs, smooths his tie back into place.
Then his eyes find me.
They start at my face and move downward with the unhurried deliberateness of a man looking at something he considers his, taking in the towel, the wet hair, the bare legs, the fact that I am clearly just back from something that didn't involve getting dressed first. His gaze moves to Enzo, still damp from the jacuzzi himself, and then back to me, and a small slow smile settles onto his face that makes the back of my neck prickle.
"Well," he says, and loads the single word with everything he intends it to carry. "You look comfortable." A pause, perfectly timed. "Both of you."
The implication drops into the room like something physical.
Beside me, I feel Enzo go very still in the particular way he goes still when he's controlling something that would otherwise come out badly.
"What are you doing here?" Enzo's voice is flat and measured and somehow more dangerous for it.
"I came to see my fiancée." Vittorio says it pleasantly, like this is a perfectly reasonable thing that requires no explanation, smoothing his jacket one more time with the air of a man who has never once in his life needed to justify himself to someone like Enzo Bianchi. "Matteo gave me the address. I trust that's not a problem for anyone." His eyes drift to Enzo with a smile that stops well short of his eyes. "You can go. This is family business now."
"I'm staying."
Vittorio's pleasant expression doesn't change but something behind it does. "I wasn't asking."
"Neither was I."
The silence between them has texture to it. History. Something that started at the rehearsal dinner and didn't finish.
Vittorio holds Enzo's gaze for a moment that stretches uncomfortably and then he performs his dismissal of it, visibly deciding Enzo isn't worth his attention, and turns to me with the smooth pivot of a man who's practiced at transferring his focus to more important things.
"Isabella." His voice softens slightly, going into the register he uses when he wants to seem considerate. "Are you all right? Matteo told me what happened, I was worried about you."
He doesn't look worried. He looks like a man checking on an asset.
"I'm fine," I say.
"Good." He steps closer and I hold my ground, keeping my chin level, refusing to give him the inch of retreat he's waiting for. "Our families have spoken. The alliance stands. My father wants things resolved quickly and cleanly so the wedding will most likely be rescheduled for next week." He reaches out as he says it and brushes a strand of wet hair back from my shoulder with his fingertips, like the gesture is natural, like he does it all the time, like my shoulder is a surface that belongs to him.
Don't flinch. Don't give him that. He is going to remove his hand in the next three seconds or Enzo is going to remove it for him and I genuinely cannot decide which outcome I prefer.
"I can't wait to have you home, where you belong."
I smile at him. The particular smile I've been perfecting since I was old enough to understand what it meant to be a Romano woman at a table full of men who'd already decided what you were worth.
"How lovely for you," I say.
His eyes cool by a degree. "Isabella."
"Vittorio." I keep the smile exactly where it is. "It was very thoughtful of you to come all this way. You really didn't need to."
"I wanted to see you."
