But the way his arm tightens around me is answer enough.
After a moment, he speaks again, voice rougher.
“Backup pulled up quickly,” he says. “But it was all… confusing after that. Nico dragged me out of there somehow. Bullets flying from both sides. He got us in the car. I have some flashes of the hospital. Then nothing.”
I swallow hard.
“Woke up a couple of days later, all stitched up,” he finishes.
My heart aches, sudden and sharp, for this man lying next to me. A man used to covering things up with charm or a joke. A man who holds a weapon as easily as other men hold briefcases.
A man who jumped in front of a bullet for his nephew. No thought, just pure love and instinct.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” I whisper, and I mean it in a way that feels too big for words.
I press a kiss to his chest, right above the scar.
A weak laugh leaves him, soft and tired.
“Me too,” he says.
I stay still against him for a beat, then ask the question that’s been hovering at the edge of my mind, the one I almost don’t want the answer to.
“Did you ever find out what happened? The people who did it?”
“Yeah,” he says, and there’s something final in it. “I was out cold for it, but… some rival assholes. Looking to make a name for themselves.”
That’s all he gives me.
And I feel it—the finality in his tone. The line he won’t cross in my bed, in my sheets, with my body wrapped around his.
I don’t push.
Now that I know what the Contis really are, it’s better not to ask questions I can’t unhear the answers to. Because I’m sure Luca Conti—don of an actual,literalmafia—didn’t let the shooting of his brother and the attempted shooting of his son go unanswered.
The thought makesme shiver.
Antonio feels it immediately. “You cold?” he murmurs, hand sliding over my side.
“A little,” I admit, my voice small against his skin.
“Come here,” he says, and he tugs the blanket higher, pulling it over us more securely and tucking it in around me.
I settle into him, my palm resting over the scar, my cheek on his chest again.
Safe, my body tells me, even as my mind tries to count reasons not to believe it.
His arm tightens around me, and in the dark, with the locks clicked and the blanket pulled up and his heartbeat under my ear, I let sleep take me.
Chapter Thirty Three
Antonio
I wake up to quiet and warmth and the weight of Elsa sleeping beside me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
For about three seconds, I let myself enjoy it.
Then the part of my brain that never sleeps kicks in, sharp as a blade.
