“I took a bullet for you!” He grabs my wrists, his grip tight, restrained, but pulsing with a dark, raw power that sends a jolt straight to my core. “I stood in front of a rifle for a woman who had called the shooter. I told my Don—I told Matteo to hisfucking face—that you were mine. That you were loyal. I made myself a fool for you, Gia.”
“I know,” I whisper, looking up at him through a blur of tears. My heart is pounding, a frantic drum against my ribs. “I know.”
“And the worst part?” He leans in, his face inches from mine, his breath smelling of scotch and fire. “The worst part is that I still want you. I look at you and I want to destroy you, and I want to protect you, and I want to wrap my hands around your throat just so I can feel your heart beating.”
“Then do it,” I beg, my mouth ghosting over his, a desperate invitation. “Do whatever you want. Just don't leave me out here in the cold.”
He growls—a low, primal sound of pure frustration—and then he doesn’t kiss me. He crashes into me.
His lips slam against mine, a bruising, punishing pressure. It’s a battle. My mouth opens, yielding instantly, and his tongue thrusts in, hot and demanding. There’s no tenderness. It’s pure possession. He tastes of rage and salt and desire. I kiss him back with equal ferocity, my teeth catching his lip, a small bite of defiance and surrender. Our breaths mix, frantic and wet. His hands are on my face, holding me there, angling my head so he can deepen the assault. I lose myself in it. The world shrinks to the heat of his mouth, the slick slide of tongue, the sharp ache of my bruised lips. It’s a raw, messy, violent connection. It feels like drowning in him, and I don’t want to come up for air.
He hikes me up, one hand tangling in my hair, pulling my head back, the other arm wrapping around my waist. He carries me to the bed like I’m a prize he’s confiscating. My slip is ripped aside, a sharp tear of fabric that echoes the tearing inside my chest. Thecool air hits my skin, followed immediately by the searing heat of his body. He presses me into the mattress, his weight pinning me, a solid, unyielding force.
“You’re a liar,” he mutters against my skin, his voice a ragged scrape. His mouth finds my shoulder and his teeth graze the sensitive skin, not biting, but promising. A sharp, thrilling pain blossoms there, then melts into a deep, aching want. “You’re a goddamn De Luca liar.”
“I’m sorry,” I sob, the words torn from me. My legs wrap around his waist, my thighs clamping onto his hips with a strength I didn't know I had. I pull him into me, an insistent, physical plea.
He doesn’t hesitate. He’s still half-dressed, his trousers open. He enters me with a single, rough, powerful thrust that punches the air from my lungs. The world goes white, then sharpens into a single, blinding point of sensation. It’s not just filling me; it’s claiming me. The stretch is intense, almost painful, but it’s drowned instantly by a flood of desperate, clawing pleasure. It’s emotionally charged, heavy with the weight of every lie, every bullet, every silent hour. He moves, and it’s a relentless, punishing rhythm. His hips drive into me, each thrust a deliberate, deep invasion. His hands pin mine above my head, his fingers laced through mine, holding me down. I am completely exposed, completely vulnerable, completely his.
The friction is exquisite. A hot, slick drag that builds a fire low in my belly, spreading outward in waves. My back bows off the bed, trying to take him deeper. My nails dig into his back, scoring his skin. I can feel his muscles working, the tight coil of his abdomen against mine. My body clenches around him, a pulsing, involuntary rhythm, as if I could physically hold himhere forever. I want to drown in this. I want him to consume me until there’s nothing left but this brutal, honest heat.
He shifts, angles himself, and the next thrust hits a spot that makes me cry out, a sharp, broken sound. My eyes fly open, meeting his. His gaze is dark, furious, hungry. He sees my reaction and a grim satisfaction flickers there. He does it again, and again, targeting that same deep, vulnerable place with a precision that feels like torture and salvation. The pleasure becomes unbearable, a tight, screaming knot in my core.
“I want to hate you” he grunts, his thrusts becoming faster, harder, more desperate.
“I know,” I gasp, my heart twisting from the truth.
The climax doesn’t creep in. It explodes. It hits me like a freight train—unresolved, jagged, and full of a grief I can't name. It’s a violent unraveling. My body convulses, shaking under his, my internal muscles spasming around him in rapid, intense pulses. I cry out his name, a raw, sobbing scream into the quiet room. The release is total, a physical surrender that feels like my soul is being ripped out and handed to him.
He follows me a heartbeat later. His rhythm fractures, becomes erratic. A guttural, raw sound escapes him—a sound of pain, of release, of utter defeat—as he spills into me, his body shuddering against mine. He collapses forward, his forehead pressing hard against mine, our sweat and tears mingling. His breathing is ragged, hot gusts against my cheek.
For a second, the world is still. For a second, he stays there, buried inside me, his weight a comforting prison. The air is thick with the smell of us—sex, salt, and sorrow.
Then, he pulls back.
The cold returns instantly. He doesn’t linger. He doesn’t stroke my hair or tell me it’s going to be okay. He gets out of bed, the movement abrupt. I feel the loss of him, a hollow, aching emptiness. He pulls his trousers on, his back to me—a wall of muscle and silence. The distance he creates is back, and it’s wider than before, a canyon carved by this brutal intimacy.
“We move for the compound in twenty-four hours,” he says, his voice flat once more, devoid of all the heat that just poured from him into me.
He walks out of the room, leaving me alone in the tangled sheets.
The day that follows is a blur of mobilization and military precision.
The estate transforms. The quiet, domestic peace of the last few weeks is replaced by the low hum of a war hub. Armored vehicles are parked in the rear driveway. Weapons shipments arrive in the middle of the night—crates of rifles, tactical gear, and explosives. Brotherhood soldiers rotate through the dining room for briefings, their faces grim, their eyes scanning the maps I once helped Rafael review.
I am a ghost again, but this time, I’m a guarded one.
I’m allowed to move through the house, but there is always a shadow behind me—Luca or one of Enzo’s men. I’m briefed on Laura's compound layout, shown the blueprints and the extraction timing. They tell me which room she’s in, whichwindow they’ll breach. They treat me like a source of intel, not a wife.
Rafael is everywhere and nowhere. I see him from the balcony, overseeing the weapons checks. I see him in the foyer, talking in low, urgent tones to Matteo. He’s the Butcher now, focused entirely on the logistics of the war and the rescue.
Then, I find him in the study. He’s staring at the monitor, his face lit by the blue glow of the surveillance feed from the Villa d'Este. The O'Rourke forces are already mobilizing, moving toward the false coordinates I provided.
"They’re moving," I say, standing in the doorway.
He doesn't look up. "They are."
"Rafael... about Laura?—"
