Sergio grabbed my wrist before the next one landed, shoving hard enough to create distance. “She stole my fucking keys!”
“I SHOULD KILL YOU!” And Christ, I meant it. My breathing came harsh and uneven while Sergio wiped blood from his split lip with the back of his hand.
“Listen to yourself,” he snapped.
“No!” I snarled. “You listen! She’s gone!”
The last word broke apart coming out of my mouth. Gone. Ugly fear surged back harder than before. My stomach twisted violently as images flooded my head one after another. Chiara dragged into some black SUV. Chiara crying. Chiara runningbarefoot through rain-soaked streets. Chiara terrified and alone. Or worse, Angelo touching her. Something murderous flashed across Sergio’s face too. He saw the realization happen in mine.
“Fuck,” he muttered darkly.
I grabbed him by the collar. “If he touched her…”
“He probably did,” Sergio snapped back. “Which means wasting time beating the shit out of me won’t help.”
Silence crashed between us. My chest heaved violently. I could barely think straight. Sergio stared at me carefully now. Not afraid. Concerned. That was worse.
“You’re panicking,” he said quietly.
“I’m going to kill him,” I said.
“Probably.”
“I’ll skin him alive,” I hissed.
“Leo.”
My hands tightened harder around his collar. “You don’t understand.”
But Sergio did understand. I saw it in his eyes. The horrible truth neither of us wanted spoken aloud. This wasn’t obsession anymore. Wasn’t control. Wasn’t possessiveness. The terror ripping through me felt far uglier than that.
Because somewhere between forcing Chiara into my world and listening to her cry in her sleep… She became something dangerous to me. Something precious. And now she was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Three: CHIARA
ThefirstthingInoticed was that Angelo smelled expensive. Not safe. Not kind. Not clean. Expensive.
His cologne reached me before he did, something sharp and smoky layered over citrus and cedar, the kind of scent that belonged in private clubs, black cars, and rooms where men made decisions that ruined women. It wrapped around me as soon as I stepped out of the service corridor and into the lower lobby of the hotel, clinging to my throat until I almost turned around. Almost. But then I saw him.
Angelo Moretti stood near the far wall beneath a chandelier made of long, dripping crystals. He wasn’t hiding. Of course he wasn’t. Men like him didn’t hide. He lounged there in a dark suit, hands in his pockets, his mouth curved like he’d known exactly when I’d arrive. Like he’d known I would arrive.
A terrible chill passed through me. Still, when his gaze found mine, relief hit so hard my knees nearly weakened. I had made it.
I had gotten out of Leo’s penthouse. Out of his tower. Out of his locked rooms and glass walls and suffocating silence. I had stolen Sergio’s keys with my pulse pounding hard enough tomake me dizzy, slipped through a door I was not supposed to open, and run as far as my shaking legs could carry me.
I should have felt free. Instead, I felt like I had stepped into another cage and simply hadn’t found the bars yet. Angelo smiled.
“There you are,” he said softly. “The runaway wife.”
I hugged my coat tighter around myself. It was too big, stolen from a closet near the penthouse entrance, and it swallowed my body to my knees. I had no purse. No phone. No money except the few bills I’d found tucked into the pocket. My hair was loose and tangled from the wind. My hands were numb. And I was still wearing Leo’s ring. I curled my fingers into my palm before Angelo could look at it.
“You said you would help me,” I said.
“I did.” His smile widened, charming enough to make my stomach twist. “And here I am.”
He crossed the lobby toward me with easy confidence, moving like the whole hotel belonged to him. Maybe it did. Maybe every building in this city belonged to some monster with a beautiful smile and blood under his fingernails.
When he reached me, he didn’t touch me. That should have reassured me. It didn’t. His gaze moved over my face, my throat, my coat, down to my bare legs and the shoes I had shoved on in a panic. Too slow. Too aware.
