Page 47 of Jealous Vows

Her dazed eyes and discombobulated response fill me with masculine pride.

“Okay.Um.So… are you still there,ZioMario?”

I curse and yank the phone out of her hand.

“No, wait!I—”

“I’ve heard enough,” Mario’s gravelly voice comes through the speaker.

My hackles rise.

“You can’t have her, Mario,” I hiss.

Sienna sighs and grabs my tie.

“I wasn’t trying to—”

I wrap my fist around her throat and push her up against the hedge.

“You snuck out of the room,” I accuse.

“You said the entire hotel was safe!You said no one would dare step a toe out of line.I’m from California.I like the sun.I didn’t run, I just…wandered.”

The genuine exasperation in her voice finally breaks through my mania, but her choices piss me the hell off.

“So why are you on the phone with Mario Luciano?”I spit the name like a curse.

“I…” she huffs.“I don’t know.My stomach was hurting so I got up to see if walking would help, it did, so I wrote you a note letting you know I took your phone so you could call me, and then it rang while that guy wouldn’t leave me alone, and I thought it was you, so I answered it.Except it wasn’t you, it wasmio zio, but you were suddenly right there and—”

I lean down and pour my relief into her soft, warm mouth.She melts and rises onto tiptoes to reach around my nape.

Need rises so swiftly my head spins.I curse my overeager cock and murmur in her ear.

“Let’s go back to our room, yeah?”

She nods.

When I turn, the man she couldn’t get rid of peeks out around the open door with a phone blocking his lips, but by the way his mouth moves, he’s speaking.

Not English.Not quite Spanish either.

Premonition settles in my gut.

I realize my folly and pull Sienna tighter against me.We’re in the back corner of the terrace where the early morning sun bouncing off the pavement blinds the cameras.There are also several breaks in the hedges for maintenance and access to electrical units.

The sound of a pistol racking and a round entering the firing chamber echoes through the air.I mash the speaker button and turn down the phone’s volume as José and several of his men creep out from the bushes and surround us.

Sienna trembles from head to toe.I lean down and murmur against her temple.

“No one but me,bambolina.No one.Capisci?”

She fists the back of my suit.

“No one but you,” she whispers.

Sienna Luciano is mine.All mine.Mine to torment, heal, worship, protect, and love.

Love.I love her.