Page 82 of Read This Before the Villain falls in Love with You

Nora crosses her arms over her chest, her voice rough with sleep. "I leave you people alone for two hours. Two hours. And you manage to turn the upstairs hallway into a goddamn shooting gallery."

Matteo lets out a wheeze and lowers his gun. "She lives. And her first instinct is verbal violence. Nature is healing."

I close the distance between us in three long strides, my hand reaching for her shoulder before I can stop myself. "Are you hurt?"

She looks up at me, dark circles under her eyes, but her gaze holds steady and cold. "I'm fine, Luca. Just irritated that your houseguests don't know how to knock."

Chapter 31

NORA

Adrian snaps out orders as two guards drag the dead men down the back service stairs. Nonna already stalked back toward her kitchen, cursing in sharp Italian about ruined dough and spilled blood on her tiles. Matteo lingers near the landing with an uneasy whistle until Luca glares him down. Smoke from Nonna's shotgun still hangs in the air, but the corridor clears fast until only the two of us remain in the hallway wreckage.

I step around the dark puddle on the floorboards. "You look terrible. Close your mouth before you catch flies."

He drags a hand through his dark hair, his chest rising and falling fast while his eyes sweep over me. "I heard the shots and thought they broke through before you could pull it off. I thought they killed you."

"Hey." I press my palms against the stiff fabric of his suit jacket to steady him. "Look at me, Moretti. I am entirely intact."

His fingers dig into my upper arms hard enough to leave marks. "You were the bait. We agreed to the plan, but watching those bastards head for your door nearly broke me."

I tilt my chin until he meets my gaze head-on. "I offered to be the bait, remember? We knew Bellini would come after me the second he thought I was vulnerable up here alone. And Nonna dropped them before they crossed the threshold. Take a breath."

Luca spits the words, his hand sliding to cup my neck while his pulse leaps under his collar. "He sent his best killers into my home. If my grandmother had been two seconds slower..."

I tap his collarbone with one finger. "She wasn't slower. The diversion worked. Bellini focused all his muscle on hitting me here, which left his two docks wide open for Enzo."

"Enzo torched both docks to the waterline," Luca rasps. The tension in his shoulders finally drops a fraction. "Bellini lost his entire shipping route in twenty minutes. It worked. But you put your neck on the line to give us the distraction."

I flatten my palms over the lapels of his coat. "I chose it. I told you I solve crises. You wanted Bellini blind, so I gave him a shiny target. We took his docks and wiped out his hitters."

He buries his face against my neck, his fingers digging hard into my waist. "I almost lost you. Don't do that again, Nora. If you die, I die with you. It's that simple."

He braces one broad hand flat against the wallpaper next to my ear, his breath warm and unsteady across my cheek. "Adrian has an extraction car waiting at the southern gate. If you want to walk away from this, Nora, you leave right now. No questions asked. I'll have you on a private jet back to London before sunrise."

I scoff, crossing my arms over my chest, and stare right into his dark eyes. "Do you honestly think I survived being tossed in the back of an SUV, tied up in plastic zip ties, and flown across an ocean, just to run away the second things get loud? We talked about this already, Moretti. I don't run."

His jaw tightens, a flicker of exasperation cutting through his exhaustion. He cups the side of my face, his thumb tracing the sharp curve of my cheekbone. "Bellini isn't done. The third wave will be worse. I am giving you an out because once this starts, I cannot pull you back."

I step right into his space until my chest hits his. "I don't need you to pull me back. Keep your private jet. I fix disasters for a living, remember? I chose to stand here with you, so stop trying to push me out the door like I'm fragile."

"You have never been helpless a day in your life," he murmurs, his thumb running down the line of my neck. "You are the most stubborn woman I've ever had the misfortune to drag into my war."

"Flattery won't save you, Moretti," I whisper back, fingers curled tight into the dark wool of his coat.

His forehead drops against mine, his warm breath hitching against my lips. "I've relived the night my parents died every day for twenty years. When I heard those gunshots up here, that same terror ripped right through me. Then I saw you standing here alive. I don't know how to care about someone like this. I don't know how to keep you safe and keep my head."

I grab a fistful of his shirt and yank him against me. "Then learn. Stop treating me like a job you have to finish. I want the man who complains about my tea and glares at me over dinner like he can't figure me out."

"You make terrible tea," he murmurs against my lips, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise.

"Shut up and kiss me, Luca."

His pupils darken, and then his mouth crashes down onto mine. His lips are rough and tasting of salt, forcing mine open with a bruising, desperate friction. I shove my hands against his chest, feeling his heavy heartbeat hammering right through his chest, before I grab the lapels of his wool coat and drag him closer. The solid oak frame of his bedroom door bites right through the silk of my blouse into my back.

"The bed is six feet away," he rasps against the skin beneath my jaw, fingers digging straight through the fabric at my hips until my feet nearly leave the hardwood.

I work the buckle of his belt loose. "Right here works. Before Matteo or one of your guards comes running with another mess."