28. Pietro
PIETRO
BLEED FOR ME BURN FOR ME
J oseph grits his teeth but weaves through traffic and takes turns down obscure roads in the hopes of not being followed. The cityscape has turned to a hellscape of homeless encampments and filth on the street.
We’re nearing her apartment, but not fast enough. My gut twists in knots, and every muscle in my body is pulled so tight I feel like I’ll snap. I’m a live wire and seconds from sparking.
I should have Luca’s head on a spike for fucking this up.
But no one knows better than I do how relentless Amara is once her mind is set. She’s not just decided—she’s committed. Unshakable. Unstoppable.
She got away once.
That won’t happen again.
At the safe house she will be surrounded by guards, she should be safe there, but none of that fucking matters if I don’t get to her in time.
Joseph speaks, cutting the tension. “Does someone want to wipe out the Borrelli line?”
I barely hear him. My mind is only on her.
By the time Joseph rolls to a stop outside Amara’s apartment, I’m already out of the car. My chest tightens, breath sharp, and I take the stairs two at a time. My pulse hammers with a single thought pounding through my skull—something’s happened that can’t be forgiven.
I’m not ready to let her go. I won’t rest until I know she’s okay.
I bang on the door. No answer. I don’t flinch as I throw my shoulder into it, and the door gives way under my weight. The wood splinters as the door crashes open.
I’m in her shitty apartment for the first time—and I don’t say that because I’m an elitist. It’s just that bad. A cramped, dim hovel that pisses me off more than I want to admit. She’s been living like this? Alone? My eyes sweep the shadows... and then I see her.
She’s on the couch—small and defenseless.
I don’t think. I move.
“Amara,” I growl, my voice raw with emotion. I race to her side and stroke her hair back. It’s only then that I see a young woman kneeling beside her. She must be Sarah, her roommate.
“She’s in pain. I don’t know what to do. She said she’s pregnant. Will she be okay?” Sarah’s voice is shaky, and I don’t blame her for being scared. This is all new to her.
Wait!
She told Sarah she’s pregnant?
She’s pregnant with my baby! I’m going to be a father!
My elation is short-lived as I take in Amara.
“I don’t know,” I respond a minute late. “We need to get her out of here in one piece.”
My eyes are glued to Amara. She must hear my voice because she stirs, barely. My stomach twists violently. Her face is swollen and bruised, and her lip has dark red blood that has dried on her split lip.
Her body—Jesus. There’s no fucking way she’s walking out of here on her own.
I scoop her up, and my arms naturally slide around her. She’s mine.
I know her body. I’ve committed every curve and scar to memory. My body is filled with a fierceness I never knew I possessed, and I can’t control it. I want to kill the person who did this to her.
Sarah rushes forward. “Let me help?— ”
“She’s mine.” The words are a snarl, final, and absolute. She stops in her tracks, petrified.
I carry Amara to the elevator, her hand clutched to her ribs, every breath a quiet cry she tries to stifle. It kills me to hear her gasp in pain—to feel her flinch when I shift her weight.
I want to stop. To soothe. To promise her it’ll all be okay.
But I can’t.
Not yet.
Right now, getting her to safety is the only mercy I can offer.
Cracked ribs. Maybe broken. I’ve been in enough fights to diagnose simple injuries, and that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.
“Who did this?” My voice is steel.
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to.
I already fucking know. The elevator comes to a sudden, harsh stop. My heart breaks when Amara gasps in pain; Joseph is waiting outside. When we reach the Hummer, it is idling, and his hand is on his gun as he scans the street. “Our men surround the vehicle. We’re covered.”
I get in with Amara still in my arms. Joseph assists Sarah before he slides behind the wheel, and the entourage of security surrounds our vehicle as we take off, providing a buffer between us and what will come.
No one speaks.
My mind is filled with rage as my gaze remains focused on her, and I hear every wince and feel every shudder.
“Your father is a dead man,” I murmur. I don’t need to hear it from her. I know.
It feels like an eternity, but we leave the dirty city behind us. We travel over bridges, and the landscape turns more rural. We drive through a marsh. The safe house looms ahead. Numerous vehicles line the driveway, and I know that Matteo and my brothers are already here and waiting.
They rush out when they hear us.
Niccolò is the first to step forward. His jaw tightens when he sees her. “Shit.”
“She needs a doctor,” I say .
Matteo nods. “Already arranged. Blindfolded and on the way in. We can’t be too careful.”
We don’t trust anyone—not when a Borrelli has a target on his back.
Sarah steps forward, hesitating nervously.
Matteo glances at Luca. “Take her to the Borrelli mansion. She’ll be safe with my wife.”
“Will she be alright?” she asks anxiously, eyeing Amara, who is limp in my arms.
“She will be,” I say without looking at her as I carry Amara into the house.
I vaguely hear Joseph speak, and then they disappear into the night.
Inside, I lower Amara onto the bed in the master bedroom, my jaw is aching from how hard I’ve been clenching it.
“Who shot at you?” she asks, her voice hoarse. It’s only now that I realize my arm was grazed and that it’s my blood on my shirt.
I kneel in front of her. “You tell me.”
Her lips part, and for the first time, I see it. The hesitation. The fear.
“It’s my father… or Milo? Petrovi?.”
I go still.
The room crackles with unspoken tension.
Matteo steps forward. “Milo? Petrovi?? He doesn’t have this kind of reach.”
“He knows Amara works at the club. He showed up there. The club was full of his men tonight,” I tell Matteo.
“He could have someone inside Moretti’s organization feeding him information.
If that’s the case he would be able to get all the intel he needs to burn Moretti’s empire to the ground,” I reply, my eyebrows furrow pensively when I look at Matteo, waiting for his reaction.
But his face is somber as he contemplates my words.
Then, I turn. I watch Amara closely, and the way her fingers are clenched and the fact that her breath becomes ragged like she’s teetering on the edge of something.
“Elio,” she says finally, her voice but a whisper. “The man in the black SUV. ”
Matteo and I exchange glances.
“My father’s right-hand man. The one who always knew where I was, but I didn’t know how,” she gasps. She swallows, and I notice her lips are dry. “He’s the only one who knows where all the warehouses and stash houses are.”
This calls Elio’s loyalty into question. I admit it’s logical that he’s the mole. “He’s a traitor,” I murmur, and I’m surprised when I realize I spoke instead of thinking to myself.
Amara exhales sharply like she’s been holding this inside for too long.
I shift closer as I sit on the edge of the bed, my hands grabbing hers, giving them a gentle squeeze for support. “Who hurt you?”
She stills. The amusement in her expression fades, replaced by something guarded.
“Amara,” I say, my tone is louder now because I’m angry someone did this to her, someone who should love her and protect her.
Her hands open and close in a rhythm—a cadence she’s using to keep herself calm.
“Everyone hurts me, what’s the difference?” she says in her soft voice that tears me apart.
It’s the first honest answer she’s given me.
But it’s not fucking enough.
If I didn’t know better… if I didn’t know Amara… I might think she orchestrated this entire thing.
The escape. The attack. Was she setting me up for the shooter?
Could she do that to me?
Doubt settles in my lungs like ash, quiet and suffocating.
Matteo steps forward, his eyes narrowing as if he read my mind. “Don’t go there, Pietro.” He rests his hand on my arm.
“She kept the pregnancy from me.” My voice is rough. “She ran. She?—”
“She’s not like her father,” Niccolò interrupts. “She’s everything good in this world.”
My head snaps up with my vision tunneling on her.
“I saw the way she looked at our family, and how she looked at the kids, it was almost like she was letting herself believe in something, even if it was only for a moment.” He pauses briefly as if he’s searching for the right words.
“She’s not against us. In fact, I think she did her father’s bidding to save you,” Matteo continues.
“It tracks, I mean, I see it now. She had no way of knowing who you were before she showed up for work, you said so yourself.”
“It was fate,” Niccoló interjects.
Fate. Fate is a bitch.
I run my hand through my hair, pushing it back. My mind is tired. Does this explain the look in her eyes that I didn’t understand? Was it wishful thinking, as if she knew her time with me was what? Temporary?
Perhaps she knew her father would never let me have her.
And she left… not to protect herself.
To protect me.
I slide my hand down my face, my five o’clock shadow is more like twelve.
Matteo’s phone buzzes. His face darkens as he picks it up.
“Julia intercepted chatter,” he mutters. “She confirms there is a hit on you, Pietro.”
I don’t react.
I already knew. It would have been nice to know this an hour ago.
“We can’t expose this as it’s from an illegitimate source, and we can’t blow our app’s back door, it would tip everyone off that we have access to information we shouldn’t have.
“We have to obtain proof another way,” Matteo mutters, and I can tell he’s frustrated for me.
Who is out for me?
Milo? or Stefano are the most likely candidates, but I guess it doesn’t matter because they’re both fucking dead.
Milo?. Because he touched my woman.
Stefano, because he hurt my woman.
And one of them put an unsanctioned hit out on me.
I glance at Matteo. “We are taking both of them out.”