Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
RENZO
I groan and try to move. But meet resistance.
What the hell?
Cold iron bites my wrists, sharp and waking. The sting settles into a dull, dragging weight that yanks my arms down. My fucking hands are cuffed, each wrist swallowed by steel, but there’s slack enough to stretch, slap my cheeks, then test the pull.
Light bleeds through the wall slats, too bright and accusing, enough to see that my ankles are bound the same way, with shackles wrapped in leather, as if it were an urgent afterthought to ease the chaff against my skin.
They’re attached to a long chain trailing loose behind, so I can stand, kneel, even pace a few restless steps.
The chain’s bolted to a barn wall, tethering me like a dog on a leash.
Room to move but no room to run—not that I’m in any shape to do so.
It’s not the first time I’ve been restrained. My brother once locked me in a guest room when I hit rock bottom and ignored my sorry ass until the drugs worked through my system.
Looks like I’ve landed there again.
I’m drenched in sweat. My limbs jerk on their own, like my body’s trying to work something out. My stomach churns, and I swallow hard against the burn in my throat.
The physical withdrawal symptoms are familiar.
Where I’m at and how I got to this point are not.
I sit up, brush straw off my bare chest, and assess my situation. I’m in boxer shorts, on a straw bed inside a barn, with a round wooden stool to my left, straw piles to my right, and a woman in red high heels watching me at my feet.
Relief flickers, chased quickly by self-loathing.
Jesus, did she witness the entire thing?
“How do you feel?” she asks.
“Like shit.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Nope.” I try to smile, but it falters. “But you look like my kind of woman—trouble.”
She doesn’t react. Just stands there, arms crossed, taking me in like I’m something rotting on the sidewalk.
This is what dying must feel like. Me, at my lowest. Her, in her flower-print dress and red heels, forehead pinched and eyes branding me from the inside out. I was her salvation once. Now I’m her goddamn curse.
“Fina.” I taste her name, slow, like I’m savoring a forbidden thing.
“Renzo,” she snaps, voice sharp enough to cut.
A flush colors her cheeks, and she radiates a vitality that wasn’t there before, like Italy breathed life into her and made her even more irresistible.
She takes a step and freezes. My gaze follows hers to the necklace I carried from Rome, now lying in the dirt.
Fucking hell. I don’t even know why I kept her pearls, why I hauled them around like some twisted good-luck charm.
Maybe because they were a piece of us, a token of what could never be, a reminder of what I gave up.
My focus snaps back to her just in time to see it hit. Recognition slams into her, surprise hardening into raw, scorching fury.
“Are those my pearls?”
Shit. I must have shoved them in my pocket. A miracle they lasted this long. If I had been in my right mind, I would have done anything to keep them hidden. Deeply disturbed, I clear my throat. “No clue how they got there.”
“Just like you’ve got no idea how you got here?”
Her hands are on her hips. Jaw tight. Chin tilted. She looks ready to spit nails.
God, she’s stunning.
Our eyes lock, and something stirs. It always does with her. No one besides her has ever had this effect on me. Never has, never will.
“You stole them.”
“So what? Or will you shoot me again for it?”
She glares at me. “It’s crossed my mind once or twice.”
“Hand me your gun. I’ll save you the trouble.” I lie back in the hay, suddenly exhausted.
“Don’t you pass out on me,” she growls. The hay snaps, and then she’s in the dirt next to me. “We need to talk.”
Persistent as ever.
I breathe her in. She’s agitated, brushing loose strands of hair from her face, but underneath the fire there’s a calm confidence, like she’s finally settled into her own skin.
And that body—Christ—she’s more luscious than I remember, curves softer, breasts fuller, every bit of her begging to be touched.
Yeah, Italy’s been good to her.
I’ve made a lot of shitty decisions in life. Killing Accardo wasn’t one of them.
“Are you listening?” she snaps.
I raise my cuffs. “About the kidnapping?”
“Would you rather I left you?”
The answer’s no. Although the circumstances could be better, I crave her company. Still, I say, “I didn’t ask to be saved.”
“Doesn’t mean you didn’t need it.”
Damn it. Everything I’ve built—my shot at redemption, my name—might be trashed.
“You had to come to Rome.”
“And you had to revert to your former antics by stalking me.”
She flinches, but recovers fast. “My antics? Look at yourself and the state you’re in.”
She’s right, take a fucking gander. You don’t give a recovering addict a shot of painkillers and then leave him on his own. That part is that motherfucker’s fault.
“You jumped in front of my target,” she says. “Do you have a death wish?”
“If you killed Massimo’s man, there’d be fallout. As it is, things as they are aren’t adding up. I did what needed doing.”
“So unlike you. You avoid messes.”
That hits harder than I expect.
I point to her hand. “No ring, I see.”
She stiffens. “Got lucky.”
“That so?”
“I hate you.”
Her voice cuts sharper than any blade. But it’s the way her eyes linger, too long to mean nothing, too fast to mean everything, that gives her away.
“That why you dragged me here?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Neither did I.”
She’s keen on fighting, like she’s been saving it up for years. “You were too busy getting high and screwing anything that moved.”
Shame floods in, fast and sharp. I allowed myself to be taken advantage of. Exploited. I chased what was painfully familiar instead of prying myself away from temptation.
Disgust is written across her expression.
It’s simply a reflection of my own.
“Who knows about my fall from grace?” I demand.
“If you fell from grace, it wasn’t off a ladder but a step stool.”
“Shit, Fina. Answer me.”
“Dante asked me to find you, with strict orders to use discretion. No one else knows, not even my great-aunt—and you’ve been here a week.”
Panic sets in. “A fucking week?”
“You were out of it.”
Of all people, Dante sends her after me. I’ll smash his face in for it after I thank him for covering for me. I’m a lucky bastard if, after all my bullshit, my reputation’s still intact.
“Just to be clear, I did this under duress,” she says, words clipped.
“And here I thought your obsession with me hadn’t faded.” I try to flash a smile, but it dies halfway there.
Her gaze sweeps over me, slow, deliberate, full of loathing. Then she exhales, sharp and resigned, and grabs a hay bale like she’s trying not to throw it at my face.
“My LA girl feeding farm animals now?” I ask, voice hoarse.
“Something like that.”
“Where are you going?” The question escapes before I can stop it. Restraints are more of a turn on when they’re part of a kink scene, not when I’m chained up like a rabid dog.
“To work.”
I rattle the cuffs. “You’re leaving me like this?” I’m coated in sweat, shame, and seven days of regret.
“There’s water and healthy snacks in the cooler over there. And, if you need to go, there’s a bucket to pee in.”
I find both within reach. “Don’t go.”
She pauses, biting her lip. That small gesture betrays her. But then, every muscle rigid, she snaps her armor back into place, like it’s her against the world.
And knowing what she’s been through, it has been.
“Zia Teresa’s waiting at the restaurant,” she says. Then, quieter but sharper, she cuts me into tiny bits.
“Unlike you, I keep my promises.”
FINA
Blinded by Dante’s offer, I clearly didn’t think things through when I agreed to our deal.
Did I really believe I could drop Renzo in a bale of hay, then walk away, leaving him to rot in his addiction, without it ripping me apart?
Did I think I’d be unaffected? That I could chain the man I’d crushed on so fiercely that pieces of my heart broke, watch him unravel—twitching, sweating, moaning in pain like a ghost of his former self trapped in my barn—and feel nothing?
This past week has been hell. Watching him come undone, his body jerking through withdrawal, soaked in sweat, teeth chattering, eyes wild one second and completely vacant the next.
Sometimes he’d thrash. Other times he wouldn’t move for hours, just whisper, “Don’t go.
Don’t go.” Like I’m the one who left him. Like this is somehow my fault.
I’ve called Dante a dozen times, voice shaking. His answer never changes. Handle it. Help him through it. Don’t make noise. Change the gauze on his wound. Keep the secret. Act normal.
But nothing about this is normal. Nothing about watching a man destroy himself feels survivable.
I hate Renzo for this. For letting himself fall so far. For dragging me down with him. For making me watch. For making me care when I’ve tried so hard not to.
How did this happen? How did someone as smart, as strong, as sharp as Renzo end up like this? Was he already spiraling when he abandoned me to my fate? Had the poison sunk its teeth into him even back then? Was there a trigger point, something that caused him to use?
I don’t have the answers. And I hate feeling so helpless.
I shouldn’t feel like I’m the one bleeding every time his body convulses.
All I can do is watch the drugs tear him apart, and pray he makes it through.
Yesterday, though, was progress. He was awake, coherent.
The angry part of me wants to unchain him, pat his back with “good luck,” and just shove him out the barn door. And truth is, as ridiculous as it is, the more self-vindictive, self-destructive part aches to keep him chained to me forever.
“Are you cleaning out the barn?” Aunt Teresa asks as I scrub the varnish off the dinner plate I’ve been washing for several minutes.
It’s our day off. She spent hers in the garden, and I spent mine spiraling, worried she’d cross the yard, enter the barn, and discover I’ve a man chained to the slats.
“Why do you ask?” I manage, keeping my tone neutral.
“I haven’t set foot in there since I stopped boarding horses. But there’s a trail of straw in the driveway.”
I force a laugh. “It keeps my feathered friend from getting too brave. He’s scared of the stuff.”
With good reason—having a large square projectile nearly flatten your feathered ass will do that.
She steps beside me, drying dishes with a clean cloth. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.”
My stomach drops. “Okay …”
“I still keep a small apartment above the restaurant.”
She’s mentioned it before, usually as a complaint about how cluttered the space has become. A storage area that shouldn’t be.
“This time of year, when business picks up, I usually stay in the city. No commute means more time to experiment with new recipes. I’d like to add a few summer specials to the menu. But if you’d rather not be alone out here …”
“I can manage,” I interrupt, grateful for the sudden luck. Keeping my secret just got easier. “Besides, who’ll take care of your garden if not me?”
She studies me, then smiles.
“It’s settled,” I quickly say. “I’ll stay and keep the farm running while you’re away.”
She pulls me into a hug. “Thank you, Fina. You’ve been such a help.”
“Thank you, Aunt Teresa.” My voice wavers. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
This woman, practically a stranger, took me in when I had nothing left. When I was at my weakest, and she helped me.
This same reason’s why I won’t turn my back on the man in the barn.
Even if the truth is more complicated than I’m ready to face.