Chapter 33 #2
“Who? Catarina? Her family?” I asked.
He shifted his weight, going onto his knees while unbuckling his belt, then popping the button on his pants. The slide of his zipper roared in my ears. I jerked my arms to hit him but grunted as the exertion stalled above my head where my wrists were tied to the leg of the couch.
“Fucking suicide mission,” he said, scooting back and freeing my legs. I kicked. He grabbed my calves and leaned his entire weight on my shins before sinking between them, spreading me open, and rubbing his hard length against me. A hot flush of shame stabbed through my veins.
“Don’t do this,” I hissed and tugged against the stays, a shot of terror piercing my heart. I knew how this would end, and it terrified me—not for him—but for Luca and his future. “My husband will come for me, and he’ll kill you.”
“Then you will be my trophy in death, troia. They’ll all know.
She will know. Are you wet for me?” He leaned back, holding my knees open so he could stare at my center, along with the scrapes and marks on my inner thighs.
A low moan rumbled through his chest. “This is how he fucks you, and you like it. You like it rough. I can see that you do. Filthy girls like you enjoy it when men take, and I am going to take your cunt and then your ass, and you will beg for it. You will beg me for mercy.”
I screamed. I screamed for Luca. I howled and cried and kicked and shrieked, and still he used the knife handle to push the scrap of my spandex suit aside.
To slick down to my hole, where he paused to drip his spittle.
Everything narrowed: the world, his eyes, sensation, and the vomit inching up my esophagus.
An unearthly roar filled the room. My attacker flew backward, bouncing against the wall with a hard thud. He sank to the floor, dazed and blindly staring with the knife still held in his hand.
I glanced above me into the night. Mio salvatore. A slash of black hair cut through his forehead, touching the end of his scar and the rolling tension at the top of his jaw.
“Luca,” I whispered.
His expression—God, his face. He was a storm of emotion, rage and reverence—so much aching agony and love. In that moment, I understood that I was his religion, and he was a devout parishioner. It was extraordinary—and over in a heartbeat.
The devil converted my adoring husband.
A calm, punishing serenity evened his features as his vision dropped to my spread legs. I scrambled for decency, hiding from the memory of another man’s hands and praying he would forget them too.
“I’m fine. I’m—Luca!” I screamed as my attacker sprung up with the knife, lunging at him.
Luca slammed a fist into his stomach, then another into his already busted nose. The man stumbled. Luca caught his nape and pulled his gun from its holster.
Ice cooled my veins. This wasn’t the government’s war or Vigo’s will. This was a choice driven by his own anger. Decisions made in the darkest times always led to confession—but Luca didn’t believe in God’s redemption.
“Luca!” I screamed, struggling against my bound wrists. Damian dropped to his knees next to me and untied my hands. Then he helped me to my feet, even as I called for my husband again.
“You can’t stop him,” he said without a hint of disdain. “He’ll do this for your honor.”
“But what about his?” I cried. “He can’t live with himself. This.” Bile clogged my throat. “This will kill him. Help me help him, please.”
But Luca had already dragged my assailant from the house by his hair, through the sliding door, and onto the lawn where the stupid lanterns lit the way.
They were surrounded by his men. I scrambled after them, Damian by my side. The grass was damp with dew and slick under my bare feet and the assailant’s cheek when Luca flung him to the ground.
“Stand up,” Luca hissed. Then he pointed his gun at each man in a demand for them to hold their circular perimeter.
Dante pushed between Rocco and Stefano. His eyes found mine, and his lip curled into a feral sneer; then he spat at the fallen man, jeering—as did the rest of them—for him to stand. They all mocked him when he did it with a stumble.
“Luca!”
My voice drowned in their heckling. I called for my husband. I shouted, and still I wasn’t heard. My knees crumbled, and I fell to the ground, bowed my head, and prayed. The only thing I knew how to do to save him.
“Mio Dio, please.” The litany grew wild, loud, and desperate, and after a minute, I opened my eyes, and he was there.
Under the moonlight and lanterns, Luca was angular lines and dark shadows. Glorious in his anger and powerful in his stance, his eyes burned with a need for revenge. But the tense angles of his jaw eased as he reached for me, his thumb and finger finding my chin to tilt it higher.
“Il mio uccellino, di cosa hai bisogno?” My little bird, what do you need?
“Don’t kill him,” I begged.
He stared for the longest time before his grip tightened. “Does his life mean that much to you?”
“You do. I need your soul with mine for eternity. I can’t live without you. I won’t.”
Something happened—something raw and aching. His breath stumbled even when he was so strong, but then his nostrils flared, and his lips pulled into a ferocious sneer. “Did he touch you, Vivienne?”
Revulsion poured through my core like lava, scalding my vow of fidelity.
I shuddered, and he asked again. Even after seeing the evidence, he wanted words of confirmation.
He wanted everyone to know what spurred his vendetta.
I couldn’t lie, not to mio salvatore who looked inside my heart and always knew my truth. “Yes.”
“And did you want it? Did he make you weak and begging as you are for me?”
“No, and you know this.” I reached for his wrist, scraping my nails along his corded forearm and to his rolled white sleeve, where I fisted the fabric to hold him closer. “There was no one before, and there will be no one after. There is only you.”
I took his nod as agreement, breathing easier when he laid down his gun, removed a knife from his belt and a smaller pistol from beneath his pant leg. Behind him, his men patted down my assailant, removing whatever weapons he had hidden beneath his clothes.
Luca faced me, leaning down to lightly press his lips against my bruised forehead. “My queen,” he murmured into my skin. “Chi ti tocca, tocca me e pagherà il peccato con la sua vita. Non importa il costo per la mia anima.”
Anyone who touches you, touches me, and he will pay for the sin with his life. No matter the cost to my soul.
The vibration of the words remained on my flesh as he straightened, as his haunted eyes stared into mine, and then as he turned, walking alone with shoulders squared and head held high.
He left me kneeling and begging for his safety.
Loving me would break him, split him like an axe sliced through wood, engulf him like a flame touching dry kindling. Yet, I also knew what drove him away. Luca Mancini was a good man and a born leader—a protector of the innocent. He needed to break himself to be reborn.
He broke himself to become my king.