Chapter 34
Luca
I WAS A bad man. I knew it well before learning I was dumped in a church.
Abandoned by a mother who had the foresight to ask for divine intervention on my behalf.
Truthfully, though, there was nothing to save.
No moral compass or virtue. No soul. If it ever existed, it was more demonic than saintly, an evil fiend buried beneath human flesh.
As a boy, I sought the perfection Anna demanded yet constantly fell short.
I always fell short, and it was usually with my fists.
A natural reaction to demeaning comments and violent acts.
I wanted to hurt them for their torment, and then I wanted to cut mine from my body.
I wanted the suffering to end, and too many times I thought about ending everything.
I never tried. Too selfish to rid the world of my anguish.
The second chapter of my life worked those thoughts out of my mind for good.
The military gave me purpose and the family I never had in a borrowed home.
It opened my eyes to the bigger picture.
For the first time, I knew that I didn’t belong in Ravenna or with Roman and Anna. I was tied to something dark and vast.
I was tied to the Cabello family and a beautiful bird who offered to save my soul—to fight my demon and rid him from my skin.
Just as she was now. I wanted to drop to my knees and press my mouth to hers, begging her for absolution.
I wanted her name on my lips every day for eternity.
I wanted her body and every depraved thing I could do to it.
I wanted everything she was willing to give, and then I’d take what remained. She was mine.
And I would end any man, any woman, any monster who threatened il mio uccellino.
The need to kill the man who hurt her bled through my veins like a disease, but one look at the torment on her pretty face, and I couldn’t deny her prayer. As a concession I gave her my weapons. What remained were my fists and the demon inside me that my bird had yet to tame. They were enough.
We were down to one.
I made my way to the piece of shit who touched my Vivienne twice now.
He was unmistakable with that mop of hair and delusional sneer.
He’d pay for his actions from that day at the Cantina and for this night.
I’d break his fingers, then feed them into his filthy fucking mouth.
A just punishment after a fair fight. He would have a chance to exact his own vengeance.
His size wasn’t so different from mine. May the best monster win.
I stripped to my pants, eliminating any unnecessary obstacles he could latch on to.
Then we faced off in the center of the circle my men had created.
He bored me with incessant rounding, skirting, and skittering to the edge when I drew near.
To boost his ego, I allowed him the first hit.
It split my cheek, and I reveled in the pain.
I smiled when blood met my lip, the coppery tang an elixir to the depravation swirling through my veins.
Then I threw my head back and howled like the wolf I was.
When I leveled my sight with his, fear bled into his pupils, and my grin grew.
He jumped back. I jumped forward, swinging a leg and making contact with a kidney.
Then I hit his already battered nose and an eye socket with knuckles that tore his flesh and my own.
Time slowed.
We wove on in a dance of death until my breath came in heavy waves.
Sweat slicked my skin, and I swayed on my feet in a haze of exhaustion.
Somewhere in the fog, I heard my name. I heard my Vivienne and knew it was time to end this game.
I approached the soldier whose head hung and whose crimson tide stained the earth, and instead of choking the last breath from his body, I touched his shoulder.
A tap sent him to his knees. My men cheered, yet I felt nothing but the aching hollow in my chest—that empty void only my wife could fill with meaning.
Damian stood behind Vivi. I nodded, and he stepped forward, an innate understanding of what had to be done. But Dante breached the circle first, the long end of a silencer pointed at the ground. The prisoner raised his head, eyes flashing wide.
“Per onorare mia sorella e il nome della famiglia.”
To honor my sister and the family name.
Dante raised his arm. Pop, pop. Blood and bone blew in a spray from the back of his skull, and for a second, his body wavered between good and evil, heaven and hell. The devil took him as he dropped where a guy was ready to dispose of his remains. It was done.
Yet it never would be. Not for me, and not for Vivienne.
The Cabello life was our future. She deserved better than the chaos, but we could only push through it a minute at a time.
I spat at the place where he had fallen, calling an end to the fight.
The men dispersed. Damian walked over and handed me my gun.
“The house is clean,” he said as I slipped the weapon under my waistband. “Sick bastard hid in the attic, so the guys missed him during their initial sweep.”
My eyes twitched.
His hand landed on my shoulder. “I’ll have words with them about their carelessness. Go get some sleep. You could both use it.”
Our attention swung to my wife’s tiny frame, kneeling on the lawn with her gaze stuck on the bloody patch of grass. My beautiful bird, stunned from the fall but alive. Relief drained my anger, and I went to rescue her from her thoughts.
“He’s dead,” she said softly with no inflection.
I pinched her chin and brought her eyes to mine.
Frost and fire. Her chest rose with slow, careful breaths, as if she had to remind herself how to live.
And how to keep her swimsuit covering the tits I coveted with an urgent ownership.
The suit she clutched closed because it was stretched by his hands and not my own.
My pulse raced.
My monster railed against my rib cage.
Resentment burned through my blood.
“I wanted to be the one to kill him, il mio amore. My fingers itched to end his life with a deliberate squeeze around his throat. I stopped for you, but don’t mistake my inaction.
If Dante hadn’t ended him, it would’ve been my pleasure to do so at a time when you couldn’t see the outcome. A quick death was his blessing.”
She blinked over silver pools of feeling that would never escape her lids.
So strong. So perfect. My Vivienne, kneeling and waiting so patiently under the veil of my shadow, the same darkness that blanketed my soul. That same darkness was bleeding out of the monster who nearly raped her, and still, she looked at me with pure, devoted reverence.
An electric shock jolted my heart. Heat pricked at the base of my spine. The impulse to conquer. To wipe away her memories and mine. To feel her body open and respond to my control while erasing another man’s touch narrowed my attention to what I needed.
This was the real me. A soft touch and softer words came at a price.
I was a savage. The fact that I savored the blood between her thighs and the agonizing orgasms I extracted on our wedding night was proof.
Yet my innocent little bird craved my dark side, and in the seconds it took to think these thoughts, she whimpered and reached for me.
I had her a moment later. My nose buried in her neck as her feet dangled from the ground.
I would always be a monster—but maybe I could be her angel too.
“He was going to… God, Luca… he… and now he’s dead.”
“Don’t think about—”
“I can’t stop.” She held me tighter while I walked toward the house. “I can’t stop thinking about what he would’ve done if you hadn’t come home at that exact moment. What would’ve happened?”
Such a dangerous question that shook through my limbs and strangled a rough sound from my throat. When we were inside, the lock clicked in place behind us, and we were left in the silence of our thoughts. The dark recesses of my imagination raged like a wildfire inside me.
My hand trembled as I smoothed Vivi’s hair in place, pressing my lips to her temple. “He can’t hurt you again, so stop thinking about an impossibility.”
“I can still feel his fingers on me. Luca, please.”
“I’m here, amore mio.”
“Take it away.”
Her legs circled my waist, and she rubbed her core against my dick. I groaned. This was too soon. She was too raw, and I was too angry. “Uccello, you were just attacked.”
“Exactly why I need you,” she hissed, licking across my jaw. “I need you to erase the memories. Take the last hour away. Replace his touch with yours,” she begged.
“Vivienne,” I warned, even while my pulse raced, and I grew hard against her cunt.
“I’ll see you in my mind. I’ll see you, mio salvatore, and I’ll know if I asked with just one word, you would stop. I’ll have a choice….”
I pried her arms from around my neck and set her down. Wide, frosty eyes blinked up at me in the early-morning light.
“This isn’t a good idea.”
“Please.” She cupped my cheeks.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I do. You’ll save me from my own mind.”
The monster inside me wanted this for himself.
The man wanted what was best for her. The two warred between brutality and compassion.
I pressed my thumb against Vivi’s bottom lip, tugging so the pink underside gleamed in the muted glow pushing against the horizon.
My fingers slid to her neck and over her rioting pulse.
“Take me,” she hissed. “Open up the dark fractures in our hearts and expose them to the sun. Make me wild and begging. Make me your very own creature of pleasure. Split us in two and heal our souls as one.”
My lips curled.
My fingers pressed harder.
“You think if I fuck you like this, I’ll save my soul?”