Eleanor
The scream hits the air before the men even reach the room.
Then the door to the kitchen slams open, and two guards rush in with a man half-dragged between them.
They’re carrying him like cargo, and he’s covered in blood.
His face is a mess, and half his shirt is stained red.
He looks like a dead weight, slumped over and close to passing out, and I have no idea who he is or why they've brought him here.
The commotion is deafening. Pots clang to the floor.
Plates shatter. The kitchen staff are yelling, tripping over each other as they run for the exit.
He’s heavy, barely conscious, and the guards dump him on the counter like they have more important things to worry about.
Like leaving. Like getting out of my sight before Leonardo catches them with me.
Red soaks through the man's pants, spreading fast.
Then it's just me and Carmela and the bleeding man in the kitchen of the Rosetti mansion.
"Get Leonardo!" I call, but it’s no use. None of the brothers are home.
"Eleanor," Carmela breathes, looking more concerned about me than the poor man bleeding all over the counter.
As if I haven't seen men bleeding before.
I was fifteen. I’d just come home from ballet, ready to shower off.
The pointe shoes draped over my shoulder were still pink and perfect, untouched by grit, just like me.
Then the shouting echoed through the house—not piercing, but low and urgent.
I remember freezing, dropping everything in a heap.
Father’s voice struck me like a command.
Eleanor. Get over here. I found him in the hallway, calm and controlled and holding up a bleeding man like it was just another day at the office.
I’d never seen this side of his business before.
He’d always kept me sheltered away, kept Juliet shielded.
Protected in our pretty cage. Not like this time. This time, he called me in closer.
I remember the red spreading over father's hands as he pressed them against the stranger’s side.
The blood was so dark it was almost black, terrifying and sticky.
Another man was helping him carry the stranger, and I was sure this one knew how to handle it.
He was an outsider. A professional. Not me.
I knew dance and piano and the right words for a thank you note.
I didn’t know this. Get Eleanor over here, he said again, even colder this time.
I hated it. Hated him for shoving me into it without warning.
Hated myself for feeling weak, useless, panicked.
But most of all, I hated seeing how easy it was for him to touch the blood, to take charge, to think of it as nothing.
It made me feel small. You need to learn, Eleanor.
What if I’m not here next time? He didn’t even look at me as he said it. But I learned.
“Are you okay, hon?”
I give Carmela the look of contempt her concern deserves. Like I don’t know what to do. Carmela should know better. I still hate it, but I’m not fifteen anymore, and I’m not small. I’ve learned enough to take charge, and I’m not about to get flustered when there’s work to be done.
The man on the counter is fighting to stay conscious. I don't hesitate, ripping the denim so I can see where he's hit.
“Don’t touch him!” Carmela’s voice spikes in panic as I lay a hand on the man’s leg.
I jerk back. “Why not?” I demand, frustration edging my voice. Carmela’s reaction has me second-guessing, uneasy, wondering if she knows something I don’t. She looks at me with wide eyes, like I’m the one who should know better.
“Because,” she says, like the word should be enough to protect me. “Because of Leonardo’s rule.”
I stare at her, incredulous. “His rule?”
“No touching other men, Eleanor.” She’s as emphatic as I’ve ever seen her, and her voice quavers as she glances at the man, then back at me. She’s not worried about him; she’s worried about what Leonardo will do.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Carmela.” My voice is a tight coil of irritation. “He might die if I don’t treat him.”
Carmela doesn’t get it. She doesn’t know what it’s like to grow up with your father acting like you’re only good for smiling and drinking tea. I know. I know because I’ve been through it. But I’m tired of being handled like glass.
“He will die if Leo catches you with your hands on him,” Carmela shoots back, as if that ends the discussion.
I snap at her to shut up. She may be right, but this man's life is in my hands right now. I can't let him bleed out on this sterile countertop. "Go get the first aid kit," I tell her. "And the whiskey."
Carmela hovers, a scared little bird. She takes a breath, the panic obvious in her voice. "Are you sure about this, Eleanor?"
No, I'm not. "Yes. Go!"
She's quick to run but quicker to come back. Her curls bounce, and her green eyes are wide. She's anxious but still the only help I've got. I rip through the kit, cursing Leonardo and the other brothers for being gone.
"Did the Albanians do this?" I ask the man as he wavers into consciousness.
He nods, then slumps against the counter, passed out.
“Damn,” I hiss.
I glance out the window and see guards flanking the property, one talking into his comms device.
They look like they have the property locked down, so at least we’re safe for now.
But it would be nice to know how this man got his injury…
and where. Are the Albanians just outside, hiding in the trees?
They are already racing the Rosettis into the gem trade, and I get the impression they’re happy to play dirty. And bloody.
I don't have time to worry about it, only time to worry about stopping the bleeding. It pulses from his thigh. I grab my best friends—the knife and the whiskey—and don't stop to think before I work.
"He's going to kill him," Carmela repeats. I don’t doubt it. My possessive husband will explode. He’ll freak. He might put his fist through this kid's skull before the bleeding stops.
"We've got to keep him alive first," I say.
I pour whiskey on the leg, just enough that he screams. It's better than unconsciousness. Better than dead. He's even younger than I thought. Barely older than Carmela. Once the wound is cleaned, I press clean dish towels over it, staunching the bleeding.
“Do you know this guy?” I ask Carmela.
She nods. “Marco.”
I place a hand on the man’s cheek. “Stay with me, Marco. You’re doing well.” I turn to Carmela. “Keep him calm. And awake.” Then I turn my attention back to the leg.
Carmela stares at the towels, and her eyes widen. "Eleanor," she says. It's all she has to say. I see what she sees. Blood. So much that I may drown in it.
I'm in over my head.
We are screaming at the same time, screaming for someone, anyone, when Leonardo charges in. "Eleanor, what the fuck?" His eyes are on me, and they burn with rage. With fire. With accusation.
He crosses the kitchen in moments, looks at me, looks at the bleeding man, back at me.
“Why are you touching Marco?” His voice is deadly calm.
"I'm saving his life."
“You’re breaking a rule.”
“To stop him from dying!” Now I’m the angry one, my voice developing a hard edge. “For pity’s sake, Leonardo, I wasn’t sleeping with the guy. I was stopping him from bleeding to death.”
Leonardo looks at the man. “He’s dead anyway.” He pulls back a fist, but before he can swing, I grab his arm.
"Please," I whisper. “Don’t do this. Don’t take it out on him. Punish me, if you must, but please let him be.”
Leonardo looks at me, anger burning behind his gaze. “Fine. But remember.” He leans in and whispers in my ear. “You asked for it.”
Leonardo waits for me when I step out of the shower, a towel clutched in his fist. Water drips from my hair and skin, pools beneath my feet on the tiles.
I am slick and raw from steam and the rush of adrenaline, and my husband’s punishment is sweeter than I imagined.
His body is tense, the muscles drawn tight.
His eyes, when they find me, burn with desire and accusation.
I should feel worried, knowing what he’s like. I should feel sorry, knowing how I’ve broken his rule. But I don’t feel sorry, and I don’t feel worried. I feel an ache low in my belly and a smile tugging at my lips.
“Really, Leo? A punishment for saving Marco’s life?” I raise my eyebrows, loving how close he is to breaking. Loving how he wants to make me pay.
“Yeah, a punishment,” he says, his tone angry, but I hear the need beneath it.
It’s rough and deep, and the words bleed into me, turn me fevered, make me ache more.
I know this is more than the usual thrill, the usual edge.
He wants to teach me. He wants to make me remember the lesson. "So you never forget the rules again.”
I step closer. “Who said I forgot them?”
He takes a step too, and the tiles are cold against my back.
The towel falls from his fist, and for a moment, I plan to tease my husband for being so quick to forget the sweetness of his threats.
A moment is all I get. The taunt dies on my lips, swallowed by Leo’s kiss as he lowers me to the tiled floor.
The sun beats through the windows, turning the space shimmery.
Slick. My husband turns it to something else.
Hot. Breathless. Urgent. He takes his time, but not in the leisurely way.
In the devastating way. In the way where every second is a cry for more.
His body covers mine, liquid heat. He pins my wrists to the tiles with one hand, keeps my legs apart, covered by his knees.
The coolness of the tiles on my back does nothing to chill the fire of his touch. I arch up to meet it, desperate. Needful. Forgetting everything except my desire. But I can barely move, pinned to the floor like a butterfly specimen, there to be observed and admired.
He takes his time with me, and his time is not kind.
It is rough. Stark. Calculated. He runs one hand down my cheek, my neck, across my collarbone.
He’s laying his claim, sticking his flag in my soul after his lesson in the kitchen.
Making me remember what I risked. Punishment in the cruelest way: slow and sweet and impossibly, unbearably thorough.
Each touch is a challenge. Each gentle caress across my skin takes me closer to the edge.
I am naked and vulnerable, and he is fully clothed.
He’s barely touching me, but he knows what he’s doing, pulling me higher, pushing me further.
I am Eleanor Price, more stubborn than any man could hope for, but I’m losing my ground, my breath, my control.
“The rules were simple,” he says, and it’s true.
He set them. I broke them. Now I’m breaking all over again, and he’s watching me do it. He’s loving every second. Where I expect anger, I find heat. Where I expect retribution, I find urgency.
A groan slips from my lips. If he wasn’t holding me down, I’d be arching up to meet him, arms around his neck, legs around his waist. But he is holding me down, and I can’t last much longer.
He leans over me, a growl in his voice. “I have one more rule for you, baby.”
He reaches down with his free hand and unzips his pants, releases his thick cock. “Don’t come until I say you can.”
“What? No.” My words are breathy and needy.
“This isn’t for your pleasure, Eleanor. It’s for mine. For you, this is punishment.”
I smile. “Not much of a punishment if I enjoy it.” I’m breathless.
He lifts a hand, runs a thumb over my lip. “Who says you’re going to enjoy it?”
I arch against him, giving him an answer without saying a word.
His cock hard and insistent against my leg, and it throbs as I shift my hips, shift his control.
“I do,” I say. I know it drives him crazy when I act like this.
When I’m more in charge than he is. But that’s the thrill.
The edge. He thinks he’s the one with all the power, but he’s not.
Leonardo’s eyes burn, his restraint thin. His free hand moves over me, down my ribs, my belly, my thighs, a slow, dangerous heat. Then he pushes his cock inside me, and I whimper in relief.
He fucks me in long, steady strokes, and I hold on. My anger is swallowed up by his cock, by the heat of his skin against mine. I can’t help it.
He keeps at it, won’t let me have my release.
The friction is perfect, brutal, a tease of skin and sweat.
The sounds are enough to drive me mad, our bodies slapping in the thick air, breaths crashing as hot as waves, the uneven rhythm of me trying to hold back.
My pulse is a hammer. My need is a wildfire.
He fucks me hard, demanding and calculated. Forceful and wild, then more forceful.
“Don’t come, baby,” he says, and the command shoots through me, making it impossible to obey.
His eyes are locked on me, and he makes me come so hard I almost can’t breathe. I come hard, wild, everything hazy and slick. The sun, the glass, the hard floor, the steamy air. I shake against him. I can’t hold it back, not when his hands are on me like this. Not when I need it this bad.
I’m thrashing and panting and not holding back, and he watches the whole thing, not blinking.
He waits for me to finish, his breathing heavy, the anger gone. “You done?”
I can’t see myself, but I must be a sight. I’m naked, and I’m soaking wet, and I’m sprawled on the floor. My hair sticks to my neck, his skin sticks to mine.
His fingers curl around my wrists, hot and relentless.
“You just broke another rule.” I think he’ll finish this quickly.
I think he’s as lost to it as I am. He isn’t.
He pins me tighter. “You forgot this isn’t supposed to feel good for you,” he whispers.
His voice fills my ears, fills my brain.
“Bad girls don’t get it easy,” he murmurs, his hands still on me, still in control of everything but my will. “Now we have to start all over again.”