Eleanor
The mansion looms around me, still as a grave.
Every sound has vanished, and my ears ache with the quiet.
When did I become so desperate for the chaos?
The absence of the Rosettis is like a weight in every room.
I can't take the empty anymore, so I walk outside until I'm in the wooded part of the garden. There’s a freedom out here that reminds me of home, of Juliet. We pick her up tomorrow, but then what?
It feels unreal that we'll finally be together. I’m excited but terrified, because what if she leaves me again?
I imagine a million ways to keep her with me, then scold myself.
I will never be like him. I will never hold her against her will.
We’ll pick her up in the morning, and if she doesn’t want to stay, I’ll set her up in a place far from the reach of our father.
Maybe once she knows what the Rosetti family is really like, she’ll change her mind.
Or maybe not. My breath catches with panic at the thought of letting her go.
The crunch of tires on gravel makes my heart skip. It gets louder, and I hear Leonardo calling my name. He sounds panicked. I run, desperate to reach him, imagining the worst. That bleeding man, Marco, flashes into my mind, and I push myself faster, afraid of finding Leonardo wounded or worse.
I see him outside the house, looking wild and angry, but he’s unharmed. I crash into his arms.
From inside Leonardo's fierce embrace, it takes me a moment to see anything other than a blur of dark red hair and wild eyes. My relief is a rush so powerful that my knees almost give out. He’s safe.
He’s here. I pull back to look at him, heaving breaths that barely fill my lungs, and I see how untamed he looks.
His hair is a fiery mess. His shirt is wrinkled and untucked.
In his face, I see a storm of anger and panic.
Streaks of sweat run from his temples. His hazel eyes snap with fury, and his mouth is a hard line.
He looks like he's been through a war just to get to me.
"Juliet!" he says again, his voice raw with urgency, as if saying my name anchors him. I expect his embrace to soften now that he knows I'm okay, but instead, his grip tightens like a vice and almost crushes me. A quick, harsh breath shudders through him, and I realize how scared he must have been.
“What is it? What’s happening?” My mind leaps to a thousand terrifying possibilities as I try to read the expression on his face
“The Albanians are attacking tonight.”
My mind races. Is it just here, or is everyone at risk? Is anyone else in danger? I open my mouth to ask, but Leonardo is already answering the question that screams the loudest in my head.
"Here," he confirms, his tone dark and damning. His gaze sweeps over the mansion as if assessing its defenses. Grabbing my hand, he tugs me inside, leading us swiftly towards the security room. "Come on, I'll show you how I’m going to keep you safe."
Gratitude washes over me that he isn’t excluding me from this. That he knows I’ll feel safer if I’m aware of the plan, not tucked away in a corner like a doll.
Inside the cramped security room, screens flicker with live footage from various angles around the compound. Leonardo points at the monitors, his finger tracing the boundaries of the property. "See here? And here? We've got guards stationed at each of these points."
I nod, though my heart races. He steps back, his gaze intense, and I follow him out as he begins making rounds of the property.
We move with purpose, his voice steady yet tinged with urgency as he speaks to each guard, ensuring they’re alert and ready.
The pedestrian gates creak as he secures them, the sound echoing in the tense night air.
The Rosetti siblings return home, arriving with a vengeance.
They sweep through the compound like a surge of adrenaline, and the air around them crackles with their fierce energy.
I watch, breathless, as they each enter the mansion, throwing themselves into preparation with a fearlessness that makes them seem invincible.
Dom arrives with his usual commanding presence, a hard look in his green eyes as he barks orders with deadly efficiency. He seems to make decisions as fast as the rest of them can blink, already calculating the moves of their enemy.
Matteo and Emilio follow close behind, a whirlwind of action, the twins so in tune it’s hard to believe there’s any danger they can’t handle. For a moment, I forget to be scared. I feel the weight of what’s coming and the strength of the family as they move together as a single powerful force.
I stick to Leonardo like glue. He insists on being with me every second.
“Promise me you won’t leave my sight,” he says, stepping closer, his gaze piercing. “Swear it.” He narrows his eyes, searching my face for any hint of deceit.
I open my mouth to make a flippant joke, something about checking my calendar to see if I clear time for him, but the words choke in my throat. I’ve never felt safer than lying in bed in his arms, and sticking to his side right now is a close second, and the only place I want to be.
"I swear," I say.
He studies me for a long moment, the silence stretching between us like a taut string ready to snap. Finally, he nods.
It takes him a while to pull back, and even then, he won’t let me out of his sight.
He’s relentless. A stubborn shadow, attached to me everywhere I go, never more than half a step away.
I can’t even breathe without him hovering nearby, asking if I’m okay, his voice rough with worry.
He watches me walk, he watches me sit, he watches me check his phone for the millionth time for a message from Juliet.
Even when I need to go to the bathroom, he insists on coming with me, and I know better than to argue.
I turn the faucet on full blast to drown out the sound, but he doesn’t care about propriety.
He turns his back and belts out a song in Italian that I don’t recognize, his voice echoing off the tiles.
I press my hand to my mouth to keep from laughing, but the sound creeps out anyways. He’s serenading me while I pee, and the thought is so ridiculous, so Leonardo, that it has my mouth tugging into a wide smile. How can a man who is usually so angry and loud look even more intense when he sings?
He turns around while I’m washing my hands.
His eyes are fierce, and he looks like he’s ready to storm the room, just in case enemies are lurking behind the shower curtain.
I love him even more for that, for the way he cares with his whole heart.
His mouth is still open in song, but it turns into a grin when he sees me.
Hours seem to drag past, stretching as long and thin as the shadows that cover the mansion, but the feeling of something coming doesn’t get any duller.
If anything, it grows sharper as night falls.
Leonardo’s voice rings through the house, barking orders with an intensity that almost drowns out my fear.
Almost. He’s so loud that I wonder if he’s trying to scare our attackers away by sheer force of volume.
More men show up, a constant flood until there are guards posted everywhere.
I hear Matteo’s fast-talking voice crackling through a radio, and Domenico and the others appear as dark figures flitting across the security screens.
Even with all that reassurance, I am exhausted, tense, and anxious.
I can’t eat, can barely choke down a sip of water.
Leonardo sits with me in the kitchen, his presence steady, a comfort even though I see agitation building in him.
He gets a call from Emilio, and I hear the clipped words he exchanges with his brother before he gives more orders into the radio.
We move to another room, then another, never still for long.
Every time Leonardo opens his mouth, more men jump into action, and I start to wonder how much longer we’ll have to wait.
The uncertainty gnaws at me, and I reach for his hand.
Finally, we seem to settle into a room in the house.
We stay in a back bedroom where he assures me it's safest, but even then, he checks the lock and inspects all the windows twice.
He finds me huddled on the bed, my knees pulled to my chest, and his look is so fierce and tender that my heart skips.
I forget my fear for a moment and remember only him, only us, and I pull him to sit next to me.
“What now?” I ask, my voice small in the tense silence, but the question echoes loud enough to fill the room. He hesitates, a shadow flitting across his face, before handing me a gun. It’s cold and solid in my hands, an alien thing that I lay across my lap.
“Now, we wait.”