CHAPTER TWELVE
SIENNA
I waited for him to say something else, something to break the suffocating tension that had settled between us. But he just stood there, his dark eyes boring into mine with an intensity that made my skin prickle.
He was mad at me, and I found that ironic because he was standing before me, covered in blood.
My Beast had been hunting today, just as I had.
The difference was that he thought I shouldn’t be allowed to, while he was free to do as he pleased.
Behind him, Enzo’s voice rose, cutting through the silence.
“Look at you. What the hell were you thinking, Eve?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Eve replied, touching her hair, smoothing it away from her face.
“Oh, really?” Enzo yelled, his hands gesturing wildly at her. “You’re bleeding. You have a bruise on your head. Your clothing is covered in glass shards. This is not how you left the house looking.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t leave the house looking like that,” she countered, eyeing his blood-spattered clothing.
Their argument blurred into background noise as I stared up at Stefano, trying to read his expression.
The muscle in his jaw twitched, the vein in his neck pulsing.
I’d seen him angry before, furious even, but this was different.
This was fear, rage, and something else I couldn’t quite identify. Disappointment, maybe.
“You lied to me,” he repeated, his voice low, dark, dangerous.
But also tinged with a hint of sadness, which doubled my guilt.
“I didn’t lie.” I crossed my arms over my chest, ignoring the pain that shot through my shoulder at the movement. “It’s just that something happened that forced me to be a little careless.”
His jaw clenched tighter, his eyes narrowing.
“A little carelessness doesn’t lead to you ditching the guards who are there to protect you, ending up in a car crash with bruises, and me finding you in the back room of an old furniture store with two men.”
“Hey, you make it sound like I was doing something dirty. I was interrogating them.”
His brows lifted slightly, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You went looking for trouble.”
“I went looking for answers,” I corrected.
Did he really not understand the difference? He stepped closer, towering over me.
“And did you find any answers?” he asked.
“We already told you about the car at the cooking class that had been recording us. And the Abeli guy who hired these dudes to stalk us,” I reiterated, gesturing toward the body of the driver, his blood still pooling beneath the chair.
“I’d already found that out,” Stefano told me, his tone flat.
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. So our information wasn’t a surprise to them. Damn.
“Oh, really? Well, I guess I had to find out on my own since you’ve been keeping me in the dark about the info you’ve gathered.
” My voice rose with each word, anger bubbling up inside me.
“You don’t tell me anything about what’s going on, Stefano,” I continued.
“All you do is insist that I stay safe. But I want intel. I want to know what’s happening behind the scenes. ”
“Why do you need to know that?” he asked, looking at me like I’d lost my mind.
“So I can do something about it. Like I did today.” I gestured around the room, at the evidence of what I was capable of.
“So I can know who is after me and what they want. This is my life, and if I need to interrogate a motherfucker to find out what threat is heading my way, then I have the right to do so.”
His hand wrapped around my arm, his grip tight but not painful. “You don’t get to make decisions like that alone.”
I pulled my arm free, taking a step back. “I’m a grown ass woman. I don’t need permission to do anything, Stefano.”
“If you’re a grown ass woman, then act like it and stop running off like a child, then throwing a tantrum when you get caught,” he yelled.
This motherfucker!
His words felt like a slap across my face. I took another step away from him, needing some distance between us so I could cool down before I said something I’d regret. Who the hell did he think he was talking to?
I wasn’t some helpless damsel who needed his constant protection. I’d survived on my own long before he came into my life. Yet, he was acting like I was a kid who needed adult supervision. Silence stretched between us, thick and oppressive. Behind him, Eve’s angry voice filled the air.
“I said I was fine!” she snapped at Enzo, who was examining the cut on her forehead.
“You’re bleeding,” Enzo growled, his fingers gentle despite the rage in his voice.
“It’s just a scratch!” Eve told him, trying to push his hand away.
“I don’t give a fuck if it’s a paper cut,” Enzo growled back. “It shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here.”
I tuned them out again, focusing on the man in front of me. Stefano stepped closer, closing the distance I’d just created. His eyes never left mine, searching, probing, like he was trying to see inside my head, understand my thoughts.
“I’m trying to keep you alive,” he told me, his voice low.
I remained silent because I didn’t want to say something I’d later regret.
The truth was, I understood his fear. I’d be just as terrified if our positions were reversed.
But understanding didn’t make it any easier to swallow the way he was treating me, like I was incapable, like I needed to be managed.
Like I was his charge instead of his woman.
“Though I’m fighting to keep you safe, it seems you don’t want me to do that,” he told me.
There it was again, that hint of sadness beneath the anger that made my chest tighten painfully. His gaze continued to search mine. He was trying to figure me out, trying to understand what was going on in my head.
I looked away. Even I didn’t understand what was going on in my head most of the time. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. Not really. I was just doing what came naturally to me, protecting myself, gathering intel, eliminating threats.
That was who I was, who I’d always been. That was who my savage had fallen in love with. But now that he had me, he was trying to turn me into some princess who never left the castle. Fuck that!
Even so, I felt guilty. And that pissed me off because why couldn’t I find intel on my own? I didn’t have to seek permission to protect myself. I’d been doing it my whole life, long before Stefano DeLuca entered the picture with his protective instincts and his savage ways.
But the guilt remained, a persistent ache in my chest that I couldn’t quite shake. Because as much as I hated to admit it, I knew I’d scared him today. And seeing that fear in his eyes, that was something I never wanted to be responsible for again.
His hand came up again, this time settling on my waist instead of grabbing me. The touch was gentle.
“You scared me,” he whispered, his voice cracking on the last word.
The admission hit me harder than any accusation could have. Tears sprang to my eyes, hot and unwelcome. I needed to apologize. I hated that I’d frightened him. That was not my intention.
Shit. My poor Beast. I was just about to face him again, just about to tell him I was sorry, but his next words made me pause.
“I will never allow something like this to happen again,” he told me, his voice a low growl that sent a shiver down my spine.
Allow?
My gaze snapped to his. There was a look in his eyes that I’d never seen before. I’d seen him in savage mode. I’d seen why they called him a Beast. But this wasn’t that. This was something worse, something darker.
Not rage or violence, but a cold determination that frightened me more than his anger ever could. Removing his hand from my waist, he turned and headed toward the exit, issuing orders as he walked.
“It’s time to go. Get a clean-up crew in here to get rid of the bodies and search for anything that might be brought to the Abelis as evidence of what Daniel has done.”
The men he’d brought with him got busy doing as he ordered, moving around us like obedient soldiers. I stood there, feeling suddenly out of place in the middle of this orchestrated chaos.
Terzo approached me, an expression of pity on his face. I didn’t want his pity. I wanted... hell, I didn’t know what I wanted anymore.
“I’ve never seen Stefano that mad,” Terzo whispered, his eyes darting to his cousin’s retreating form.
Neither had I. In all our time together, through all our challenges, I’d never seen him look at me the way he had just now. His expression told me he was resigned to whatever decision he’d just made.
A decision I was pretty sure involved me. Yet, he hadn’t told me a thing about it. That was starting to become too normal in our relationship.
“If you wanted to ditch security detail and go on a side quest after cooking class, you should’ve told me,” Terzo whispered, his tone light. “I would’ve gone with you. And then I could’ve taken the fall for it, instead of you two.”
“It was a last-minute decision,” I explained.
“It was dangerous and reckless,” Terzo told me, his playful demeanor dropping. “This could’ve gone really bad.”
I looked up at him, frustration bubbling up inside me again.
“Do you all really think Eve and I can’t handle ourselves?”
“It’s not that. It’s just...”
He ran his hand through his hair, a gesture that reminded me so much of Stefano.
“You should’ve seen their faces when they got the news,” he told me. “You can’t do that to them. They’re strong, and they can handle a lot of shit. But not that.”
“Terzo,” I began, only to have him cut me off.