Chapter 15 Lucia #2
And he’s relentless in his possession, urgent, as though he can’t bear a single inch of distance between us.
As though the only way to survive what almost happened is to fuse us together so completely that nothing can pry us apart.
His chest is suddenly bare beneath my hands, chiselled heat against my palms, and I whimper at the contact, at the reality of him.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, reverent and wrecked. “Look what you do to me.”
“Giovanni,” I gasp.
“Yes,” he answers instantly. “Always yes.”
The warehouse spins and the wall presses into my spine as the flaming pillar that is my husband consumes me completely.
With his mouth, his hands, the brutal tenderness threaded through every movement, he transports me to a place I never even dreamed, a place I know in my bones I’ll crave visiting every day now for the rest of my life.
Tears film my eyes as I accept why I waited, but why this coming together was also inevitable.
Because this isn’t just sex. It’s aftermath. It’s surrender. It’s a war treaty written in breath and heat.
And when he notches his head against mine, when he commands me, “Come for me, Lucia. Come for your husband,” I finally break apart in his arms, trembling, undone.
Giovanni holds me like he has just dragged me back from death.
Maybe he has.
And with his forehead against mine and his voice wrecked, his next words also feel etched in stone.
“This changes everything.”
I laugh shakily. “Everything was already changed.”
And in the half-dark of Red Hook, with danger still prowling outside these walls, I realise with a clarity that frightens me more than any gunshot—
I am no longer running and I’m no longer untouched.
I am his wife, Lucia Dragoni.
And Giovanni Dragoni has finally claimed me.
Giovanni
Her breath is still shuddering when I finally lift my head.
The warehouse is dim and echoing, the air that was previously thick with the metallic ghost of gunfire now flavoured with the sweet scent of my wife’s sublime surrender.
Diu, all I can see is her—flushed, trembling, furious with feeling, her mouth swollen from my kiss, her eyes dark with the kind of surrender that isn’t weakness so much as inevitability.
I have taken cities with less impact than this moment.
I rest my forehead against hers, breathing hard, my hands still braced at her waist because letting go would be a mistake I can’t survive.
Our words echo around the dark cavern.
This changes everything.
As if I wasn’t already irreversibly altered.
Her broken little laugh in response, the sound tunnelling straight into my exposed places, rings again, and I wonder if she knows how true they are.
Everything was already changed.
Christo.
It was changed the first moment I set eyes on her, the first time she looked at me like she wasn’t impressed.
Changed when she ran. Changed when I followed.
And changed when I put my body in front of bullets without thinking, because my instincts have never been clearer than they are with her.
My wife.
My ruin.
My anchor.
I drag in a breath, forcing the world back into focus beyond the heat between us, beyond the temptation to stay here until the city forgets our names.
Outside, danger still prowls.
Bellandi’s men won’t have been the only ones listening.
“La Fratellanza Nera will hear about this,” I murmur, more to myself than to her.
Lucia’s fingers curl weakly in my shirt. “About… this?”
“About you being with me tonight,” I correct, voice rough. “If they didn’t know before, they know now what I would do for you.”
Her lashes flutter. She is still catching up to the fact that she is alive, that I’m alive, that we have crossed a line neither of us can pretend doesn’t exist.
I cup her face, gentler now, my thumb brushing her cheekbone.
“Look at me,” I say quietly.
She does.
And the tenderness in her gaze nearly undoes me more than her defiance ever has.
“You’re safe,” I tell her. “I have you.”
“For now,” she whispers, because she is not a fool.
“For always,” I correct, letting the promise sharpen. “Even when you hate me for it.”
Her lips part, an argument forming out of habit. Then she stops. Because she knows. Because she felt it in the street, in the way I stepped into gunfire like my body was nothing compared to the idea of losing her.
I kiss her once more, slower, reverent, the kind of kiss that belongs in a bed, not against a warehouse wall with blood drying on my skin.
When I pull back, her eyes are glossy.
“We have to go,” I say.
She exhales shakily. “Your men—”
“They’re alive,” I cut in. “And if they’re smart, they’re pretending they heard nothing.”
A faint, exhausted smile tugs at her mouth.
Impossible woman.
I adjust her clothing with hands that still want too much, then shrug out of my ruined jacket, draping it around her shoulders like armour.
“Giovanni,” she murmurs.
“Yes.”
Her throat bobs. “I know what I said before. But… I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.”
“Neither did I,” I admit, the honesty tasting strange. “But I meant for it to happen.”
Heat flickers in her gaze as I bend, scoop her up before she can protest.
She gasps. “Put me down.”
“No.”
“I can walk.”
“I know,” I say calmly. “I simply don’t want you to.”
Her hands clutch at my shoulders anyway, and I carry her through the dim corridor towards the exit where my men wait like shadows.
The night air hits us like a slap when we step outside, the city indifferent, the street already being swallowed by sirens in the distance.
My men snap to attention when they see her. When they see me, knowing they see what’s changed.
And no one speaks.
Good. Because I don’t want this moment broken. For a few hours, I’m intent on putting the world at bay.
I tighten my hold.
The war is still here.
But so is she.
And as I place her into the waiting SUV, my hand lingering at her jaw for one last heartbeat, I know one thing with brutal clarity:
Bellandi wanted to remind me what it costs to possess a fragile treasure. All he’s done is make me certain I will pay any price.
“Home,” I order.
The door shuts.
The engine roars.
And my wife comes with me.
Lucia
Home doesn’t feel like home.
Not after Red Hook and after gunfire and blood and Giovanni’s body in front of mine, shielding me from danger.
Dragoni Estate is silent when we return, too polished, too immaculate, as though the walls have no concept of what nearly happened.
Giovanni shuts the door behind us with a finality that makes my pulse jump, then stands there for a beat, shoulders rising and falling, his face set in that controlled Dragoni stillness that always comes after violence.
When he sets me down in our bedroom, I step closer. “Let me see it.”
His gaze flicks to mine. “You already did.”
“I want to see it again.”
He exhales through his nose, the faintest edge of amusement ghosting across his mouth.
“Bossy.”
“Alive,” I correct. “Sit down.”
“I don’t take orders.”
“You took bullets,” I snap. “Sit.”
That does it.
He moves, slow and deliberate, like he’s indulging me, like he hasn’t spent the last hour carrying me as though letting me touch the ground was unacceptable.
The bathroom is warm, steam already curling as the shower runs, and when I tug his ruined shirt away, my hands shake despite myself.
The wound isn’t catastrophic, but it’s real and livid, and a testament to how fallible even an infallible man like Don Moretti is. And God, the sight of it makes something in my chest tighten until it aches.
Giovanni watches me with an unnerving softness as I clean the wound.
“You’re fussing,” he murmurs.
“I’m preventing infection,” I say sharply.
“You’re trembling, duci.”
I huff, ignoring the curious prickling behind my eyes. “Because I’m angry.”
“At me?” He chases my gaze, but I keep it pinned to the gash I’m cleaning.
“At them. And yeah, maybe at you,” I admit, voice cracking. “At the fact that you stepped in front of—”
He catches my wrist gently. “Lucia.”
“What?” I snap.
His thumb strokes once, slow. “The evening has been a little… trying. But I need you to breathe, amuri,” he croons.
I hate that it works. I drag in air, shaky and uneven, then reach for another square of antiseptic gauze in the first aid kit with hands that refuse steadiness.
Giovanni leans against the counter, letting me do this, letting me tend him, and the surrender in that alone is almost too much.
“You’re not supposed to be hurt,” I mutter.
He lifts a brow, his mouth twitching. “Says who?”
“Says me.”
His mouth curves. “Ah. Then it must be law.”
I press antiseptic to his skin. He doesn’t flinch.
“Show-off.”
“I’m trying to impress my wife.”
“I’m already impressed,” I say before I can stop myself.
His eyes sharpen, but I keep my focus on the bandage as my hands shake again.
Damn it.
Giovanni’s fingers close over mine, stilling them completely. He lifts my knuckles, kisses them with quiet reverence.
The tenderness almost undoes me more than the violence.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
“Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I matter.”
His gaze holds mine. “You matter more than anything. If I haven’t proven that conclusively and thoroughly, I’m doing something seriously wrong.”
My throat tightens and I blink hard, furious with myself as Giovanni’s voice drops, rougher.
“We’ve had a taste of each other now,” he says softly. “And you’re still pretending you can build that wall back up.”
“I’m pretending I can breathe,” I shoot back.
He smiles, slow and intimate. “You’re doing beautifully. Do more of it.”
Heat stirs low in my belly, unwelcome and unavoidable.
I step back, busying myself with the tape. “Stop being… fond.”
“Fond,” he repeats, amused. “Is that what this is?”
“Yes.”
He leans closer. “What would you prefer?”
“Co… cool,” I say because I can’t bring myself to say cold. Not that he ever was. “Abrasive. Mafia don.”
His mouth brushes my ear. “Too fucking late.”
I shiver.