Chapter 5
RENZO
For a few fractured seconds, the world swims between dream and waking. Beeping. Voices. The taste of iron filling every corner of my mouth.
And her. The angel haloed in white, her pale green eyes wide as if she’s never seen sin before. Never had sin made flesh thrusting between her beautiful thighs before, making her scream to the fucking heavens.
I blink, trying to reconcile the breathtaking image before me with reality.
The angelic robe of my dreams morphs into a shapeless, long-sleeved habit concealing every inch of her beautiful body.
A… fucking wimple? Trembling hands clutching a goddamn rosary.
And on her feet are what must be the ugliest shoes ever created.
But even that isn’t what punches breath from my lungs.
It’s the fact that even after having already seen her tonight – hours ago – standing barefoot in her tiny convent cell, a candle trembling between us as my men blew her door off its hinges, the flash of terror in her eyes, her gasp when my hand caught her arm, I still can’t believe she’s real.
And the way she whispered, ‘Why are you doing this?’ even with a hood being pulled over her head? I thought it was all a fever dream.
And now she looks at me again, here, under this blinding hospital light… as if I’m a stranger.
It shouldn’t gut me.
But it fucking does.
She swallows, nerves fluttering in her throat. ‘Why did you come for me?’ Her voice gains bite, the same fire I saw when she resisted while my soldiers restrained her. ‘Why? Nobody answers my questions and I… I deserve an answer. I’m asking you.’
God help me.
Even now, weak, stitched back together, ribs screaming every time I breathe, my cock twitches at the sound of her bite, her defiance.
Don’t think about her biting you, I warn myself.
Too late. I’m already thinking about it.
‘Why do you think?’ I rasp, harsher than intended.
‘I don’t know,’ she snaps back, chin lifting. ‘That’s why I’m asking you.’
Of course she is.
Of course my lost little angel still burns like this, even kidnapped.
Even terrified.
It hits me square in the chest. Giada Mancinelli’s quiet fire, that reckless, holy, forbidden fire, lives untouched.
And God forgive me…
I’ve missed it more than air.
But as I stare at her, a new, terrifying knowledge strikes me, vicious and so fucking deep, I lose what’s left of the air in my lungs.
Because those beautiful eyes bear no hint of recognition, the way her mouth parts in confusion.
My pulse thrashes against the monitor like it’s trying to claw its way free.
‘Giada,’ I rasp… implore again. My throat burns like sandpaper. ‘Angel.’
She flinches, blinking rapidly as if to dislodge tears – or truth. Or reality.
Maybe she’s dreaming too. Doesn’t want to wake up to this fucking nightmare where up is down and my long-lost angel is trapped in limbo.
I say something that doesn’t quite register and it seems to hit her like a slap. Wound her. I see it in the way her spine stiffens. But instead of relief, her face folds into dismay, almost disappointment.
‘I-I’m sorry but you’re mistaken,’ she says quickly, voice small but determined. ‘I’m not who you think I am. My name is Sister Benedetta.’
No. The words ring with practised truth and she looks like she believes it.
But to me they might as well be hollow nonsense.
And that is an insult to both of us. My chest seizes with the urge to laugh, to demand she stop pretending.
To curse the weakness in my body that keeps me shackled to this fucking bed.
I don’t regret telling the doctors to fuck off when they cautioned against my little jaunt to retrieve what’s mine, but I have a feeling I’ll be paying for it longer than I want.
‘Giada,’ I say again, slower this time, tasting the name like a prayer I never stopped saying before offering it to her in clear, unmistakable taunt.
If… after six fucking years, this is how we’re playing this, so be it. From the agony tearing through my body, I have nowhere else to be but right here in this godforsaken bed. For the time being.
She looks down, hands twisting in the rosary wrapped around her delicate hand. Seeking courage? Divine intervention?
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmurs, softer. ‘Whoever this Giada is, she isn’t me.
I’m a nun from Santa Maria delle Nevi. Perhaps you and your soldiers…
umm, your associates… perhaps you took the wrong person from the wrong location.
There’s no Giada where I’m from.’ She glances at the door where a lot of footsteps are approaching.
Then she looks back at me. ‘I’ll speak to someone.
I’ll pray for you, if that’s what you need.
But afterward, please tell them I’d like to be returned to my convent. I won’t even press charges.’
Press charges. Christ. The absurdity almost makes me laugh.
But the monitors don’t. They accelerate, betraying the storm inside me. Building and ready to explode.
Behind her, the doors open and doctors surge forward.
Two of them, one young, the other older, both terrified of the black-clad figures – apparently the soldiers she almost let slip just now – lining the walls.
The doctors’ gazes flick between me and the men in black with expressions that say we didn’t sign up for this.
One whispers something in rapid Italian about cardiac stress; another gestures nervously towards Giada, as if she’s the defibrillator.
I suck in a pained breath and force myself to assess what the fuck’s going on.
Last night, I barely assessed the why’s and wherefores of the men who appeared seemingly out of nowhere to assist me in my little kidnapping jaunt.
I initially thought they were part of hospital security, placed here by my brothers.
But now, I scrutinise them more carefully, my jaw locking when things fall into place.
The soldiers… while their posture is perfect enough to please a demanding Orazio Salvatore, are not our men. For one, they’re too strait-laced. Too disciplined. Too… government-issue.
And Orazio would rather toss his own foot into a meat grinder than let any Salvatore wear tactical gear over Italian wool. These stiffs are waiting for orders from somewhere above medicine, and far outside my family.
Besides, if my family had dispatched them, they’d be here.
Cesare, Rafa, Dante – hell, especially Orazio – would’ve bulldozed through these statues to get to me, and to the long-lost Giada Mancinelli standing three feet away like a ghost resurrected.
Which means only one thing.
Night – motherfucking – Owl.
The phantom puppeteer with a god complex not only gave me Giada’s location, but helped me extract her as efficiently as possible.
Of course this reeks of them. Their invisible hand. Their penchant for chaos disguised as aid. I would’ve thought they’d disappear into the night after that though.
Yet somehow they’ve managed to keep their men guarding me, guarding us, without alerting my brothers.
I’m torn down the centre between fury and gratitude. Between wanting to tear them several new assholes to offering them my first born – the very one I intend to have with the angel still staring at me like I’m an exorcism patient she’s gearing up to pray for – on a platter.
And when I can stand without swaying, there’s going to be a reckoning. Just as I’m certain whatever their endgame is, it doesn’t stop here.
But none of that matters.
Not when she’s standing there, alive.
My gaze locks on hers. There’s fear in her eyes, yes, but something else, too. A pulse of heightened… unclean, possibly ungodly, emotion she’s fighting hard to bury. She takes a hesitant step back, fingers white and still clutching her rosary.
The machines react first.
Alarms spike as the heart monitor wails in protest.
A volcanic roar builds in my chest next. It’s enough to send furtive glances from the doctors.
‘Signore, you need to calm down,’ one of them says, his voice trembling. ‘Your blood pressure—’
‘Don’t fucking tell me what to do,’ I growl, never looking away from her. ‘Stop,’ I snarl.
Giada… Benedetta… stops mid-step, startled by the sound. Her mouth opens, maybe to apologise, maybe to run.
And then one of the soldiers makes a mistake.
He reaches for her arm.
The world goes red.
Before the thought even finishes forming, I’m moving – ripping out IVs, monitors, tubes. Pain ignites down my side like someone’s taking a blowtorch to my ribs, but I don’t care. My hand slams against the bed rail, metal screaming, and I’m upright. ‘Take your fucking hands off her!’
The roar tears through the room like Vesuvius erupting. The soldier freezes, eyes wide. Every other man in the room tightens his grip on his weapon, waiting for a command.
She jerks away and her knees hit the chair. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, eyes huge, terrified, and God help me, still so fucking beautiful. She could at this very second snatch the last breath from my lungs and I would happily allow her.
Hell, didn’t I summon her, pray that she would be the last thing I see before the devil took me? Looks like my prayers were answered.
But fuck it, now I want more. I’m staying. Maiming and tearing out throats of anyone who intends otherwise, even God Himself.
Now I can see she’s alive, breathing, I’m greedy for life, too.
I want to reassure her. To explain. But all that comes out is a rasp. ‘Come here.’
She shakes her head. ‘You’re not well, Signore. Please, listen to your doctors and lie down,’ she says softly. But her eyes are still wide.
‘I will. If you come closer.’
Her fear flares again, and she takes another step back instead.
‘Why?’ she demands, and it’s another beautiful sign of the stubborn girl I knew.
The one with a thousand questions for one request. I would grin if I wasn’t in agony.
If I wasn’t poised to chase her the fuck down if she dares one more step.
‘You don’t even know me,’ she whispers. ‘You think I’m someone I’m not. ’