Chapter 15 #2
The room seems to pause around us.
The walls pull tighter.
Rain lashes the windows hard enough to shake the glass, but it fades behind the pulse beating in my ears.
Luca is staring at me with that cold, measuring look, and for half a second I think he will hurl another insult. Maybe he will lean in with one of those quiet threats men like him prefer, because they land deeper than shouting ever could.
I don’t see it coming.
One second he’s standing there, polished menace and expensive cruelty.
The next, his hand is on me.
His fingers clamp around my jaw, and he pulls me forward so fast that my breath snags in my throat.
Pain shoots across my face and my teeth knock together with a sick little crack.
The room tilts for a second, not enough to knock me off balance, but just enough to remind me how quickly men like Luca can turn violence into punctuation.
A sound catches in my chest, but I swallow it before it can become anything as weak as a cry.
His grip is brutal. Controlled. Every finger digs in with purpose, pressing hard enough to hurt and even harder to remind me he can. His thumb bites into one side of my face while the rest of his hand clamps down on my chin, forcing my head up until I have no choice but to look him in the eye.
“You hear everything,” he says, each word sliding over my skin with the cold edge of a blade. “You always have. Father knows it. I fucking know it. So don’t stand here and insult me with that innocent little act.”
I grab his wrist on instinct, my nails sinking into his skin hard enough that I know I am leaving marks.
He doesn’t even flinch. If anything, his grip tightens.
A sharper burst of pain cuts through my face, hot enough to make my eyes sting.
Tears threaten to spill, but I lock them down with everything I have.
I will not cry in front of him. I will not give him that.
Luca has always fed on weakness the way some men feed on fear, and I would rather choke on my own blood than hand him either.
“You’re hurting me,” I bite out.
The words come out rough, between clenched teeth. My voice sounds smaller than I want it to, strained by the pressure of his hand, but I force them out anyway.
Luca just watches me. There is no flicker of regret.
No sign that hurting me costs him a fucking thing.
That is the worst part. Men like my brother don’t need rage to become monsters.
They do it calmly. Elegantly. With cufflinks straight, suits pressed, and cold eyes that never once question whether they should stop.
His face is close enough now that I can see every detail.
The smooth skin. The hard mouth. The dead, merciless stillness in his gaze.
We share blood, but standing here with his hand locked around my face, he feels less human, something forged for power, sharpened by my father, and sent wherever damage needs to be done.
“You’re in no fucking position to lie to me, Isabella. So fucking tell me what you know.”
My fingers dig deeper into his wrist, not because I think I can overpower him, but because I need him to feel something in return. Even if it’s only the scratch of my nails to prove that I’m not standing here and taking it quietly.
“I’m not lying to you.”
It hurts to speak. My jaw throbs under his grip.
My pulse pounds so hard I can feel it in my teeth, in my throat, in the space behind my eyes.
But I keep staring at him because this is another lesson carved into me since childhood.
Cruel men love compliance. They love the lowered gaze. The trembling lip. The retreat.
But I give him none of it.
“You will give us something. Names. Meetings. Plans. Whatever Lorenzo is doing, Father wants to know. There will be consequences if you don’t.”
“And what exactly are those consequences?” I say. “There’s no one for you to kill this time, Luca.”
His eyes narrow as his hand jerks my face up higher causing pain to flare through my jaw.
“Watch your fucking mouth, Isabella.”
“Or what?”
His eyes go flat. Empty. This is when he is most dangerous. When even the performance of brotherhood falls away and all that remains is our father’s son.
“You think marrying Lorenzo De Luca makes you untouchable?” he tells me. “You think his name shields you from us?”
When I don’t answer, he leans in even closer.
“He can’t protect you every second, Isabella. He can’t follow you into every room. And if father decides you’ve stopped being useful, he will remind you exactly what happens to women who forget where they belong.”
The words land where they are meant to. A bruise pressed hard enough to bloom again.
Before I can say another word, a voice cuts through the room.
“Remove your hand from Mrs. De Luca.”
Luca’s grip doesn’t falter right away. Men like him never let go when they should. They hold on a little longer, just to make sure the threat lands exactly where they want it.
“Take your fucking hand off her,” Rafe says, stepping into the room, gun visible at his hip.
Luca’s hand stays where it is, his thumb still pressing into the hinge of my jaw, his stare never leaving mine.
It’s as if Rafe’s threat only makes this sweeter for him, as if the danger in the room gives him one last thrill.
He wants me to feel that even now, even here in this house, he can still hurt me if he wants to.
I stare right back.
My eyes burn. My jaw throbs. And my pulse slams so hard it makes my ears ring, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of looking away.
Rafe moves fast, closing the distance with the kind of purpose that makes the room feel smaller.
“I won’t fucking tell you again,” he says once more, the words cracking through the air.
Luca’s thumb still digs in, hard enough to send a hot surge of pain through my face. A final little twist of cruelty before he finally lets me go.
The ache lingers instantly. It settles under my skin the second his hand leaves me, throbbing at the hinge of my jaw, impossible to ignore. My teeth still ache from how they knocked together. My face feels too tight, too hot, too aware of where he touched me.
Rafe steps between us at once, positioning his body exactly where it needs to be.
“It’s time for you to leave, Mr. Serrano,” he says.
Luca barely looks at him.
“This isn’t over,” he tells me, voice low, smooth, and laced with promise.
“Mr. Serrano,” Rafe says again, steady as a stone.
Luca’s eyes never leave mine.
“This isn’t over,” he says again. His gaze slides past me toward the rain-streaked windows, taking it in. “You should think very carefully about where your loyalty lies, Isabella. Next time, I won’t bother being patient.”
Then he turns to leave.
Rafe follows close behind him, close enough that the message needs no translation. This is De Luca territory. Whatever my brother came here believing he could do, he doesn’t get to finish it. Not here. Not in this house.
I lift my hand carefully to my jaw. The pain has already changed character, no longer a shock but something that has settled. I know there will be marks by morning.
For a moment, I simply stand here and listen. I wait until I hear the front door swing open and shut, until the low current of male voices dissolves into nothing. Then footsteps return from the hall and I freeze on instinct.
Rafe appears in the doorway a second later.
“Are you okay, Mrs. De Luca?”
The question is so simple it almost undoes me. Too gentle for a man built the way he is, all hard edges and harder silences.
I swallow once, then lower my hand from my face. “Yes. Thank you.”
Rafe holds still for a moment in the way that tells me he knows perfectly well that yes is not the truth. He simply nods, and then he is gone.
I turn back to the window and I close my eyes. Inhale. Exhale. Hold.
Something old shifts loose inside my chest.
When I was a child, I used to go outside during storms. I would slip out the kitchen door when my carer wasn’t watching, stand in the garden with my arms open and my face turned up, and let the rain hit me all at once, cold and ruthless and absolutely indifferent to who I was supposed to be.
It soaked through my clothes, slicked my hair flat, and ran into my shoes, and none of that mattered.
Because out there, I was just a girl standing in a storm, trying to feel something that belonged entirely to her, not to anyone else.
I turn from the window and walk out of the room without letting myself think too hard about it. Down the long corridor, through the double doors into the garden.
No one stops me.
The rain hits me instantly. Cold. Hard. Perfect.
It plasters my hair back from my face in seconds. Soaks through my clothes, down my throat, into the hollow between my breasts, along my ribs. It turns the world sharp, immediate, and mercilessly present, leaving no room for old bruises, no room for my brother’s hands.
It’s just water and my breathing.
I walk down the terrace steps and into the garden, past the rose beds and the stone urns overflowing with rain.
I don’t stop until I reach the far edge of the lawn, where the dark hedgerow rises high enough to swallow the house from view.
Then I sink onto the wet stone bench and tip my face up to the sky.
Water lashes my skin, but I sit there anyway.