18. Serena
SERENA
Matteo lives.
That is the first thing I need to say. I’m not calm about anything. Calm left this story around the time my husband watched a sex tape and forgot what my shoulder looks like.
But Matteo lives.
He’s in a private room two floors below mine, one of Rocco’s men on the door, with stitches in his arm, bruised ribs, a mild concussion, and Lucia sitting beside his bed eating hospital vending-machine crisps like she’s personally punishing the NHS.
“He tried to apologize for bleeding on my rug,” she tells me over the phone.
I’m lying on my side in a bed I didn’t choose, wearing another hospital gown, with two monitors nearby and one very dramatic blood pressure cuff that squeezes me at intervals like it has unresolved issues.
“Did you forgive him?”
“No. I told him forgiveness depends on whether he survives long enough to help choose a new rug.”
“Very fair.”
“He smiled.”
That gets to me.
“Good.”
Lucia’s voice softens.
“How’s the baby?”
My hand moves over my stomach.
“Fine.”
The word still feels too small. Heartbeat steady. Movement good. No bleeding. No contractions. Tonight’s little home invasion did nothing but scare the life out of me. Apparently my baby is already tougher than every adult involved.
I still keep thinking her. I’m not supposed to get attached to guesses. I’ve attached to worse things, though. Men, for example.
“And you?” Lucia asks.
Rocco’s on the other side of the door. Not because I sent him there. Because the doctor’s changing the dressing on his knife wound and he refused to do it in my room after I said I didn’t want to watch anyone else bleed tonight. He actually listened. Very annoying.
“Serena?”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m too tired to fight that sentence. See how we’re all learning consent? Took us long enough.”
I laugh. It cracks in the middle. Lucia hears it. Of course she does.
“Do you want him?”
There is no point asking who.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Do you want me to talk you out of that?”
I open my eyes.
“No.”
“No lecture?”
“I have several prepared. One involves the phrase emotional arson. But if you want him and you’re choosing it, I’m not going to become another person standing between you and your own body.”
My eyes burn. Very rude of her to be wonderful when I am already leaking from the face.
“I don’t forgive him,” I say.
“I know.”
“I don’t trust him. Wanting him feels stupid.”
“Most wanting is stupid. That’s why the species continues.”
I laugh again. This one hurts less.
“I love you,” I say.
“I know. Text me if you need me. Scream if he gets weird.”
I hang up. For a minute, I just lie there, rain ticking against the window because apparently Edinburgh has committed to a generally grey atmosphere. Then there’s a knock. Three gentle taps.
“Serena?”
Rocco.
My body answers before I do. That’s becoming a problem.
Heat rolls low through me, slow and inconvenient and completely inappropriate considering there were men with guns in my sister’s living room two hours ago, sent up the chain by a rival capo who wanted a point made.
No one shot at me directly. A technicality my hormones don’t care about.
“Come in,” I say.
The door opens. Rocco steps inside.
He’s wearing a black T-shirt now instead of the bloodied shirt, and it shouldn’t be allowed.
That is my first thought. Not, he took a knife for Matteo. Not, he saved my life tonight. My first thought is that the black T-shirt pulls across his shoulders, and I’m a weak, disgraceful woman who has always liked my husband’s arms.
Pregnancy hasn’t improved my moral structure.
There’s a white bandage visible under the hem on his left side. His knuckles are wrapped. There’s a fading smear of blood near his hairline that someone missed.
“How is Matteo?”
Of course he asks that first. I hate that it works on me.
“Alive. Annoying. Apologizing about rugs.”
“That sounds like him. How are you?” he asks.
“Fine.”
He doesn’t challenge the lie. He just nods and stands there like a man prepared to be dismissed. That’s new too.
“And you?” I ask.
“Fine.”
“Liar.”
His mouth actually curves this time. Small. Tired. There and gone.
“May I sit?”
I nod. He sits in the wall chair. The one I made him use after the scare—close enough to see, not close enough to take.
My chest hurts.
“You can sit closer,” I say.
His whole body goes still. Just for a second. Then he stands and moves the chair beside the bed. Not too close. Still careful.
I’m getting tired of careful. Except I need careful. I also want him to put his hands on me like he’s starving. My brain is a messy, badly run government.
“Thank you,” he says.
“For letting you move a chair?”
“For letting me stay.”
Oh.
My ring catches the hospital light. His ring’s still on his hand too.
“You took a knife for him,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He leans forward, forearms on his knees. The movement pulls at his side. Pain crosses his face before he hides it.
“Because Rafe wanted me to hesitate.”
“Did you?”
“For half a second.”
I asked. I don’t get to hate the answer for being true.
“Because I’m jealous. Because Matteo loves you. Because I’m still the kind of man who has to choose not to be small.”
There’s no manipulative charm in his voice. No self-pity.
“Then you chose to get between him and the knife,” I say.
“Because he kept you safe. Because letting him die would’ve been using violence to clean up my jealousy.” His eyes lift. “And because you’d have looked at me differently.”
“I already look at you differently,” I say. “Not only worse.”
That slips out. Rocco goes still.
I wish I could snatch the words back. I don’t. He earned that much. Maybe.
“Serena.”
My name is rough.
I sit up carefully. He moves like he wants to help, then stops.
“You can help.”
His hand comes under my elbow. Warm. Steady. He helps me sit higher against the pillows and then lets go. Too soon.
“Rocco.”
He looks at me.
“Come here.”
His eyes darken. Not lust first. Concern. Then lust.
My whole body answers like an idiot with excellent memory.
“You were attacked tonight,” he says.
“I remember.”
“You were scared.”
“I still am.”
“You are in a hospital bed.”
“Very observant.”
“Serena.”
“Do you want me?”
His face changes. No hesitation. No polite lie.
“Yes.”
The word is low. Plain. It moves through me like a hand.
“Then come here.”
He stands slowly.
“If you’re doing this because I took a knife?—”
“I’m doing this because you took a knife for him.”
That stops him.
“Because you could’ve let him die,” I say. “Because part of you wanted to. Because you didn’t.”
His throat moves.
“That’s not enough to forgive me. Or trust me.”
“I know.”
“Then what is it?”
I reach for his hand. It’s the most dangerous thing I’ve done tonight, and two hours ago men were shooting through my sister’s door.
He gives it to me. Always carefully now.
I put his palm over my stomach. The baby’s quiet, but the pressure of his hand makes my whole body soften.
I need that.
“It’s the first time your possessiveness looked like humility,” I say.
Rocco closes his eyes. He looks like the sentence hurt.
Good. It should.
Then he lowers his head and presses his mouth to my knuckles.
“Tell me what you want.”
My pulse jumps.
“You.”
His hand trembles against my stomach.
“How?”
Direct question. No assuming.
My face gets hot. I am suddenly shy, which is ridiculous. This man has had me against doors, in beds, on tables, once in a locked pantry during a party where Vittorio was giving a speech.
Still, tonight feels new. The gown. The bandage. The baby. The door between old marriage and whatever this is.
“Kiss me first,” I say.
Rocco leans in. Slow enough that I can change my mind.
I do not.
His mouth touches mine. Soft at first. Too soft.
I make a sound. Impatient.
“More?”
“Yes.”
The second kiss isn’t soft. Thank God. It’s deep and hot and a little desperate, but still held on a leash because he’s trying so hard not to be the man who takes. It’s there in the stiffness of his shoulders, the way one hand grips the rail of the bed instead of my hip.
I pull him closer. He groans into my mouth.
My husband wanting me and hating that wanting isn’t enough.
I open for him. His tongue strokes mine, and heat blooms low and heavy between my legs.
My body remembers him in every place. The good memories are cruel, and they show up with all their furniture still intact.
I slide my hand under his T-shirt. He hisses.
“Side?” I ask.
“No. Your hand.”
“Take this off,” I whisper.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He pulls the shirt over his head carefully, wincing when it tugs at the bandage.
I see the wound then. White dressing taped over his side. Bruising already spreading beneath it. His body is still beautiful, hard and scarred and familiar, but the bandage undoes me a little.
He took that for Matteo. For me. For the version of love that doesn’t punish me for who protected me when he didn’t.
I touch the edge of the dressing.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Can you still?—”
My face goes hot.
Rocco’s mouth curves, faint and dark.
“Can I still fuck my wife?”
The words hit me like a match. I should object. I do not.
My thighs press together under the sheet. He sees.
His face changes. Hotter. Darker. Still careful.
“Yes,” he says. “If she wants me to.”
“She does.”
“And she’d like you to stop talking in the third person because it’s weird.”
A rough laugh leaves him. Small. Human.
Then he kisses me again, and the laugh is gone.
He sits on the edge of the bed. I shift carefully, making room, and he stops every time I wince even a little.
“I’m not glass,” I mutter.
“I’m acting like I almost lost you tonight.”
“You don’t get to make this fear. Make it want.”
His eyes flare.
“I can do that.”
He lowers his mouth to my neck, and my head falls back. His mouth is warm. Too warm. He kisses the spot below my ear, then my throat, then the top of my gown.
“May I open it?”
The question is quiet. Hot. Deadly.
“Yes.”
His fingers move to the snaps on my shoulder. One. Two. Three.
The gown loosens.
I should feel exposed. I do. But not unsafe.
That is new.