Chapter 22
Cristiano
Iwake to the sound of sobbing. Deep, wrenching sobs that sound like a heart breaking apart.
For a moment I can’t place where I am. The ceiling is wrong. The sheets smell unfamiliar. Rain hammers against a window somewhere to my left.
Then I feel it. Warmth against my bare chest. The weight of someone collapsed against me, shaking with the force of their grief.
Mina.
Terror floods through me, sharp and immediate. She would only cry like this for our son.
“Leon.” His name comes out as an urgent rasp. “What’s happened to Leon?”
She jerks upright, her tearstained face swimming into focus. Her eyes are red and swollen, her cheeks blotchy, and her hair a mess. I’m starved for her, and she’s never looked more beautiful.
“Leon’s fine.” Her voice is thick, choked. “He’s fine, Cristiano. You’re the one who nearly died. The doctor said you… He said a lot of terrifying things I can’t bear to remember.”
The words don’t make sense. Mina is crying for me? Because she thought she lost me?
“What were you thinking?” Fresh, angry tears spill down her cheeks. “What did you think you were doing out there? Were you trying to kill yourself?”
I must be inside the Vici mansion. I try to sit up, but my body won’t cooperate. Every muscle feels like lead. There’s a dull ache in my side and there’s a fresh bandage around my midsection.
“You stood out there for days,” she continues, her voice breaking. “No food. No sleep. No water. Post-surgery. Injured. What were you thinking? Why wouldn’t you listen to me or your sister or get in that ambulance?”
I couldn’t leave her. I wouldn’t leave her. I would rather die than walk away from her and Leon.
“Go home? Leave you and Leon? Have a hot meal and watch some TV while you were somewhere I couldn’t see you? I had to be as close to you both as possible, Mina. I had to know you were safe.”
“Never do that again.” She’s gripping my shoulders now, her fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “Never. I was so afraid. When you collapsed I thought you were dead. I thought I’d killed you.”
Her voice breaks completely, and she buries her face in my chest, sobbing so hard her whole body shakes.
I lift my hand and thread my fingers through her hair, holding her against me. Even that small movement takes effort, but I don’t care. I need to touch her. I need to feel her alive and warm and here.
“You could have left me out there to die. Then you’d be rid of me forever. No more monster chasing after you.”
She lifts her head, wiping away her tears. She studies me closely, her gaze flicking back and forth between my amber eyes. Like she’s seeing someone else. A man who terrifies her.
“I should have gouged these eyes out of my head long ago,” I say bitterly. “You’re going to tell me I’m too dangerous like my father. Too broken because of my father. You’ll reject me, and then I’ll go outside and fucking die in the rain, because there’s no point living without you.”
“I don’t look into your eyes and see your father. I look into your eyes and see our son. The beautiful, happy boy we made together.”
“You do?”
She nods. “Vincenzo told me everything about the Lucanias. I know what you sacrificed to save Leon.”
“It wasn’t a sacrifice to save our son. It wasn’t a choice. I couldn’t have done anything else.”
“I thought I’d killed the man I love by being too afraid to choose you like you chose us.” She softly caresses my face, her eyes wells of emotion. “I don’t want to be rid of you, Cristiano. I love you.”
The world narrows to those words.
“Say it again,” I demand, my voice raw.
“I’ve always loved you. Even when I was terrified. Even when I ran, I never stopped.”
Suddenly, I have all the strength in the world.
I pull her onto the bed, flush against my chest, and I capture her mouth with mine.
The kiss is desperate and ravenous after days of thinking I would never taste her again.
She kisses me back just as fiercely, her hands in my hair, her body pressing against mine like she’s trying to reassure herself that I’m alive.
When we break apart, we’re both gasping.
“Be mine.” The words spill out of me, urgent and demanding. “Marry me, Mina. The wedding we imagined. You in white lace in the garden. Me being Leon’s father. Let me wake up next to you every morning. Let me give you everything.”
Mina’s eyes search mine.
She’s still hesitating.
She’s going to say no.
“I need you to promise me something.” Her voice is steady despite the tears still wet on her cheeks.
“You can’t ever do to Leon what you’ve done to me.
No lies. No manipulation. You can’t lock him away or tie him up or frighten him.
You will never beat him like your father beat you. I won’t let you hurt our baby.”
“I would never.” The words come out fiercely, my hands gripping her arms. “My craziness is just for you, Mina. It’s always been just for you.
I’m going to be a good father to Leon. A better father than mine was to me.
I want to give him everything I never had.
Love. Safety. A father who doesn’t make him afraid. ”
She searches my face, looking for the darkness that will betray my words.
“And you have to tell me things,” she continues. “The Lucanias. The Sokolis. You made those sacrifices for us, and I didn’t even know. If I’m going to be your wife, if Leon is going to be a Montoni, I need to know what that means. All of it.”
“I’ll tell you as much as you want to know. I’ll tell you everything. Mina, it would mean the world to me to share everything with you.”
Her face softens, but hardens again a moment later.
“I’m warning you, Cristiano,” she threatens, and there’s steel in her voice now.
A ferocity that only mothers have about their babies.
“If you ever hurt Leon, if you ever frighten him and make him feel the way you made me feel in that wardrobe or tied up by your belt, I will kill you. I’ll ask Sofia to teach me one of the seven ways she knows to gut a man, and I will end you myself. ”
A moan escapes me. Broken and relieved and so full of love I think it might kill me.
“Mina. My love. If I ever do such a terrible thing, I’ll hand you the knife.”
“I mean it.”
“I mean it too. Every word.”
Mina’s fierceness fades into hope and wonder. A beautiful golden softness. “You can forgive me after nearly killing you? We’re really doing this? You and me, after all this time?”
My lips seek hers, kissing her with urgency. “Yes. Yes. Mina, be mine. There’s nothing to forgive. Give me your heart, and I’ll give you my life.”
“You already have my heart.” Fresh tears spill down her cheeks, but she’s smiling. “You’ve had it since we were children. You’ve always had it, Cristiano.”
Triumph sings through my body. I roll her beneath me despite the protest of every muscle in my body. There’s an IV taped to my arm, and I rip it out without looking, ignoring the sharp sting and the warm trickle of blood.
“Cristiano!” Mina gasps. “You need that—”
“I need you.” I pin her wrists above her head with one hand. “I’ve needed you for days while I stood in the rain. For five years while I was gone. For my entire life, Mina. I need you more than anything.”
I kiss her throat, her collarbones, working my way down. She arches beneath me, her breath coming faster.
“I need to taste you.” I’m already pulling at her clothes, desperate to feel her skin against mine. “I need to be inside you. I need to claim every part of you.”
I strip her clothes away piece by piece, my hands moving with urgency. When she’s finally bare beneath me, I just stare at her.
Mine.
Finally, completely, undeniably mine.
I kiss her breasts, taking each nipple into my mouth and worrying it with my teeth until she’s gasping. Then lower, across the soft plane of her stomach, and lower still. She parts her legs for me.
“I want to worship you,” I murmur against her skin. “Let me show you what you mean to me.”
I taste her until she’s writhing beneath me, her fingers fisted in my hair, her thighs trembling. She comes apart on my tongue with a cry that makes my cock throb with need.
But I don’t stop. I keep going, driving her higher, making her come again until she’s sobbing my name.
“Please,” she gasps. “Cristiano, I can’t take any more.”
I’m only wearing boxer briefs, and I shove them down as quickly as I can manage, ignoring the tenderness in my side.
“You can.” I move up her body, positioning myself at her entrance. “You can take everything I give you.”
I push inside her in one long, slow thrust and we both moan as the desperate ache to be together is filled.
Perfect.
She’s perfect.
Tight and wet and mine.
I start to move, slow at first, savoring every sensation. The way she clenches around me. The way her nails dig into my back. The soft sounds she makes with each thrust. But need quickly overtakes restraint, and I’m pounding into her, claiming her, marking her as mine with every brutal stroke.
My midsection aches, but I don’t care. My need for her is stronger than pain.
“I love you,” I groan against her neck. “God, Mina, I love you so much.”
“I love you too.” Her voice breaks on the words. “I’ve always loved you. Even when I was afraid. Even when I ran, I never stopped loving you.”
The confession sends pleasure flooding through me, so intense it’s almost painful. I capture her mouth in a brutal kiss and fuck her harder, deeper, until we’re both gasping.
I’m close. So close. But I force myself to slow down and make this last.
My hand slides between us to circle her clit. “Never run from me again, Mina. Never forget who you belong to.”
Mina nods urgently, her teeth sunk into her lower lip. “I won’t, Cristiano. I love you. I love—”
She breaks off with a cry, her whole body convulsing around me, and the sensation drags me over the edge with her. I come hard, burying myself as deep as I can go, filling her up with everything I have.