26. Tristan #2
We breach the main entrance, spreading out to cover all angles.
The house is bigger than it looked from the outside, but it’s one story, and we fan out, covering as much space as we can as we move down the hallways.
Another guard appears around a corner, and I don't even slow down.
I put a bullet between his eyes and keep moving, my men covering my flanks as we advance through the building.
The voices are getting louder now, and I can make out Sal's voice among them. He's giving orders, telling someone to hurry up. The urgency in his tone makes my blood run cold.
We reach a hallway with three doors, and I can hear Simone's voice coming from behind one of them. She's arguing with someone, her voice strained but still defiant. Still fighting.
I signal to my men, and we move in around the door, with me signaling that on a count of three, we’re going in fast and hard. But before I can give the signal, I hear Simone scream again, and this time there's real terror in it.
Fuck the plan. Fuck tactics.
I slam my weight into the door, kicking it open as I charge into the room, gun up and ready to shoot. The scene that greets me is something out of my worst nightmares.
Simone is handcuffed to a bed, naked and struggling against her bonds. There's an older man leaning over her with a medical bag open beside him, and I can see a packet of pills opened. Anger seethes through me.
Sal didn’t need to strip her for what he had planned, but he did it anyway. To shame her. To scare her. To make it all so much worse.
And I have no idea yet if she’s been forced to take the pills or not.
The rage that fills me is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's not the cold, calculated anger I'm used to. It's hot and primal and all-consuming, and it turns me into something barely human.
I put three bullets in the doctor before he can even turn around. He drops like a stone, his blood spattering across the medical instruments.
Sal is standing near the foot of the bed, and his face goes white when he sees me.
He's reaching for a gun, but he's too slow.
I'm already moving, crossing the room in three quick strides as my men take out the others in the room, gunshots cracking through the air as I head straight for the man who thought he could hurt my wife and live through it.
I grab him by the throat and slam him against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. His gun clatters to the floor, forgotten. Behind me, I hear two more shots and then silence.
"You made a mistake," I growl, my face inches from his. "You touched what's mine."
Further out in the house, I can hear my men engaging with Sal's remaining guards. Gunfire echoes through the building, but I barely register it. All my attention is focused on the piece of shit in my hands.
"Tristan," Simone's voice cuts through my rage, and I turn to look at her. She's still handcuffed to the bed, but she's alive. She's safe. "The keys," she says, nodding toward Sal. "He has the keys to the handcuffs."
"Vitto!" I shout.
"Clear!" comes the response from the corridor. "Building's secure, boss. We got them all."
I wait for Vitto and three more men to come into the room, all of them carefully averting their eyes from Simone as they surround Sal, weapons out.
Damian strides in with them, an expression of cold fury on his face as he strides toward Sal.
Only then do I holster my weapon and move to unlock Simone's handcuffs.
Her wrists are raw from struggling against the metal, and there are bruises on her arms where Sal's men grabbed her.
Each mark is another reason why Sal is going to die slowly.
"Are you hurt?" I ask, helping her sit up on the bed. I grab the blanket, yanking it free of the mattress to wrap around her. "Did they—did he?—"
"I'm okay," she says quickly, though I can see the lie in her eyes. She's not okay. She's terrified and traumatized and probably in shock. But she's alive, and that's what matters. "The baby—they didn’t make me take the pills yet, but Sal wasn’t gentle, and the chloroform?—"
"We're getting you to a hospital," I tell her, shrugging out of my jacket to wrap it around her shoulders. "Right now."
Simone nods, her teeth chattering with shock. "I'm fine. We're fine. They didn't... the doctor didn't have time to..." She can't finish the sentence, but I understand. They were going to hurt our child, but I got here in time.
Barely in time.
I help her stand, keeping one arm around her waist to steady her. She's shaking, whether from cold or shock or both, and rage slices through me again.
“You’re safe,” I murmur to her. “You’re safe now.” There’s so much more that I want to say, but not here, not with Sal on the other side of the room. I look at Vitto, who is standing there with his jaw clenched, holding the man at gunpoint.
"What do you want to do with him?" Vitto asks.
I look at Sal, at the man who dared to take my wife, who threatened my child, and I feel a cold certainty sliding back into place. The hot, primal fury is fading, replaced by something more familiar. More dangerous.
"We're taking him with us," I say flatly. "I'm not done with him yet."
Damian nods and moves to secure Sal, zip-tying his hands behind his back and hauling him to his feet.
Sal twists as Vitto tries to bind him, making an effort to fight back now that he knows what comes next.
Damian slams the butt of his pistol into the back of Sal’s head, nearly sending him to his knees.
“Keep struggling,” Damian snarls. “You have no idea how many pieces I could carve off of you before you die. I haven’t forgotten what you did, or how you hurt Sienna.”
“You can’t just kill me,” Sal spits. “I know things. Things about Giovanni’s business, about his dealings with the Russians, about?—”
I motion to Damian, and he slams the pistol into Sal’s head again, leaving him reeling. "The only information I want from you," I tell him flatly, "is how long you plan to take to die."
His face goes pale, and I motion to Damian to get him out of the house and to one of the vehicles.
We make our way out of the building, Damian and two of the other men escorting Sal while I keep my arm around Simone. She's still shaking, but she's walking on her own, and I'm proud of her strength. I knew she was tough, but this only reinforces everything I already knew about her.
She’s brave. Stubborn. Fiery. Her place was never on her knees or in the shadows—it’s always been at my side. Next to me, not behind me. And I was a fool to not tell her that sooner.
To not tell her everything as soon as I felt it.
I take a deep breath, letting the reality of the situation sink in. We won. Simone is safe. Our child is safe. And Sal is going to pay for every moment of fear he put my wife through.
The next hours pass in a blur. I take Simone straight to the hospital, where she’s checked over until we’re assured that she and our baby are safe. The doctor suggests an overnight stay, but Simone asks me to take her home, and I’m done arguing with my wife and refusing her what she wants.
We go home. The car ride is quiet, and I help Simone inside, to her bedroom and into the shower. She doesn’t protest when I help her out of her hospital gown and under the hot water, and for once, none of it has anything to do with desire.
She’s beautiful as ever, even bruised and exhausted, and I want her, but there’s far more to it. What I want more than her body is to see her look at me like she did that one singular night when we got drunk together and let our walls down.
I want her to see what she means to me, and find out what I mean to her in return.
Simone is silent until she’s finished showering. I’m waiting in the bedroom when she comes out, wrapped in a robe, her face drawn and exhausted. She stops on the other side of the room from me, looking at me with tired, dark eyes.
“Why did you come?” she asks simply, and I stare at her.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I shake my head. “What do you mean, ‘why did I come?’ I came for my wife.”
Simone presses her lips together. “But why ?”
I look at her as if she’s grown a second head. Now would be the time to say how I feel, but I can’t push the words past my lips. “You didn’t think I would?”
“I wondered.” She lets out a slow breath.
“If Sal’s plan to draw you in hadn’t worked, if he’d given up and killed me, you would have had an easy excuse to move on.
You could have chosen your own second bride, someone more…
compliant. You could have pretended you tried to save me and couldn’t, grieved, and then found someone who wasn’t so difficult. "
I feel like she’s struck me. Of all the things I thought she might say, the possibility that she might have really believed I wouldn’t come for her wasn’t one of them.
I’m on my feet and walking to her before I can think about it, stopping just in front of her as I reach down to touch her face gently.
“You drive me insane.” My thumb sweeps over her cheekbone. “And you’re insane if you think that I haven’t fallen in love with you.”
Simone’s eyes go wide, her lips parting as if to say something, but nothing comes out. I take that rare moment of speechlessness from her, and barrel on, determined to say everything that’s weighing on me before I lose my nerve.
This, apparently, is the only thing that’s ever scared me. That, and the thought that I was going to lose her.
"I'd rather spend the rest of my life fighting with you than being bored with anyone else.” I shake my head, my palm pressing against her cheek as I keep her looking up at me. “You’re my match in every way, Simone. In stubbornness, in strength, in bravery, in desire. You challenge me like no one ever has, and you make me work for every inch of ground I gain with you. I fucking love it. I love you. And you were right. I didn’t earn you, I took you.
But I swear to God, célie , I will spend every fucking day from here on out doing whatever it takes to do just that, if I have to.
I love you, and I will do whatever I have to in order to prove that I deserve you, even if I never get there. ”
Her eyes widen in surprise, round in her delicate face, and I realize this is the first time I've said it out loud. The first time I've admitted, even to myself, how completely she's gotten under my skin.
"I want you and our child safe," I continue, cupping her face in my hands. "You mean the world to me, with or without the legacy. The territory, the power, none of it matters if I don't have you."
As the words come out, I know I mean them beyond a shadow of a doubt. I’d give it all up to keep her. And I don’t give a fuck if my father thinks that makes me weak, or undeserving of what I have.
He can take it, as long as I get to keep Simone.