Chapter 17 Alessio
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ALESSIO
Istand by the car, jaw clenched so tight my molars might crack, knuckles white against the sleek metal of the door.
My rage feels alive, hot and real, the kind that makes your blood burn.
The tremor in my hands isn't weakness; it's violence I can barely hold back.
I could rip the wheel from its column, crush metal like paper.
Instead, I force myself to stare at the federal building's entrance, counting each heartbeat, each second until she comes out of those glass doors that have kept her too long.
Federal Plaza is all glass and teeth, high windows so clean they slice the sky into blue fragments. A block away, my guys linger: two in a dented van, one across the street, pretending to read the sports page on a bench. None of them move unless I say, but they watch the doors the same as me.
Enzo comes out first, phone to his ear. He sees me and nods once, and then she's right behind him.
No handcuffs, no agents chasing her, just Lucy's wild hair and eyes so blue they almost knock me over.
The bruise on her throat is fresh and clear, like someone pressed a thumb there and didn't let go.
I want to break something. Preferably her father, but I'll take the first man who gets in my way.
I open the back door. She runs toward me, her heels clicking on the concrete, her body aimed right at my chest. When she hits me, the impact almost knocks the breath out of me.
My arms wrap around her without thinking, a habit that survived every second we were apart.
No matter how far she goes, these arms will always be here for her.
Her lips brush my throat, words hot against my skin. "I was starting to think you wouldn't come." A pause, then softer still: "Tell me you brought a gun."
There’s a moment—always, with us—when she looks me dead in the face and dares me to lie. But I don’t. “Two,” I say, and she rewards me with a smile, teeth and all.
I pick her up easily and carry her across the sidewalk, settling her into the car with a gentleness that takes all my strength. Enzo steps forward and closes the partition, giving us a bit of privacy I haven't earned.
I don’t waste time. I pull her into my lap, bringing her close enough to breathe me in. Her hair is a mess, half in her eyes, and I brush it away with a thumb that still trembles at the sight of her.
“Talk,” I say, low and even.
She grins, voice thick with relief. “They said I was a victim. That you’d eat me alive if I weren’t careful.”
“They’re right,” I say, tracing my hand up her thigh, feeling for injuries that aren’t visible.
She laughs, and it feels like my wounds are stitched shut. “But they forgot to mention I’d want to be devoured.”
That’s all it takes. I kiss her, and she tastes bitter and tired, hungry for anything that isn’t cold and suspicious. When I let go, she’s panting, mouth open, wanting more.
The car hums around us as the city goes by, and I can’t help myself. I bury my face in her neck, breathing her in. Under the perfume, I smell blood, sweat, and fear. All of it is my fault.
“I thought I was done for,” she says. “My father was there. He offered me Paris, money, whatever I wanted as long as it wasn’t you.”
“What did you say?”
She presses herself closer, mouth at my ear. “Told him you had a bigger future.” She bites me, just enough to mark. “And a bigger present.”
I want to laugh, but the anger is still coiled in my gut, a snake waiting for a reason. “Did they touch you?” I ask. “Your wrists—”
Her hands float up, wrists bared, thin red lines where the cuffs were too tight. I kiss each one, slow and deliberate. Bruises heal, but not if I let them.
“I’m okay,” she whispers. “But I don’t want to go home.”
“Then we won’t.”
She settles into me, knees on either side of my thighs, her body shaking from the shock of being free. I give her a minute, holding her like something I almost lost.
Enzo clears his throat from the front, voice muffled through the glass. “FDR or the tunnel, boss?”
“Take the long way,” I say, not looking up. “She needs time.”
Lucy laughs then, eyes wild. “You’re acting as if you missed me.”
“I did,” I admit, and it’s the first truth I’ve spoken in days.
She’s quiet for a stretch, fingers playing over the buttons of my shirt. “Thank you for not asking what I told them.”
I tilt her chin up so she has to look at me. “You’d never betray me,” I say. “I’d bet both my guns on it.”
Her eyes shine, wet for a second. Then she nods, pushes a hand to my face, and says, “Next time, let’s get arrested together.”
I smile, for real this time, and press her tight to my chest as the car snakes through the city. Every turn is a small violence against the world that tried to keep her from me.
When we reach the bridge, she’s asleep on me, breathing steadily. But I keep watch over her until we’re truly safe, back at my penthouse with the door locked, lights low, and no ghosts in the hall.
I carry her to bed, lay her down, and for the first time, let myself believe I might be more than the monster her father says I am.
That maybe, I am the only shelter she's got.
She wakes before dawn. I feel it before I see it, a shift in the covers, a breath too sharp for sleep. I roll over and find her at the edge of the bed, knees pulled to her chest.
She draws little circles on her knee, focusing somewhere outside the bedroom window. “What if they try again?”
“Then next time, they won’t find you. Let them come for me.” I lean forward and press my lips to her shoulder. “I’ll burn down every federal building in this city if they even breathe wrong.”
Lucy shivers, but it isn’t fear. It’s something deeper, a need that comes from knowing I would destroy the world for her.
She tilts her face to mine. “You can’t protect me from everything, Ale.”
“Watch me,” I say. And I mean it.
We don’t leave the apartment that day. She paces, reads, tries on every robe in my closet, and leaves lipstick prints on every mug in the kitchen. For lunch, we eat charred pizza on the terrace, hidden from every angle but the sky above.
Hours later, as the city's million lights shimmer like fallen stars beneath us, she wraps her slender arms around my waist, her fingertips cold against my abdomen. Her voice is small but steady when she asks, "If my family comes here, will you let them in?"
"If you want me to," I say, feeling her exhale against my skin.
She shakes her head, hair sliding like silk across my chest. She presses her lips—soft, warm, slightly chapped—to the rough stubble along my jaw.
"I never want to see them again. Not unless they accept my decisions.
They were never worried about my safety.
They're worried how scandal might affect their precious bottom line, their stock prices, their country club memberships. "
It’s only later, when she finally falls asleep, her lashes dark against her cheeks, that I let the anger return.
I pace the living room’s marble floor, my reflection moving across the windows.
I repeat her father’s name in my mind, feeling its bitterness.
The old man won’t stop, not while he’s alive or has money hidden away, not while his daughter, his property, sleeps in my bed.
It will not be enough to threaten. It has to be absolute.
Enzo meets me in the service elevator at 4 a.m., briefcase in hand. I don’t say a word. He knows what I want.
Enzo's eyes glint like obsidian in the dim elevator light. "We'll send a message," he says, voice a low rasp against the mechanical hum. "Something they can't ignore."
I nod, feeling the weight of my wedding band against my finger. "Make it biblical."
He cracks a smile, teeth sharp in the shadows. "Old or New Testament?"
"Both," I say, the word heavy between us. I head back upstairs, my shoes quiet on the marble.
Tomorrow, her father will wake to find his empire destroyed, his luck gone. Tomorrow, every man who left even the smallest bruise on her will know fear and regret.
Tonight, I just hold her in my arms, her breath warm on my chest, her heartbeat steady against me. Tonight, that’s enough.