Chapter 58 Serafina
SERAFINA
Everything comes back at once. Light penetrates my eyes as a loud click echoes through the room. My mind’s fuzzy, struggling to make sense of time and place, when a door opens, and in walks the one who makes everything clearer.
Lev.
He all but stumbles to my bedside, hands reaching to cup my face but falling just short. A relief-filled gaze devours my face, caressing my forehead, my eyes, my cheeks before going down my arms. “How do you feel?”
“Kinda confused. Last thing I remember was Alessio driving.”
The knife… Feigning suicide to gain a reaction—stabbing him…
A crash…
Throughout my silence, Lev remains a statue, watching, knowing I’m reliving it.
I blink, rolling my lips together, and peer up. “Alessio. The car…”
Lev’s legs give out and he lands in the chair beside the bed.
It reminds me of months ago, when I was the one by his bedside after he got shot.
My attention drifts to his white dress shirt that was beneath his suit jacket for the wedding, but is now bloodied and dirty, the sleeves drawn up revealing tattooed arms. At the top, his skin retains the scar from that day.
My hand slides a few inches until covering his, needing his touch. And if he won’t initiate, then I will.
“Alessio’s dead.”
Relief is immediate, ending all the other pain.
“I did it. I caused the accident when stabbing him in the leg. It…it was the only plan I had. I…oh, fuck.” Breaths come shallow now, and Lev flips our hands, tightening his hold.
“Lev, I had to. He—we didn’t go upstairs.
He was driving me to his territory, said he knew I had weapons on me, that he wouldn’t dare stay the night.
He knew. The entire time, he knew the plan.
I was trapped. I h-had to. I caused his death. ”
From the moment he attempted to rape me, I stopped caring about Alessio’s life. I wanted him dead, and I once personally wanted to do it myself. For trying to do that to me, and then later threatening Lev and my family—for all of them, he deserved to die.
It’s not with grief I say any of that. I’m happy he’s gone, but to consider taking a life makes me the very thing Zeno spent eighteen years keeping me away from become real.
Except…I’m alright.
Lev brings our adjoined hands together, kissing my knuckles.
“Your hands are clean, Fina. He’s dead by my act.
I suffocated him. It was something I should have done the night he attacked you, to save ourselves all this fucking misery, but either way…
” He exhales sharply. “He’s a corpse, and will never harass you again.
Your actions did most of the work, but you did not have the ultimate hand in his death. ”
“We killed him together.”
Dark desire glints in his eyes before he’s on his feet again, and his hesitation from earlier evaporates.
His large hand spans my cheek, thumb against my pulse while my fingers meld into my hair.
“I like that, printessa. I like that we took care of him together. Regardless, it doesn’t make me any less pissed at you.
Although, your plan worked, it was extremely dangerous.
A slightly different angle, and your neck could have been snapped.
” He cups the other side of my face, practically lifting me off the bed, and lowers his head until his lips brush mine.
“I was this close to losing you forever, and there’s no world in which that’s okay. ”
I rest my palms on top of his and shut my eyes, embracing his hold when hours ago, it was a future uncertain. “Like I said, he changed the script. We were driving. I knew once we got to his house, I wouldn’t have a chance in hell against him and his staff.”
Despite my words, he simply smirks. “You honestly think you were making it that far? I was on my way to you one way or the other, and if you made it to his territory before I caught up, I was prepared to do anything to get you away from him alive.”
Anything is vast. Anything might have led to his death, but this is Lev. Selfless.
“How?”
“The tracker I had Ana sew into your dress the night before the wedding, after you’d gone to bed.
Once you passed out, I spent hours envisioning every little thing that could go wrong; I wanted eyes on you the entire time.
We didn’t know when or if Vanessa would be able to return your phone to you—which I’ve been tracking since your dorm, by the way—so I needed something on you that couldn’t get left behind. ”
If I didn’t already love this man, that might have just did it.
I scan my body; the marks on my arms, the pounding in my head where his fingers touch.
The feel of his hands against my skin takes me back to another time, when he stroked my cheek, yelling at me, his exact words lost in a haze of pain and glass and shouting.
There were a few voices yelling. At some point, my eyes did lift—heavy as they were—to the stars and moon.
And his face.
“You finished Alessio off because you were there, weren’t you? I didn’t dream that?”
“Just finished putting it all together?” He chuckles.
“Da. Minutes after Vitale dragged you away, when I couldn’t physically handle not knowing any longer, I left the reception and Dimitri and Ana followed.
From the tracker, I realized you weren’t in the hotel, so we took Zeno’s SUV and traced you to the wreck.
Got you out, killed him, drove you here, called your brother. ”
Here being the hospital with the single window to my left, the blinds drawn to block the outside, various signs about healthy habits plastered all over the walls. The machines to my right aren’t hooked up, and there’s an IV in the back of my left hand.
“I was never going to let you go. Breaking my promise by you walking down the aisle was enough. When you introduced a new emotion in me—when you made me capable of feeling…there was no way I was letting that—you—get away. You became mine as much as I became yours.”
“What emotion is that?”
His thumb traces over my lip, cracked and dry from the lack of water.
“Love, if it’s possible. Since the moment we met, you were so different than everyone else.
Like I told you our first night together, you quieted my mind like nothing else.
The more time we spent together, the more my obsession grew.
You made it so I was living a regular life.
Feelings and thoughts that were always out of reach were suddenly there. You’ve made me understand.”
My heart races.
“Love…it’s unnatural for me, beyond my family, but that’s because of who they are. Someone else? An outsider should never have that kind of power and control over me, but you, Fina, since the moment we met, you didn’t only control me—you’ve owned me.”
My heart takes off.
“No matter how much I told myself it was fleeting, it wasn’t. Not for me. I love you, printessa…Serafina, more than I knew was physically possible. I love you with everything I am and everything I still don’t know how to be, but with you, I’ll learn.”
My heart flies.
“Kiss me.”
His mouth descends on mine, and it’s not the longest kiss we’ve shared, or even the most heart-racing, blood pounding, but it’s the most meaningful one. The one that counts the most. The one that kisses my very soul.
No—he doesn’t kiss it. He delves into it, rips it from its place, and claims it for himself. There’s no one I’d rather give my heart, body, and soul.
He pulls back after a moment to gently kiss my forehead before he releases me to reclaim his chair. “You have a mild concussion, so we shouldn’t get you too worked up. Your brother asked I call him when you’re awake, so if you’re ready for others…”
“Please don’t. I can’t deal with any of them right now, even Zeno.
” Especially not Zeno, not after Lev told me he loves me.
Right now, this moment is ours, and bringing family in will also return us to reality—and the fact I’m really fighting to not think about.
No matter what, I’m technically a Vitale now, through marriage, which means the future remains unknown.
After this, Zeno will have learned about my relationship with Lev, but I’ll make sure his protective big brother act is tossed out the window, because Lev won’t be going anywhere. Until then, I’d prefer to forget the world beyond these four walls.
Then, Lev announces the last thing I expect. “He’s aware. Of us, I mean. He claimed to have read it on my expression during the ceremony.”
The very expression that nearly brought me to my knees.
I suspected the burning hatred I’d find in Lev’s eyes; seeing it would make speaking the vows an entire Cosa Nostra was expecting me to recite impossible.
It wasn’t until Alessio’s words, whispered after our forced kiss, that I looked at him.
“Petrov doesn’t like sharing. Guess he should have thought about what it’d mean to touch what was mine in the first place. ”
It’s unsurprising my brother picked up on that.
Grimacing pulls at the cut on my forehead, which I rub before giving up and pinning my own hands beneath my thighs. “I’m sorry. Was it bad?”
“No. He’s okay with it if you are. Said it’s your choice.”
“Zeno?” I sit upright, the shock of Lev’s words a bump in my energy. “Zeno. Z. My neurotic brother is okay with us being together?”
“Did you not just hear me? He said it’s your choice.”
Sometimes, Lev isn’t great at catching sarcasm.
“Huh.” I fall back against the pillows that curve with my body. “At least the hard part’s over.”
He hums and gets up again to fix the blanket around my body and adjust my pillow. “Your entire job is to heal. Worrying about everything else can come later.” He pushes hair from my face, still slightly curled from my wedding style, and I catch his hand before he moves away.
“Please don’t go.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
As his thumb strokes the back of my hand, I slip my finger onto his and tap his pattern, earning a low chuckle. “This helped a lot. Thank you.”