35. Marco
Marco
Grabbing Bianca by her wrist, I whip her around to confront me once more. “You’re not pushing me away this time, Bianca.”
Her lips part in shock. Did she really think telling me to fuck off would be enough to make me wash my hands of her?
She looks like she’s already plotting her next move without me, and that pisses me off more than I can articulate.
Somehow, though, the urge to reassure her outweighs everything else.
“I wanted to protect you back there. Not because you need it, but because it’s what you deserve. ”
Bianca glances away, and I watch her visibly struggle to process what I’ve said. “You have no idea what I do or don’t deserve.”
The tension around my mouth tightens, and I rake a hand through my hair.
“I know a hell of a lot more than you think. You hide behind this pristine, untouchable reputation, letting the whole world believe you’re made of stone because it’s easier than letting anyone get close.
Aldo built that armor for you, and you’ve worn it for so long that you actually believe you’re as hollow as the Ice Princess they all whisper about. ”
Invading her space, I duck my head so we’re eye-to-eye, my voice lower now, just for her to hear. “But I know better.”
Bianca sucks in a breath, and a raw, shaky exhale follows.
Before she can speak, the elevator dings and the doors slide open to the lobby.
Jerking her arm free, she scrambles for her clutch, dropping her cell in her haste to answer a text as she steps into the lobby.
Following, I bend and pick up her phone just as more notifications flash across the screen.
It’s Aldo, and like most Gen Xers, he types slowly, using correct grammar and punctuation.
What the fuck are you doing?
How dare you embarrass me in front of a member of the Council?
If Zanni wanted you to fuck the bastard, you should have just done as you were told and gotten m—
The rest of the message is cut off from the notification box, but I’ve seen all I can stomach. Bianca lunges for her cell, but I hold the device high over her head, dodging her attempts at seizing it back.
I can’t imagine Bianca living with that scumbag and being forced to listen to him disparage her day in and day out.
Brushing past her, I stride out the door and toss the phone as far as I can down the length of the sidewalk, watching with no small amount of satisfaction as it hits the ground and bounces off the curb before tumbling into a sewer drain.
My wife gapes at me before driving a fist into my chest, and I wince, rubbing at the spot and glaring at her. “What the hell was that for? What if he was trying to reach me about—”
“Does a day go by where you aren’t worried about what that asshole wants? What he thinks?”
Her head jerks up, her eyes blazing. “I don’t give a shit what he thinks.” She grits her teeth, worry written all over her features. “I’m worried about what he’ll do to Livia!”
I turn away from her, scrubbing a hand viciously down my face.
“Of course you are. Always concerned about everyone else, always catering to everyone but yourself. Fuck, Bianca!” My frustration boils to something volcanic, so I force myself to breathe before I close the space between us and capture her shoulders.
“If Livia needs a place to go, she can come live with us. Okay? Problem solved.”
My wife’s eyes widen, rounding at the corners, and her bottom lip trembles. I want to give the ember of hope in those dark eyes more oxygen so it blazes to life and melts every single one of her problems.
I trace soothing circles over the skin of her shoulders. “We can fix this, principessa. I’ll send my best men to get her out. We can have her home in a few hours—”
“She can’t leave.” Bianca’s voice grows heartbreakingly mournful as she frees herself and begins to pace in tight circles. “You heard Leandro. He told us she’s the one who fed the information about Sara and Dante to the Council, and that they’ve tasked her with reporting on Aldo as well.”
Bianca presses a hand to her forehead as an ambulance careens down the road, sirens deafening.
She waits for the noise to fade before starting again, a little more calmly.
“What do you think the Councilors will do if Livia suddenly goes missing? Where do you think they’ll look first?
And even if that weren’t the case, Father would never allow her to just leave.
He uses her to control me, and he—” She chokes, burying her face in her hands.
Broken.
I’ve never seen her like this, and her pain tears at me. In two quick strides, I’m in her orbit, pulling her arms down until she’s compelled to meet my eyes.
A deep, trembling sigh escapes her. “He’d rather see her dead than free.”
Her hunched shoulders inform me she isn’t just talking about Livia. “What aren’t you saying?”
The emotion drains from her, and the once-familiar mask falls into place.
She rebuilds her armor right before my eyes, one block of ice at a time, until she’s the ruthless capo once more.
Only the anxious way she winds the button on her watch hints at the woman underneath.
And when she juts out her chin, I brace myself to hear something I’m not going to like.
“Aldo plans on marrying my sister off to some subordinate of his. A man with a history of killing his wives. If I don’t locate the book Dulce smuggled from the Contis by tomorrow, Livia is as good as dead.”
The world goes red, the rage ripping through me like wildfire.
I know exactly what she’s talking about.
Mamma stole the Contis’ book out of spite, and I would often sit beside her while she worked through the cipher one letter at a time.
In addition to names and locations, the ledger also contains the blueprint to an empire.
The exact anatomy of the Conti family’s past success, bound in leather and blood.
Aldo would do anything, even sacrifice his own daughters on the altar of his violence, if it meant attaining the power he thought he deserved.
I should be mad. I should be fucking furious.
Bianca has been searching for the book behind my back since the moment we were married, and she was planning to steal and deliver it right into her father’s hands.
This confession should be the gasoline that incinerates whatever twisted affection I’ve developed for her.
It should revive the hatred I once carried for the Ice Princess.
But the fire won’t catch.
The rage is entirely hollow, buried beneath a dark, ruinous truth that’s rooted in my chest.
“I’ll help you protect your sister.” The promise comes out of nowhere. It’s dangerous and terrifying, but it’s too late to take back. What’s worse is I mean it.
Bianca gapes at me for several seconds, uncomprehending.
I lower my head. “Aldo can’t have the book. It’ll consolidate his power in a way that will make him almost impossible to touch. Especially with the Argentos currently weakened. You and I both know he’ll try and eliminate me and my people first, and I can’t allow that.”
“I know.” Her earnest concession might actually shatter my heart. “I don’t…I never wanted to start a war. I just wanted to protect my sister.”
I brush my thumb along her jaw, watching the frost melt from her expression until only Bianca remains. The real Bianca. She isn’t a heartless, untouchable captain. She’s a survivor born into hell, a woman who’s spent her whole life fighting a monster just to protect her sister from the same fate.
“Once we have the book, we can use it as leverage to negotiate Livia’s safety. It’ll buy us some time until we can figure out how to get her out of that house. We’ll work out the rest from there.”
Bianca’s hand tangles in the collar of my light purple button-down. “You’re not angry with me? For keeping this from you?” Her hoarse voice is full of awe, as if she never could have imagined this possibility.
I press a featherlight kiss to her mouth. “I’ve been the backup my whole life. The second choice. The last resort.” Clearing my throat, I step back, my eyes still trained on her. “How could I be angry with you, when you’re the only person who’s ever chosen me?”
The way she brightens, the relief that carves a hole out of her, is painful to look at. When have I ever been able to protect anyone? The thought, insidious and vile in its honesty, is a reminder of what happened the last time I promised I’d protect someone.
“I’ll keep your brother safe. Don’t worry.”
It was the final time Sergio and I spoke before Armani died, and I find the similarities between that moment and this one almost eerie. Back then, I failed Armani. I failed Sergio. I won’t fail Bianca and Livia. I’m no hero, but something about the Ice Princess compels me to pretend otherwise.
“Excuse me, mister?” We pull apart, panting, to discover a smirking valet a foot away with my keys in hand.
“Where’d you park my car? Jersey?” I snatch my keys from the wide-eyed youth and open the door for Bianca. Once we get in, I punch the gas so hard that the wheels spin out, leaving a cloud of exhaust behind us.
Bianca’s fingers brush my cheek. The wildness in her eyes brings to mind a lioness I once saw at the zoo. A perfect, powerful hunter forced to bow her head and simmer behind the metal bars. How much longer before she remembers that she has teeth and claws that can inflict damage?
With a strangled sob, she launches herself at me like I’m the opening in her enclosure. The car swerves as she crawls over the center console to trail hot, desperate kisses down my jaw. My neck. The shell of my ear.
Fuck.
The top is down, and I’m going fifty in a thirty, but her lips are soft, and she smells sweet and ripe. Golden brown curls whirl around us, blinding us both. Her tongue explores my skin with growing demand , and we’re flying and falling at the same time.
Bianca pulls away to paw at my belt, the metal clinking as she wrenches it open. From the corner of my eye, I spot a building still under construction, and I whip the car to the right. We punch through the chain intended to keep pedestrians out and skid to a stop beneath a dark overhang.
I barely manage to get the car into park before Bianca liberates my cock from my pants. Everything about her lures me in as she hauls herself over the console and hikes up her dress.
“Now. I need you inside of me now.”
I shift the seat back and our hands tangle as we work to get my pants down. She palms my shaft and positions me at the entrance of her pussy. As I capture her mouth, she sinks down my length, taking all of me with a whimper.
Being inside her feels like coming home. She’s become my anchor and my peace, a woman I never thought I’d need, yet now I can’t even imagine living without.
Her head falls back as she rides me, and I trap her throat with one hand while the other slides down her body, rolling her nipple between two fingers and testing the weight of her breast before gliding across her ribs.
Bianca bucks against the steering wheel, and I guide her waist into a dance to meet my upward thrusts, my eyes trained on the way my cock stretches her delicate pink flesh.
Every time I think I’m too big to fit, she swallows me whole, my member disappearing into her channel over and over and over again.
My dick grows slick with her juices, and the heady scent of her perfume mixes with the sweet musk of her skin until hunger gnaws at me.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat a plum again without thinking of her ripe pussy or the plumpness of her breasts on my tongue as I suck her nipple into my mouth.
This is what it feels like, what it tastes like, what it sounds like to be completely ruined by a person. To know that nothing and no one who comes after them will ever be enough to fill the hole they’ve dug within you.
Bianca’s arms circle my neck, and she presses her forehead against mine so that our breath mingles. “Don’t pull out this time, Marco.” My cock throbs at the command in her voice. “Let me feel you come inside me.”
With a blanking mind, I growl my agreement against her mouth, gripping her hips to drive inside of her as deep as I can go.
“Principessa, mia principessa.” I bite the lobe of her ear and drag my lips down to her shoulder, claiming flesh with my teeth. I’ll mark her in every way I know how. No one will ever look at her again and mistake who she belongs to. “Don’t push me away again. I’m not going anywhere. You’re mine.”
Bianca grips my face so that I have no choice but to meet her eyes. “And you’re mine.”
I’m definitely a goner.
I don’t hold back as I snap my hips, and she takes everything I give her. We’re two forces of nature colliding in the dark, tearing each other apart until the pressure bursts and the world completely drops away.
I grit my teeth, my muscles straining as my orgasm mounts, and our movements become frenzied and urgent. Draping my arms around her, I mold our bodies into one. Her heat pulses around me, and I’m powerless to hold back the release I so desperately crave.
Bianca breaks through the haze of my pleasure, her voice a hot fan against my ear. “I love you.”
The words catapult me over the edge with a roar, my fingers digging into her waist hard enough to bruise. I come deep inside of her, my hips pumping upward to give her every drop of me.
Bianca writhes in my arms like a wild thing, and her uninhibited cries are absolute music to my ears. I keep thrusting as her orgasm takes over, driven by a single, all-consuming thought. This woman belongs to me, inside and out, and I will claim every inch of her before I ever let her forget it.
Entwined in the dark, it’s impossible to tell where one of us stops and the other begins. One round ceases and morphs into a second without a pause in between to mark them.
Time is lost in the shape of her waist and the taste of her mouth, and somewhere along the line, I fail to remind her that I’m a man in the habit of making promises I never manage to keep.