Chapter 11 Luciano
Luciano
Apiercing scream shatters through the silence of the night.
Snatching the gun from behind my bedside table, I rush out my bedroom door.
The soldier stationed outside Charlie’s opens it straight away when he sees me.
Walking into her room, what I see stops me cold in my tracks, which doesn’t happen often.
Charlie is tangled in her sheets, thrashing violently, her voice breaking as she pleads, “Please… stop.”
Tears carve silent trails down her cheeks, her body trapped in the middle of a nightmare that’s dragging her back to the torture. I climb onto her bed and pull her against my chest. She tries to fight me, clawing at my face, desperate to push away from me or who she thinks is torturing her.
She screams, “Stay away from me!” as a slap lands across my face. I should be furious, but I know she isn’t herself right now.
I seize her wrists, pressing them flat against my body. “I’ve got you, Principessa,” I whisper, my fingers threading through her long brunette hair with the softness she deserves, and not my usual anger.
Her whispered pleas continue in her sleep, “Please stop,” haunted and fragile.
I keep stroking, murmuring, “You’re safe,” repeatedly into her ear, grounding her in the present even as her mind wanders.
She doesn’t wake, but the trembling in her body eases as she curls into my side, her head against my chest, her leg draped over mine.
I lie beneath her, on high alert and restless, waiting for her nightmare to return. But it doesn’t.
For the next three nights, the same horror haunts her, and every night I slip quietly into her room, holding her until the storm inside her calms. With each passing night, exhaustion starts to pull at me, and I’m unable to stay awake when my body gives in and I drift into sleep beside her.
I slip away silently in the mornings before she wakes up because if she knew I was there, guarding her through her darkest moments, she would be furious.
Charlie may put on a brave face during the day, but I’ve noticed when she’s alone, her fears unleash, and beneath my hardened exterior, the guilt keeps eating at me.
I vowed that I would protect her—keeping her hidden at the estate where I thought she was the safest turned out to be the most dangerous.
I failed. And every time she suffers from a nightmare, I feel it deep in my bones: the oath to Caterina that I broke.