Milo
I don’t even park the car.
The engine is still running when I’m out, slamming the door shut and sprinting toward the steps of our house.
Fire engines crowd the drive inside the estate, red and blue lights flash across the facade, straight into my skull.
My heart is in my fucking throat.
I feel like I’m dying.
I shove past the first responder and burst inside.
The kitchen is wrecked, but not destroyed. The oven is blown, the wall blackened with smoke. It’s replaceable.
All of it is replaceable.
I don’t bloody care.
The house could have burned to the ground, and I wouldn’t have cared so long as she was safe.
“Where is she?” I snarl at Adriano.
Before he can answer, one of the firefighters points toward the living room.
I’m already moving.
She’s sitting on the sofa, hands folded in her lap, soot is smudged faintly on her sleeve.
But she’s breathing.
Damn it.
My lungs finally work.
I shut the door behind us and drop to my knees in front of her.
“Are you okay?” I ask roughly. “Did you hurt yourself?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
The firefighter excuses himself and steps away.
She rolls her eyes. “It wasn’t that big of a deal. I had it under control.”
“How the fuck did you have it under control?” I growl. “You never try to put out a fire, gorgeous. If you see one, you run in the opposite direction.”
“Fuck,” I say, dropping my head into her lap as her fingers slide into my hair. “If you’d been hurt… I can’t…”
“I wasn’t,” she says softly. “I just wanted to make some damn cookies.”
I lift my head and stare at her.
“But they burned,” she adds.
“Good riddance,” Adriano mutters as he steps inside.
I send him a murderous look.
She narrows her eyes at him, then turns back to me. “I fell asleep on the sofa while they were in the oven.”
My chest tightens.
“You’re exhausted and you’re not sleeping enough,” I growl.
She smiles. “Neither are you.”
She’s right.
Between Death, her father’s mess, alliances, meetings, rival families testing her limits, there hasn’t been much rest. She’s been negotiating with men who refuse to bow to a woman, persuading some, threatening others, outplaying all of them.
She carries everything.
And I hate how tired she is.
I swear I will steal her away to an island soon. She needs more rest.
Adriano’s phone rings.
He answers without a word, listens, and his expression changes.
He looks at me, then at her.
“It’s time,” he says.
She only nods, understanding in her eyes, a faint hint of hurt crosses her face. After all, he was her father. But we all knew this life would catch up with him sooner or later, especially with how reckless he was.
I look at my wife, as she straightens slowly, her shoulders lifting.
She looks… ready.
A queen stepping into her crown.
“I suppose we had a few years of glorious freedom,” she says with a small smile, meaning the years after our wedding, when we travelled and lived as we pleased.
I shake my head and kiss her lips.
“We still have all the freedom in the world, gorgeous,” I tell her. “This is just another step. You becoming who you were always meant to be.”
“With you, always at my side,” she says.
“I love you,” she adds.
“So fucking much,” I murmur.
“Even that’s too little,” I say. “For what I really feel for you.”
I kiss her again.
“This isn’t the end,” I murmur against her lips.
She smiles. “It’s the beginning.”
And it is.
My father lies in the ground where he belongs.
Hers is gone as well.
And Octavia Bellanti is about to rule, with me at her side, following her every command, making certain she has everything she needs.
I would burn the world for my woman.
She is my fucking salvation, and in some crooked way I am hers.
Two broken people, made whole together.
The End.