Chapter Fifty-One
Lucas
“Good, because it is exactly what I want.”
Her words cleave my chest open to the point where I can’t breathe.
I had forced her into this marriage, hadn’t I?
I can’t fight any more, my strength is deserting me as I let my head hang in surrender.
It’s a good thing I won’t be suffering for long—Lorenzo will most likely make good on his promise and end me soon.
Good. The cracked rib, the wounds scattered over my body, the throb in my skull, all this doesn’t hurt as much as her words.
She’s leaving me. I’ve lost. Death will be sweet, because at least I’ll have the memories of her to take with me.
Chiara circles behind me, her hands pressing down on my shoulders. She leans forward now, plastering her small body against my back.
“You want one last truth, Lucas?” she murmurs against my ear. “I never loved you.”
My whole body goes rigid and my breath stutters. I can’t believe what my mind is frantically trying to tell me. No… This can’t be. But there’s no mistake.
My beautiful, brave, reckless wife!
I let my head hang lower, so my bound hands shift higher behind me.
The zip tie bites into my skin as I flex my fingers.
I reach back blindly, slowly, steadily, and there it is—the outline of a blade beneath her dress, strapped against her inner thigh.
I desperately grope for it, trying to remain as immobile as possible while she continues taunting me.
She leans farther down, her hands still on my shoulders as if to gauge my reaction.
I angle my fingers and the knife slides free into my hands.
As soon as the knife is in my grasp, Chiara straightens and walks toward Lorenzo in a seductive way that makes me want to gouge his eyes out with my fingers.
My heart slams against my ribs as I curl my fingers inward, angling the blade up to slide it between my skin and the zip ties.
The edge bites into my skin, but I don’t care.
“I’m sure I can distract you from your responsibilities.
Just for a little while,” she tells him in a low husky voice, and I can hear the meaning behind this one word.
My heart stops. Hope surges through me, acute and devastating, that maybe, just maybe, she didn’t mean the words that ripped my soul out seconds earlier.
The guard steps out while Chiara is talking to Lorenzo, giving me the time I need to saw at the ties without being found out.
Then she kisses him and the world fucking stops.
The air wooshes out of my lungs and a red haze threatens to drown me when he greedily kisses her back.
I suspect, no…I know that she must be using my advice and is distracting him, but my body and mind are straining, protesting against what I see.
However, before I can howl in rage and agony, she moves, fast as lightning.
She pivots, catches Lorenzo off balance, and throws him backward. My mind clears and the urgency of the situation makes me saw faster at the restraints. But the angle is awkward, and I cut myself more often than I damage the thick plastic ties.
They both hit the cold steel plating of the ship’s floor in a tangle of limbs, her momentum slamming him hard to the ground.
For a heartbeat, she has him. Then Lorenzo’s strength takes over.
He snarls, grabs a fistful of her dress, and flips her beneath him in one brutal motion.
Her back and head smack against the floor.
She gasps but she’s still fighting, still punching and bucking.
He pins her wrists with one hand. With the other, he grabs her throat, cutting off the air from her lungs.
“I should just kill you,” he spits, leaning in close, face distorted with hatred. “Like I killed your coward father.”
Chiara freezes, eyes turning huge.
Why the fuck won’t the ties break? I cut faster, sweat and blood running into my eyes and slicking my fingers.
Lorenzo sneers, cold and vicious. “Oh, you thought he fell? He begged for your life. Begged. And when he refused to give up your location…” He shrugs. “I snapped his neck myself.”
A breathless sob escapes her lips, and her chest starts to heave as his fingers dig into her throat.
He leans closer with a vicious gleam in his eyes, his face hovering over hers.
“But no. I won’t kill you. You’re far too valuable to waste,” he goes on.
“Do you know what someone like you fetches? Well-bred, once you’re properly trained. ”
She thrashes, but his hold on her doesn’t falter.
He leans closer still, voice dropping to a murmur.
“You’ll sign the papers, you’ll be my wife.
And when I’m finished with you…” He chuckles.
“You go to market. You’ll be the crown piece of my empire, my clients will pay a fortune for something like you. ”
Chiara’s entire body goes still as understanding widens her eyes.
“Manti…core… It’s…you…” Her voice is hoarse and strained as the air pushes through her constricted throat.
Lorenzo smirks. “Smart girl, took you long enough.”
She remains frozen for a beat, but then something flashes in her eyes.
Unfettered rage. She spits up into his face and he rears back, releasing her wrists to wipe at his face.
She uses the diversion to buck against him and throws him off balance, then she dives a hand beneath her skirt to pull out a second blade strapped around her other leg.
Lorenzo realizes too late.
Everything unfolds in slow motion between the dull thuds of my heart. My vision tunnels and time stops.
Thump.
She drives the knife into his thigh with a loud cry.
He roars, collapsing sideways, clutching his leg where the bloodstain begins to spread.
Thump.
The door slams open and the two guards burst in at the sound, their hands reaching for their guns.
Exactly then, my zip tie snaps.
Thump.
I lunge across the room to skid over the table toward the gun.
Thump.
My hand closes around the grip and I fire.
Once. Twice. Two clean shots. Two collapsing bodies.
Another thump.
I fire two more shots, one in each of Lorenzo’s shoulders. He crashes backward with a howl.
Then there’s silence. And my mind snaps back to the moment.
Chiara is already scrambling backward, clutching her throat, chest heaving and eyes blazing with a mix of disbelief, grief and fury.
Lorenzo is slumped against the wall, breath ragged, the knife protruding from his thigh. Rage and pain distort his face, turning it into something inhuman.
I keep the gun trained at him, but my eyes are on Chiara. I assess her state. She looks shocked, her face is bruised, and her throat already shows purple finger marks. I try to contain my rage and anguish at seeing her hurt.
“Cara mia,” I rasp, my voice barely a hoarse whisper. I’m on my knees in front of her in a beat. My heart is ready to give out in my chest. It will probably stop forever if she pushes me away. But I can’t help myself, I reach out to her, despite everything.
Her eyes snap to mine, and widen a fraction as they fill with recognition, then relief.
The next second, she’s in my arms. She collapses against me with a soft, broken sob, and just like that, breath slams back into my lungs so hard I sway. I wrap myself around her, holding her like she’s the only thing tethering me to this life. She certainly is.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper over and over into her hair, not sure if I’m reassuring her or myself.
Slowly, we stand up, my arm around her and her hand gripping my shirt.
Lorenzo is on his knees, bleeding, seething, glaring up at us like a cornered animal.
Chiara looks briefly down at him, then back at me, resolve written all over her face. I instantly understand what she is saying without words.
“My fierce little warrior,” I rasp, looking down into her hazel eyes. “If anyone has the right to end him, it’s you.”
Chiara’s breath stutters. I unlock the gun and extend it toward her. Her eyes snap up to mine and she hesitates.
“Don’t you need him alive?” she asks in a strained voice. “For interrogation? A trial?”
“We do,” I say evenly. “And if you tell me no, he lives—for now. I’ll take him away, and you’ll never have to think about this moment again.”
She furrows her brows, eyes filled with uncertainty.
“I’m giving you this choice. He’s yours.” I hold her gaze, steadfast. “You decide what happens next.”
Her eyes widen and she wavers for a beat. Then she slowly reaches out to take the gun from my fingers and turns toward the slumped form. Her fingers shake, but her grip is sure when she raises it and points it directly at Lorenzo’s forehead.
“You!” she snarls at Lorenzo, grief and fury mingling in her voice. “Your organization hurt Lily. They killed my mother.” She pauses for a beat, hand tightening around the gun. “And you killed my father. You destroyed so many lives. But no more.”
Her finger settles on the trigger. She looks up at me, as if to search for strength. I don’t say anything, I just hold her gaze, telling her in silence—You’re not wrong for wanting justice. You’re not weak for hesitating. This choice is yours. And I’m here. Whatever you decide, I’m here.
Her breath shudders and she looks back at Lorenzo.
“Chiara,” he starts to plead, when he sees the resolve in her gaze. “You don’t want to—”
The shot rings loudly in the small room, making the ensuing silence even more deafening.
Lorenzo’s body slumps to the side, eyes wide, a hole in his forehead.
“Cara mia,” I say softly, brushing my hand along her arm toward her hand to wrap around the gun. She lets it go, breathing hard, eyes glued to Lorenzo’s body. I put the safety back on and put the gun into my back holster.
She turns to me, face pale but eyes shining. “I don’t regret doing it,” she says, lifting her chin.
I exhale a harsh, trembling breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “You’re the strongest, bravest person I’ve ever met, love,” I murmur. She looks up into my eyes and her gaze locks with mine. For a breath, we don’t move.
Then we clash.
I cup her face, mindful of the bruises blooming across her cheek and around her throat.
She fists her hands in the front of my shirt, and her mouth is on mine, desperate, shaking, electric.
All-consuming. We stumble a step, bodies and tongues tangled, and some dark part of me revels in the fact that we’re kissing over the bastard’s corpse.
I pull her flush against me but the pain in my ribs makes me flinch.
She breaks the kiss with a sharp inhale, resting her forehead against my chest. “Lucas… you’re hurt.”
I grab her chin to tilt her face up and drag my thumb across her cheek. “I’m fine,” I rasp, meaning every word. “Because you’re still mine.”
The answer makes her breath hitch, but before she can say anything, the echo of distant shouting shatters the moment. Then there’s gunfire. My instincts snap instantly back online. I shove Chiara behind me and pull out the gun at the exact moment shadows emerge from the hallway.
D comes into sight first, rushing toward us weapon in hand. Teo is right on his heels.
They freeze when they see us. Then D mutters a vicious curse when he spots the blood on my face and shirt. They step inside the room, toward us, D holstering his weapon, his gaze already sweeping the room in a threat assessment done in under two seconds.
“We’ve got the whole ship secured,” Teo says, already moving toward Lorenzo’s body to confirm the kill. Then he straightens and steps nearer. “We came as fast as we could.”
“How…” My mind is reeling.
D’s eyes dart to Chiara, then back to me, something like respect glinting in their depths. “Because,” he says with a pointed look at me, “your wife reached out.”
I blink. “What?”
Chiara shifts behind me, and her fingers hook lightly into the back of my shirt. D continues. “She sent Erin a message from a burner phone before she walked in here. Enough info for us to track the location and storm the damn place.”
Teo snorts. “Good thing, too. You weren’t exactly in great negotiating shape.”
I huff, but I can’t miss the slight lift of the corner of his lips. I smirk back.
Then I turn to Chiara. “You did that?”
She nods, eyes tired but bright. “I wasn’t going in blind. You think I’d let them take you from me?”
My breath is ripped out of me, and fuck my bruised ribs, my split lip and broken nose, the throbbing at the back of my skull, none of it aches half as much as the swell in my chest.
“Come here.” I breathe, pulling her into me.