Chapter 10 NORA
NORA
My skin still burned from Luca's mouth hovering inches from mine in the corridor.
That near-miss, paired with the news of another throat slit in town, made the estate walls feel like they were closing in.
I walked fast down the corridor, avoiding guards with automatic rifles who watched my feet like target practice.
I slipped past heavy oak doors and pushed straight into the back conservatory at the far end of the garden.
The air inside was warm and thick with the scent of damp soil and blooming lemon trees, a quiet corner where nobody could hear my racing pulse.
Enzo was already there. He stood near a long metal table covered in potted citrus trees, sleeves rolled up, scowling at a pruning knife like it had insulted his mother. He snapped his head up the second the latch clicked behind me.
"You lost?" He flicked a grease-blackened rag onto the zinc counter and folded his arms over his chest.
I leaned back against a wooden post. "I got tired of your brother staring at me like he wants to shoot me or throw me in a cellar. I wanted one quiet room in this place where nobody is glaring at me."
"Good luck finding that here, Blake." Enzo twirled the heavy shears around his finger and tossed them onto the table. "Luca does not glare for fun. When he stares like that, it means he is figuring out who needs to be buried next."
I stepped past a lemon tree and flicked dirt off a leaf. "That makes me feel so much better. Does all that planning include keeping me in one piece?"
Enzo leaned back against the bench with a smirk. "You threw a hard bread roll at Matteo's forehead two nights ago."
"I call that team bonding," I fired back, poke to a bruised lemon on a branch. "The man was whining about his hair gel. He practically begged for a bread roll to the head."
Enzo shook his head with a grin. "You joke around a lot for someone locked in a house full of guns. Most people would be crying under a bed by now."
I shoved my hands deep into my pockets so he would not see my fingers shaking. "I am terrified. I just do not let people see me break down. It ruins my focus."
"How much for you to stand quietly in a corner for ten minutes?" He tilted his chin, curiosity flashing across his face.
I crossed my arms over my chest. "Two grand cash up front. Plus food and cab fare."
He let out a short, rough bark of laughter. Then the humor vanished entirely from his eyes. His head snapped toward the far perimeter of glass. Outside in the shadows, a shape shifted awkwardly along the iron trellis. Enzo dropped his shoulders, his stance hardening into sheer combat instinct.
"Get behind the planting table." He lowered his tone until it rasped against the glass like sandpaper.
"Excuse me?" I straightened up, scanning the dark foliage behind him.
"Now, Nora! Move your feet!" He shoved me violently behind the heavy galvanized bench with one sweep of his forearm.
I ducked behind the potting bench as the side glass panel shattered inward with a sharp crack. A man in tactical dark cloth cleared the frame with a short blade already drawn. His focus snapped right onto Enzo with lethal precision.
Enzo did not hesitate. He crossed the floor in three brutal strides, lunging before the intruder could steady his stance.
The steel blade slashed through the humid air.
Enzo trapped the attacker's wrist, wrenched it down, and smashed his elbow directly into the man's neck.
They crashed sideways into a tiered wooden rack.
Terracotta pots shattered across the paving.
Soil flew. The blade came around again in a wild arc, slicing Enzo across his ribs.
Enzo hissed through clenched teeth, gripped the man by the throat, and quit holding back.
He wrenched the attacker's arm backward until the shoulder popped, spun him around, and drove the heavy steel blade upward beneath the rib cage.
The impact made a wet, heavy thump. The intruder folded completely as his knees gave out.
Dark blood spilled onto the white flagstones in a wide puddle.
Enzo held the weight for one second before letting the body crash onto the dirt.
The man gave one shudder and lay motionless.
I gripped the edge of the table until my knuckles turned chalk white.
The coppery reek of opened veins flooded the damp air, overpowering the citrus blossoms. I had resolved boardroom meltdowns and negotiated multimillion-pound ransom payouts across three continents, but I had never watched a man get gutted five paces from my shoes.
Enzo wiped a streak of blood off his cheek with his sleeve, chest heaving like a bellows. "You still in one piece?"
I gasped, words coming thin and rough as I stared at the blood on the tiles. "Define in one piece. My heart is pounding out of my chest and I think I might throw up, but nothing fell off."
"He had a knife." Enzo groaned, hand clamped over the gash along his side as dark red seeped through his shirt. "You saw him."
I swallowed the sour taste in my mouth, backing away from the body. "I saw it. I feel sick. God, I need to sit down."
Enzo leaned hard against a wooden beam, clutching his side. "Do not pass out on me now."
"I never pass out, you jerk," I snapped back, though my legs felt like jelly underneath me.
"Stay on your feet then." He coughed, hand pressed tighter against his bloody ribs. "Because Luca is about to lose his mind."
The heavy iron doors crashed open against the stone frames with enough force to vibrate the glass panels overhead.
Luca crossed the threshold with a pistol drawn low and flat at his hip.
His eyes ripped across the dead body on the tiles, noted the red dripping from Enzo's fingers, and slammed directly into mine.
He processed the entire disaster in the space of a heartbeat.
"Nora." He holstered the weapon in one clean snap, stepped over the dead man's legs without glancing down, and planted himself directly in front of me. His large palm locked onto my waist, fingers gripping hard through the knit of my sweater to anchor me against him. "Did he touch you?"
Both my shaking hands rested against his hard chest as I felt him breathing fast. "No, I am fine. He never touched me. He went straight for Enzo."
"Bellini scout breached the garden lattice," Enzo reported, both palms raised to show the blood. "I put him down before he got near the main house."
Luca completely ignored his brother. He kept his eyes locked on my face, his fingers gripping tight into the curve of my waist. His hold was heavy, firm, and uncompromising. "You are getting out of here right now."
I pushed lightly against his shoulder, though my fingers remained bunched in his jacket. "I can walk on my own, Luca."
He pulled me flush against his side. "I know you can walk. I am holding onto you anyway."
He spun me around and steered me toward the exit corridor, matching my stride while keeping his arm locked like a vise around my middle.
Enzo shouted something behind us about security tapes and body bags.
Luca kicked the double doors shut with the heel of his boot and kept marching us down the dimly lit hallway.
"Stop dragging me around like a sack of potatoes," I hissed, my shoulder bumping his ribs with every rapid step. "I told you I am fine!"
Luca snapped, his arm tightening around my ribs as he hauled me forward. "You looked like you were going into shock. I am getting you somewhere safe."
I looked up into his tense face. "I was not in shock, I was just trying not to vomit. Watching someone get stabbed right in front of me is not exactly part of my normal workday."
"You talk way too much when you are scared," he muttered, yanking me sideways into a dark stone corner.
"I talk because you people are insane!" I countered, grabbing a handful of his shirt.
He shoved me back into the arched recess, planting his hands on either side of my head against the cold stone. His chest pressed directly over mine, trapping me between the solid wall and his furnace heat. His dark eyes drilled into mine, hot and dangerous.
"You were three feet away from a man with a knife," he said, his voice dropping into a harsh rasp that rattled through my ribs. "Your whole body is shaking. Your lips are pale. And you are still trying to argue with me. Shut up and breathe."
I gripped his lapels and pulled him down close, my breath shallow. "Arguing is the only thing keeping me from falling apart right now, Moretti. If you wanted a sweet girl who faints when she sees blood, you should have grabbed the right woman from the street."
"I do not care about her," he whispered against my mouth, his warm hand slipping under the edge of my sweater to press against my skin. "I care that you are safe. I want you away from the blood. And I want you to stop driving me crazy before I lose my temper."
I lifted my chin and pressed my hips straight against his front. "Then stop talking and do something. Or can you only bark orders from behind a desk?"
His jaw clenched, and whatever leash he held snapped clean in two.
He took my mouth with a rough, hungry brutality that stole the oxygen straight out of my lungs.
His tongue pushed past my lips, demanding and possessive, and I parted for him instantly because fighting his gravity was useless.
His hand slid higher up my chest, thumb brushing across the sensitive underside of my breast. A broken gasp caught in my throat, and he swallowed the sound, nipping my bottom lip hard enough to draw a sharp whimper before licking the sting away.
"Luca." My nails dug through his shirt into his broad shoulders as I gasped against his jaw. "Your brother just killed someone in the next room and you are pinning me against a wall. You are totally crazy."
Luca pressed his mouth against my neck, lifting my leg up around his waist. "I am making sure you are awake and alive." He rolled his hips hard against mine, making my head spin. "Feel that? Look at me. Forget the dead man on the floor. Focus on me."
I clung to his coat as heat rushed all the way through me. "I can feel you. Do you do this every time someone tries to break into your house?"
He let out a rough laugh against my skin, driving his hips forward until my knees went weak. "Keep talking like that. See what happens when I get you behind a locked door."
"Is that a promise? Because I still hate you for bringing me here in the first place." My breath caught as the fear melted into a dark, heavy ache.
He nipped at the spot where my shoulder met my neck. "You can hate me all you want." His hand squeezed my chest, fingers drawing a soft cry against his ear. "Later. When we are safe. Right now I have to get you out of this hall before more men show up."
I gripped his jaw in both hands and pulled his face down into another searing, filthy kiss, refusing to let him hold all the leverage.
He groaned deep in his chest, pressing his heavy erection relentlessly against the seam of my jeans until my whole body ached with want.
For ten seconds there was only heat, friction, and the scent of gunpowder and citrus on his skin.
Then he pulled back, chest heaving as he stared down at me with dilated eyes.
"Enough." He lowered my leg back to the stone floor, his breathing ragged. His fingers slid from my chest back to my waist, settling in a firm, unyielding clamp. "Walk with me."
He steered me down the corridor, and this time I did not offer any witty objections.
My lips stung from his stubble, and my pulse beat hot and erratic against my ribs.
Behind us in the greenhouse, Enzo was scrubbing out the reality of our new war.
Ahead of us, the estate echoed with guards shouting orders and doors locking down.
Luca's grip never loosened from my side, holding me firmly against him as if he had no intention of ever letting me go.
Alarm began to chime softly in the distance. The Moretti family was locking down for battle, and Luca held me against his flank like the one asset he refused to lose under any circumstances.