CHAPTER 46
Marcello
Roxanne was still asleep when I woke. Curled into me like there was nowhere else her body instinctively reached for anymore.
The sheets were tangled around her legs, her hair spilling across my arm, her breath warm against my neck, and her breasts pressed against my bare chest. There was a dangerous vulnerability in the way she lay there—boneless beneath the sheets.
Exhaustion had finally pried her fingers loose from the careful control she’d clung to for weeks.
Slowly, I shifted, not wanting to wake her.
My fingers traced slow, absent circles from her shoulder to the hollow of her waist, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath my hand.
She stirred slightly, her brows knitting for a second before smoothing again when I leaned down and pressed a kiss to her temple.
She didn’t wake. She needed the sleep. Last night had wrung something out of her I wasn’t sure she knew how to name yet.
It hadn’t been gentle or restrained. It had been desperate.
A collision between everything we’d nearly lost and everything we’d chosen to keep.
I had never been subtle about her. Not because I needed an audience. Because some instincts in me refused restraint where she was concerned.
Roxanne walked into a room, and my attention followed automatically. A hand at her waist. Fingers at the back of her neck. My mouth on hers before anyone else got too comfortable looking at what belonged to me.
Once, I thought that instinct was possession. Simple. Primitive. Absolute. Now I understood it differently. It wasn’t ownership. It was the relentless need to know she still chose me.
Back then, certainty had come easily. I kissed her like nothing in the world could take her from me. Now I knew better. And somehow, I loved her harder because of it.
And this time, it was different. Not because I held her any less. But because now—I knew exactly what it cost me to do it.And I did it anyway.
Maybe love wasn’t measured by how tightly you held on. Maybe it was measured by what you were willing to survive to keep them.
I sat up slowly, dragging a hand over my face, exhaling through the reality of us that hadn’t quite settled in my chest since the night before.
The room was quiet. And for a moment, I let myself sit in it. Because this was the part no one saw. The part that came after the decision.
I had seen it. Long before any of this. The way she laughed differently around Santino. The way a part of her came alive in ways I couldn’t reach. I had noticed it. Measured it. And then—ignored it.
Because she always came back to me. And as long as she did, I told myself it didn’t matter. I was wrong.
I used to think I understood her. Now I understood there were parts of her I had never known how to reach.
My gaze drifted back to her. She hadn’t moved. Still curled into the space I had left behind, like her body hadn’t realised I wasn’t there anymore. My jaw flexed before I could stop it, chest tightening hard enough to ache.
She came back.
Even after crossing a line that should have ended everything. Even after becoming the kind of complication men like me were taught to eliminate. She came back. To me.
And that was the only truth that mattered now.
I stood, grabbing my shirt from the floor, pulling it on before stepping out of the room.
The villa was quiet this early. No children. No movement.Just the faint sound of the sea beyond the terrace and the low hum of a house that had yet to wake. It should have felt like control. It didn’t.
Because control would have been easy. Control would have meant ending it.
Him.
Her.
Everything.
Instead, I was here. Making coffee in a kitchen that felt too still. Thinking about the man I had already chosen not to kill.Thinking about the woman sleeping in my bed who had broken every rule I had ever lived by. And choosing her anyway.
I exhaled slowly as I braced my hands against the counter, head dropping forward for just a second. This wasn’t weakness. That was the mistake people would make.
This was control. The kind most men didn’t have.
Control was never about fear. It was about deciding what survived me. Because anyone could destroy what didn’t fit neatly into their world. It took restraint to let it exist and live with it anyway.
The silence behind me shifted. Just enough for instinct to tighten along my spine. I didn’t turn immediately. I already knew who it was.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
His voice was rougher than I remembered. Lower.
I turned slowly. Santino stood in the doorway.
Alive. Because I’d allowed it.
He looked like hell. Pale beneath the bruising, a bandage visible where his shirt sat too loosely against his chest.He moved carefully now, like his body still hadn’t forgiven him for surviving. But his eyes—those hadn’t changed.
At first I didn’t respond. The silence stretched between us, taut, holding everything we both understood, because there was nothing simple about what stood between us.
“Does she know you called me back?”
“Not yet,” I said.
He didn’t move. Just stood there like he already knew what it meant. I let the silence stretch a second longer. Not to intimidate him, but to make sure he understood.
Then—
“You don’t come back into my house like nothing’s changed,” I said.
His gaze didn’t waver. I straightened slightly.
“If you stay,” I continued, my voice dropping just slightly, “you do it on my terms.”
His expression didn’t shift much. But I saw the tension leave him.
“Which are?” he asked lazily.
I held his gaze. Steady. Unmoving.
“You don’t take from me,” I warned. “And you don’t make her choose.”
I held his gaze a second longer.
“You also don’t confuse being loved with being chosen.”
Silence. Then a slow, understanding nod.
“Fair,” he said.
The sound of bare feet interrupted us.
“Marci, I really need that cof—”
She stopped. For a moment, everything stilled.
She stood in the doorway, frozen. Wearing my shirt, the fabric falling mid-thigh, loose against her body, swallowing her whole in a way that nearly made me drag her back upstairs.
Her hair was tied into a messy bun, unruly strands falling loose around her face.And her skin—still warm, still flushed—carrying the warmth of the night before. She looked like she belonged here.
And then she saw him. Her lips parted soundlessly, her entire body going still before the breath left her in a sharp, broken exhale. For a second she didn’t move, just stood there staring at him like she had seen a ghost.
“You… you’re alive.” Her voice broke on the last word, tears welling in her eyes.
He cocked his head to the side and smiled.
“You asked me to stay.”
She looked at me, not for permission, but confirmation. I gave her a small nod. That was all it took. She moved fast. Crossing the distance between them and collided into him.
“Easy there, little Volpi,” he murmured.
She didn’t listen. She buried her face into his chest and held on.
“I thought I lost you.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“You think it’d be that easy to get rid of me?”
She laughed broken, breathless, and then—she hit him hard.
“You came back,” she said, her voice shaking.
Another blow landed against his shoulder.
“You got shot.”
And then she was pulling him into her, holding him like she couldn’t risk letting go. I watched without moving. The instinct to stop it came sharp and immediate. I ignored it, because this was what I had chosen.
“You’re okay,” she said.
“I told you,” he murmured against her hair, “I wasn’t leaving.”
He tucked the loose strands of hair behind her ear and cupped her face, looking at her for a second longer than necessary.
That’s when I saw it. The gentleness in his eyes as though the world only narrowed down to her and nothing else.
A tenderness I’d never seen him offer anyone. And that told me everything.
“I think part of you already knew,” he said quietly. “Maybe before either of us admitted it.”
Her breath caught, but she didn’t look away. She bit her lip, uncertain, a rare flash of shyness slipping through for the first time. His expression softened then, brief enough most people would’ve missed it. He brushed his nose lightly against hers.
“I almost died with it inside me,” his voice roughened. “And I was so fucking angry.”
Her brows drew together.
“I wasn’t angry about the bullet. I wasn’t angry about Darius. I was angry because I thought I’d leave this world without you knowing.”
His thumb trembled slightly against her cheek. His eyes searched her face.
“Roxy…”
His breath left him unevenly.
“I love you.”
The words seemed to hurt as they came out.
“I’ve loved you for so long I forgot what life looked like before it. And when I thought I was dying…”
He swallowed hard.
“I wasn’t scared. I was furious.”
Her brows knitted.
“Because I kept thinking…” His eyes shut briefly.
“I never told you.” His eyes opened again.
“I never told you how much you mean to me. That I love you so much it hurts. And that would’ve been the only regret I took with me.”
Her breath hitched and she let out a whimper.
“I never got to tell you too.”
“I already know.”
He leaned in close enough that she stilled. Instead, he pressed his lips to the top of her head, slowly. Santino caught the tear before it could fall, his thumb brushing beneath her eye with a tenderness that sat strangely on a man like him.
Jealousy crawled hot and immediate through me. I swallowed it whole. Because this was the reality now. And my heart already belonged to her anyway.
Then—slowly, she turned to face me, wiping away her tears. Santino didn’t let go. His hand was at her waist. My grip tightened around the coffee mug.
So this was what surrender felt like. A man learning to live with what he’d chosen.
She looked between the two of us.
“I don’t know what this is supposed to make me,” she whispered.
Her voice wasn’t steady—but it wasn’t breaking either.
“I don’t know what I’m meant to be anymore.”
A breath. Her gaze lifted and met mine. Steady. Not hiding this time.
“I just know…” Her breath hitched. “I can’t choose between you.”
She looked down at her hands.
“And I don’t want to,” she said, finally admitting.
We stood in silence for a moment, letting her words settle between us. I didn’t fully understand what we were becoming.But I understood her. I walked toward her slowly, my hand settling beneath her chin before I lifted her gaze back to mine.
“I’m not asking you to.”
Santino looked at me in understanding.
I kissed her slowly. My forehead met hers, and she let out a deep breath. Her hands came around my neck, holding me there.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
My thumb brushed the side of her throat.
“For what?”
Her eyes lifted to mine. Fresh tears gathered there.
“For not killing him.”
The words came out quietly. There was no accusation or guilt in her voice. Just honesty.
For a second, neither of us spoke. Because we both knew she had spent weeks believing I’d done exactly that. My thumb moved slowly against her skin.
Control had always been mine to wield. But never against her. And just like that, something in me gave. My shoulders relaxed slightly, loosening the tension I hadn’t realised I was holding.
“Amore,” I scoffed. “I came very close.”
In that moment, I understood the truth I’d been resisting.She had become the axis around which both our lives turned.
“This doesn’t make you equal to me,” I said, looking at Santino.
My voice was calm. Measured. Certain in a way that Roxanne stilled.
“It makes you necessary to her. And I won’t make her smaller just so I can understand her.”
His gaze didn’t waver. Neither challenging nor submitting.
“I never wanted your place,” he said. “I just wanted her.”
His hand on her waist tightened. I believed him. I exhaled slowly. The decision had already been made. What mattered to her stayed. Even when it cost me.
And for the first time, I didn’t see it as a bond broken. I saw it for what it was. A life I’d already chosen.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you both.”
My hand came up instinctively, settling at the back of her neck as I pulled her closer. I pressed a slow kiss to her forehead.Santino leaned in, his lips brushing her temple.
And just like that, she stood between us. No longer apologising. No longer trying to carve herself in half.
Simply loved.
And somehow—impossibly—it worked.
Roxanne’s fingers tightened slightly against my shirt.
“The world won’t understand this,” she whispered.
“They don’t have to.”
Her eyes lifted between us, uncertain still.
“People will talk.”
Santino snorted. “Let them.”
A familiar edge entered his voice.
“Anyone stupid enough to disrespect it won’t live long enough to repeat it.”
Despite herself, a breathless laugh escaped her. My hand settled at the side of her neck.
“What exists in this house,” I said, “answers to no one outside it.”
Her throat bobbed.
And for the first time since all of this began—I didn’t reach for a weapon. Because I already knew. If she asked me to choose—I wouldn’t. And if the world had a problem with that—It could fucking burn.