Chapter 5 Nico
I’d made it as far as the lobby of her building when I hear it. The scream hits me like a shot to the gut, the pitch rich with terror, her terror. One second, I’m in the hallway, the next, my body is moving before my brain catches up.
I don’t think. I don’t calculate. Old instincts, and even older training, takes over. The part of me I pretend I put away years ago rises to the surface, seeking blood.
My feet pound down the hallway, my focus on one thing, erasing the reason for the scream that just came from Isabella Romano’s lips.
I hit Isabella’s door with my shoulder. The wood splinters around the lock, a dull crack echoing through the corridor. Pain jolts across my collarbone, but adrenaline eats it whole.
The door swings wide.
And everything inside me goes dangerously, surgically quiet, as my vision goes blood red. I take in the scene in a split second, not missing a thing.
She’s on the floor in the middle of her living room, curled in on herself, hands over her head. A man stands above her, arm raised, ready to land another blow. She looks small like that, too small, too defenseless, and something in me reacts with violence I haven’t felt in years.
I don’t think about why I’m here. I don’t think about how long I’ve been watching her building from the street, or how I followed her movements all day like it was reconnaissance instead of… whatever the hell it actually was. I don’t ask why I dismissed Rossi and took over this job myself.
All I know is someone is hurting her, and my vision narrows to what I’m going to do to him for touching her. I grasp hold of his collar, hauling him off her with a roar of the violence I feel erupting.
My fist connects with the underside of his jaw, the hit to bone reverberating up my arm.
He stumbles, snarls, swings wildly. I catch his wrist and twist hard, the snap of bone breaking like dry kindling.
His scream is muffled by my grip as I slam him against the wall and feel the drywall cave inward.
“You like hitting women?” My voice is low, nearly calm, which is the worst kind of fury I have. “Try me instead.”
He swears, his face red, pride hurt as he barrels toward me, but I sidestep him and plant my fist in his gut. He goes to his knees before I haul him upright again. Pathetic. I drive my fist into his ribs. He folds again.
“Not so fucking tough now, are you?” I note the scar on his cheek, the tattoo on his wrist, that marks him as Bratva.
Fucking Russian asshole. A moan draws my attention away from the scumbag just as Rossi appears with two of my men.
“Take him to the warehouse.” Rossi nods, and the bastard is dragged down the hall, cursing in a voice already broken.
The second he’s gone, the silence in the apartment hits me. No, not silence because I can hear the heavy breaths Isabella is taking to try and control her pain, or maybe her panic. The sound of her breathing, shaky and uneven, is shallower than it should be.
I turn.
She’s still on the floor, braced on trembling palms. Her hair is messy, falling out of that neat twist she wore earlier and hiding her face until she looks up at me.
There’s a bloom of red swelling across her cheek, too bright, too fresh.
But it’s not that wound which has me wanting to go after that piece of shit and end him, it’s the wounded, frightened look in her big doe eyes.
Something inside my chest pulls tight, sharp and unwelcome.
I crouch. My knees crack softly as I lower myself. “Talk to me. Are you hurt?”
She swallows, jaw trembling once before she gets control. “My side… he kicked me.”
My jaw clenches as I try to fight the anger inside me.
One thing my father drilled into all of us was that you never lift your hand to a woman.
And God knows my mother would have strung us up, even from the grave, if we’d ever considered it.
I relax my face into a mask of control, not wanting to scare her any further. “Let me see.”
When I lift my hand toward her ribs, she flinches. Not big, rather instinctive, automatic. A prey animal sensing a predator.
It hits harder than any punch I’ve taken. My voice softens without my permission. “Isabella, I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe. I’ve got you. Nothing is getting past me now.”
She hesitates, then nods.
I keep my touch careful, my palm warm against the fabric of her shirt as I lift the soft cotton, revealing her creamy skin. Her breath catches when I press lightly along the bruise forming beneath her ribs. Her skin is silky soft, too warm, too alive, too fucking tempting, under my hand.
I focus on what I’m doing, shutting down any attraction I might have towards this chaos magnet, palpating her ribs gently. Bruised, but not broken. Thank Christ.
“You’ll bruise,” I say quietly. “I don’t think anything is cracked or broken, but we should get you checked out to be sure.”
“You sound like you have experience with this.”
Ever the fucking journalist. Yet her spark makes me want to smile at her grit, but I don’t. Instead, I reply, “I’ve seen enough broken ribs to know the difference. I have two brothers, as you well know.”
Her eyes search mine, and for a split second, I’m too close. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in her irises. Close enough to smell her shampoo, faint and sweet under the metallic tang of fear. Close enough that my pulse does something it shouldn’t do.
She looks at me like she’s trying to understand something, something I’m not ready for her or anyone else to see. The second I heard her scream, every part of me that was grieving woke up hungry, and that unsettles me.
“You followed me. You’ve been watching me,” she whispers.
“Yes.”
No apology. No justification. I’m here because she opened the door, because she came after me and my family.
But maybe that’s not the whole truth. I’m not here because she’s a threat to me physically.
I’m here because something about her has been crawling under my skin since the second I read her name, and she’s in danger.
Following her gave me information, information I need.
That’s what I tell myself. Yet the thought of her getting hurt makes me feel psychotic.
I don’t care that she wrote the article, or that she’s a thorn in our side. A man twice her size laid hands on her, and that made this personal. She may be my enemy, but something in me still sees her as mine to protect.
“You had no right.”
“You painted a target on yourself, and I have every right to keep an eye on my enemy.”
“I’m not your enemy.”
“So that article was an attempt at friendship?” I smirk in derision at that.
“I wrote the truth.”
“And nearly died for it.”
Her spine stiffens, defiance, pride, rage, fear, all of it mixing in one beautiful, infuriating line.
Fuck, she’s sexy when she looks like that. Fired up, cheeks pink, eyes blazing instead of flat with fear.
I stand and offer her my hand to help her up. It feels wrong to let her get up alone when she’s in pain. She takes it reluctantly, her fingers gripping mine tight as she rises, a grimace of pain on her face. Her balance wavers, and I catch her waist without thinking.
The contact jolts through me like static. Her warmth. Her softness. The tremble she’s fighting, whether from pain or something more visceral, I don’t quite know. Isabella isn’t someone I can read easily, and that both intrigues and frustrates me.
I release her too fast, watching her stumble slightly before regaining her balance. “Get your things,” I say. “You’re not staying here.”
Her eyes narrow, fire returning. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You heard me.” I move to the kitchen, grab a clean towel, run it under cold water. “Pack.”
“You can’t just walk in here and—”
“I just dragged a man off you who was trying to beat you to death. I can do whatever I need to keep you alive.”
“I don’t even know you. And beating me to death is a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
My jaw works once as I move into her space, her body heat burning against my chest. “I don’t do drama, Ms. Romano.” I watch the pulse shift in her throat before she shoves me away with little force.
“I hardly know you, and what I do know isn’t exactly good.”
She’s not wrong, although I did just save her ass. She could show a modicum of gratitude. “You know what I want you to know.”
“Yeah, well, that’s more than enough. I don’t want to know more.”
But the truth is, she may not know me, but I feel like I know too much about Isabella Romano.
The last twenty-four hours have been an insight I hadn’t anticipated.
I notice how she walks too fast when she’s nervous.
How she hums when she’s typing on her phone.
How she curls her fingers into fists like she’s bracing for bad news.
How she helped that old woman in the street yesterday without even thinking.
“You will,” I say. It comes out too rough, too honest.
I hand her the towel. “That should help the swelling.”
She presses it to her cheek, wincing. Her eyes shine, but she forces the tears back, stubborn to the bone. “What do you care?” she whispers.
I stare at the broken glass on her rug, the shattered lamp, the candles lying sideways. Anything but her.
“Because someone sent him,” I answer. “He wasn’t acting alone, and thanks to you, this affects me and my family now.”
Her breath hitches. “You think it’s about the article?”
“I know it is.”
Her eyes flick to her Christmas tree, still lit, glittering in the chaos. Ornaments sway gently from the disturbance. My gaze climbs the tree, the ridiculous number of lights, the crooked star. It’s like the eighties threw up in here. “You really decorated like this on purpose?” I mutter.
She gapes. “Are you judging my Christmas decorations after I was just assaulted?”
“There are twelve strings of lights on that tree,” I say. “It’s a fire hazard.”
“They’re festive.”
“They’re excessive.”
“If you hate joy, just say that.”
For the first time all night, the corner of my mouth twitches. Just barely. I shut it down fast. “Go pack, Isabella.”
“I’ll be fine to stay here. I can wedge the door shut, and I have a mace.”
I drop my head and sigh loudly, because this woman is determined to shred my last nerve. “Pack a fucking bag, or I’ll pack one for you and toss you over my shoulder and carry you out of here.”
“Gee, you gonna spank me too?”
Fuck that mouth of hers is going to get us both into trouble, because the scene that ignites behind my eyes at her words is fucking red hot. But I won’t go there. She might be hot as Mount fucking Etna, but she’s the enemy. “Pack a fucking bag. Now!”
She glares at me for a second as I glare at her, and I admire the lack of fear she allows to show on her face. Grown men quake when I yell, but not this woman. Just my fucking luck.
“Fine, but only for one night.”
Her hands shake as she packs, and I pretend I don’t see it. She moves slowly, like her ribs hurt more than she’s admitting. I hover, not close enough to smother her, but close enough to catch her if she falls. Although I kid myself, it’s to make sure she does it.
“Pack faster,” I say gruffly, because gentleness feels dangerous.
She glares. “I’m not thanking you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
She zips her bag, shoulders trembling with the effort, and goes to pick it up, but I snatch it away with another glare.
As if I’d let her carry that bag, let alone with her ribs bruised.
When she steps past me, her arm brushes mine, soft and warm, and the smallest sound escapes her, a wince quickly swallowed.
That sound does something violent to my insides.
I call for Rossi. Then look back at her standing in the glow of those stupid twinkle lights, bruised and shaken but somehow still standing straight.
“Let’s go, Isabella.” My voice is low, rougher than before. “You’re safe now.”
For tonight, at least. Until I figure out who sent someone after her. Until I figure out why the thought of losing her before I can get answers tears something sharp through my chest.