Chapter Nine SANTINO
She came back. Of course she fucking came back.
I knew it before I heard the motorcycle.
Before the engine roared somewhere beyond the eastern road.
Before the guards at the gate radioed in with barely concealed amusement in their voices.
Before Marco looked at me like I was the worst kind of lunatic and muttered, “She’s turning around. ”
I knew. Not because Aurora Ventura was predictable. She wasn’t. That was the problem. Predictable women bored me. Predictable enemies died. Predictable nights ended with whiskey, blood, or some model whose name I forgot before morning.
Aurora wasn’t predictable. She was worse. She was curious. And curiosity was a hook. Once it sank into a person deep enough, they always followed the line back.
I sat on the cliffside terrace with one ankle crossed over my knee, coffee cooling untouched beside me while the morning sun spilled gold across the ocean.
The storm had washed the whole world clean overnight.
The cliffs were black and wet beneath pale light.
The gardens below the terrace glittered with rain.
Far beneath us, waves slammed against rocks with enough force to turn water white.
Beautiful morning. Terrible fucking mood. Mostly because I had spent the last hour imagining every possible way that motorcycle could kill her. Which was inconvenient. I didn’t worry. I made other people worry. I caused worry professionally.
But then I’d watched Aurora ride out through my open gates, small body perched on a machine too powerful for her, dark hair whipping behind her like a flag, and something ugly had twisted hard beneath my ribs.
Not fear. No. Absolutely not. Fear was for men who still believed God intervened.
This was something worse. Awareness. Of how fragile she was. Of how easily the world could take her. Of how quickly a person could be alive one second and gone the next. I knew that better than most.
My thumb brushed over Angelo’s watch. The metal sat loose around my wrist.
“Still think this was smart?” Marco asked from the other side of the terrace.
I didn’t look at him. “No.”
He paused. That got his attention. “You admit that?”
“I admit many things.”
“No, you don’t.”
I smiled faintly at the ocean. “Fair.”
Marco sighed. He had been standing there for the past hour with his arms folded, looking like a disappointed priest at a funeral. Except Marco would absolutely shoot the priest if I asked him to. Probably before I finished the sentence. Useful quality in a man.
“You let her leave,” he said again, because apparently we were still discussing the obvious.
“I did.”
“She could’ve kept going. She could’ve called Leonardo.”
“She did call Chiara,” I muttered.
Marco went still. I finally looked at him. His expression hardened. “You tapped her phone?”
“No.”
A beat. His stare flattened. “Define no.”
“I had the road monitored, her GPS ping followed, three cars behind her, two ahead of her, and a man close enough to put a bullet through anyone who approached her.”
Marco closed his eyes. That seemed dramatic.
“Technically,” I added, “her phone was not tapped.”
He opened his eyes slowly. “You are impossible.”
“I’m thorough.”
“You gave her the illusion of freedom,” he hissed. That made me look at him fully. The ocean roared beneath us.
“No,” I said quietly. “I gave her freedom. I just made sure nobody else got to take it from her.”
Marco stared at me for a long second. Something shifted in his expression. Not approval. Marco rarely approved of anything I did. Concern, maybe. That was worse.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Say it,” I insisted.
He exhaled through his nose. “You’re already in too deep.”
I laughed. The sound came out wrong. Too sharp. Too empty. “She’s been here one night.”
“You killed a man at an altar for her,” he reminded me.
“He was irritating,” I said. “Never liked the poor guy.”
“You kidnapped her from a cathedral. You gave her Angelo’s motorcycle.”
Silence. The terrace changed. Not visibly. The sun still rose. The waves still crashed. The coffee still cooled beside my hand. But the air between us sharpened. Marco noticed. Of course he noticed. He noticed everything I didn’t want him to. That was why I kept him alive. Mostly.
“She needed a ride,” I said.
“A ride,” Marco replied carefully. “You gave her his.”
My jaw tightened. Angelo’s bike had sat untouched for four years.
Covered. Maintained. Preserved. Like a corpse nobody buried.
Black Ducati. Custom seat. Scratched left handle from the time Angelo tried to impress twins in Naples and took a corner too fast. He’d limped for three days and claimed the motorcycle had started it. Idiot.
Then this morning Aurora Ventura had climbed onto it like it belonged to her. Like she belonged to dangerous things. And for one second, watching her ride away had felt like watching the past leave with her.
I hated that. I hated it enough to pick up my coffee and drink it even though it had gone cold. Marco didn’t speak again. Smart man.
The distant sound of the motorcycle grew louder. A low, furious purr winding up the coastal road. My heart did something stupid. I ignored it. A minute later, she appeared.
Aurora came up the stone path from the lower drive with her hair tangled from wind, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with leftover speed and anger.
Jesus Christ. She looked alive. Not polished. Not arranged. Not like the bloodstained bride from the cathedral or the furious captive from yesterday.
Wild. Windblown. Beautiful enough to make my teeth ache from the sweetness.
She held the keys in one hand like a weapon. I smiled before I could stop myself. Bad decision. Her eyes narrowed.
“You,” she seethed.
I lifted my coffee cup. “Good morning.”
“You are the most arrogant man I have ever met.”
“Not true.” I leaned back in the chair. “You’ve met Leo.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. Then, to my immense satisfaction, she almost laughed. Almost. She caught it at the last second and turned the sound into an offended scoff, which was very cute of her.
“Don’t make jokes about my brother-in-law,” she hissed. “He’s family.”
“I wasn’t joking. Besides, he’s my family too, remember?”
“Exactly.” I set the coffee down. Her gaze snapped to the cup. Then back to me. “You knew I’d come back.”
“Yes.”
The answer landed between us like a slap. Her flushed face went still. “You’re not even going to pretend?”
“No.”
“That is infuriating. You don’t know everything about me,” she insisted.
“No,” I said, letting my gaze move over her face slowly. “Not yet.”
Color touched her cheeks. There it was. That tiny reaction she hated giving me.
The little betrayal of blood beneath skin.
I wanted to put my mouth there. Then lower.
Then make her say my name like a confession she wished she could take back.
Instead, I stayed seated. Because I had given her choice.
And now I had to survive the consequences.
Deeply inconvenient.
Aurora stepped closer and threw the keys onto the table. They slid across the stone surface and stopped beside my coffee.
“You can have those back.” I looked at them. Then at her.
“No, thanks,” I said. “They’re yours to keep.”
She froze. Just slightly. Enough that I saw it. Enough that it mattered. “They are not mine.”
“They are now.”
“Santino.” I liked when she said my name. That was becoming a serious problem. The first time she’d said it, she’d sounded horrified. Now she sounded furious. Still preferred it.
“You cannot just give me a motorcycle,” she said.
“Why not?” I shrugged.
“Because people don’t do that…” she groaned. “You’re making this whole situation very weird.”
“I’m not people.”
“No,” she muttered. “You’re a criminal with boundary issues.”
“Among other things.”
She stared at me. I stared back. The wind pushed dark strands of hair across her mouth. She brushed them away impatiently. That mouth. Fucking hell. Marco coughed behind me.
I had forgotten he existed. Unusual. Aurora glanced at him, then back at me. For the first time, suspicion replaced outrage. Marco looked almost amused.
“This is Marco,” I muttered. “Marco, Aurora.”
I stood. Aurora took half a step back, then looked annoyed at herself for doing it.
“You hungry?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed. “You kidnapped me, let me escape, sat here like a smug gargoyle waiting for me to come back, and now you’re asking if I want breakfast?”
“Correct.”
“You’re insane,” she said with exasperation. “Not hungry.”
“So you keep saying.”
“Because it keeps being true.”
I walked past her toward the stairs leading down into the garden. “Come on.”
She didn’t move. “Where?”
“I think it’s time for a house tour,” I sighed. “You have questions. I dislike answering questions. So I’m showing you things instead.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if you’re me. Coming?” I extended a hand for her.
“I would rather die than be you,” she hissed.
“You say the sweetest things.”
She ignored my outstretched arm, so I kept walking. For three seconds, she didn’t follow. Then I heard her footsteps behind me. Of course. Curiosity. Every damn time.
The estate looked different in morning light. Less like a fortress. More like a sin someone had spent too much money making beautiful.
The main house sat on the highest point of the cliff, all glass, black stone, and sharp modern lines cutting into the sky.
Below it, gardens curved along the land in terraces, lavender and rosemary spilling over stone walls, cypress trees swaying in the salt wind.
The guest house where she’d slept stood near the eastern edge, close enough to hear the ocean at all hours.
Private. Protected. Built years ago for a different reason. A reason I didn’t think about.
Angelo had wanted it finished. He used to sit on the unfinished terrace with construction dust on his shoes, drinking beer and talking about how someday we’d both disappear here when the city got too loud.
“You’ll bring models,” he’d said once.