29. Giulia
“ Y ou’re certain that they were out of the house when she came into my room?” I asked Francis.
He nodded, overseeing the doctor sewing up the stitches on my arm. It was just a grazing, fortunately. When my mother shot me, it wasn’t with a decent aim. I'd lunged at her, so furious at her casual dismissal of Uncle Dario that I couldn’t stand there and stall any longer. She’d missed me, only grazing my arm with her bullet. I was lucky. And I would never forget it.
The less I focused on the sting of the injury, the more I was prone to dwelling on the fact that I’d killed my mother. That wasn’t all of it, though. I’d killed my father’s murderer. And my uncle’s. Sure, it was self-defense with her aiming her gun at me. Kill or be killed.
When Renzo showed from the balcony and gave me cover, I had just the right reach to grab my bag that had fallen off my bed when I was packing to get my gun.
The guilt—if any—would come later. Right now, I had to make sure all was well in the house I’d never call home again.
“Yes,” Francis replied, furrowing his brow as he supervised the doctor tending to me. He stood over me, guarded as ever. “I left to follow Isabella, knowing Dario would find you and tell you to take your sisters. I had a bad feeling about leaving them here with the staff, and I came back. I got them into the car to go to your cousin’s before I headed upstairs.”
I exhaled another long breath of relief. If my sisters had overheard that fight… Or worse, if Marianna or one of the younger two had tried to burst in here and save me…
“Thank God they are safe.”
He nodded, glancing up at the Acardi men dealing with the mess. My mother’s body had already been taken out. I hardly cared what happened to the room. All the blood in the carpet could stay. I didn’t give a damn. The whole house could burn down for all I cared, but then I felt bad about displacing the staff who depended on their jobs here.
Especially you. I offered Francis a weak smile. “And you, too.”
He nodded gravely. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to back you up in time.”
But I wasn’t alone. Renzo had come after me, just like I’d hoped he would.
I’d saved him, but he’d gotten me to the position to do so. We’d ended up collaborating as a team. Partners. And the one person who’d set up the rivalry that kept us apart would never cause trouble again.
It’s over. I stared at the spot where she’d dropped, knowing that remorse had no room in my mind. I was glad. I’d done well to end this, and I would come to terms with it one day.
“If you’re ready to go…?” the Bernardi soldier said to me as he left the men he’d supervised in cleaning the room up. Both Bernardi and Acardi soldiers worked together in here.
“Almost,” I told him.
He looked more like a capo, yet not. But I appreciated his due diligence to obey Renzo’s orders to bring me to him once I was fixed up.
“Only once she’s finished with those stitches,” Francis argued.
Seeing these two men enter the room at the same time showed how quickly times were changing.
Before Renzo left to deal with his men outside and then with Giovanni at home, who he said had sent him here to kill Isabella, he introduced me to the older soldier. Dean. He was Renzo’s newly appointed right-hand man, formerly assisting Luka. He’d come as Renzo’s backup, but in fighting the Acardi guards most loyal to my mother’s influence here, he’d been shot. Francis realized he wasn’t the enemy, only trying to stop Isabella from killing anyone else. They’d teamed up to break in and help us, but I’d already done the deed.
Isabella Acardi would never hurt or kill anyone ever again.
Despite Francis and Dean in here, as well as the soldiers, I suffered a gnawing need to see Renzo again. Our reunion had been violent and brief. I hadn’t kissed him long enough to reassure my heart that he was fine, that we could survive together. While I understood that he needed to hurry to his father and deal with breaking this news to him, I realized that I simply felt safer when he was near.
“Will someone see to his wound, too?” I asked Dean.
He nodded. Renzo had been injured too, with a bullet that flew awry as Isabella died from my shots. It couldn’t have been a horrible wound, but I worried again about how he’d limped and compressed the spot on his thigh as he left.
It felt good to be in the trusted care he offered to back up the Acardi men here, but I wanted him . I needed to see him and truly convince myself that it would be all right to celebrate life again after so much death.
The moment the doctor nodded and gave me his approval that he was satisfied with his stitching, I stood and followed Dean out of the house. Francis promised to come later. If not to personally guard me at Renzo’s place, then to head to my sisters and watch over them.
They didn’t need to run away now. We’d find a new home and a new life here. In the meantime, with our mother’s death, some distance would help. I’d go to break the news to them once I spoke with Renzo.
Talking didn’t seem to be on his mind, though.
I arrived at the Bernardi residence that Renzo claimed for himself, and as soon as I entered the massive building, I knew that with time, my short stay in the dungeons at his father’s estate home would be a faint memory. Staying in the past did no good to anyone, as evidenced by my mother’s hatred for Giovanni. I had only the future to look forward to.
Renzo must have been watching for my arrival because he strode straight toward me. He was still on the phone, speaking with Giovanni by the sounds of it. Multitasking, he locked his heated gaze on me as he took my hand. A curt nod at Dean was all the acknowledgement he was going to give him.
With his smoldering stare sizzling my skin as he watched me walk with him, I smiled slowly.
He urged me to head upstairs with him, almost pulling me with his impatience.
“Weren’t you wounded?” I asked, worried about his leg with his haste to get upstairs.
“Weren’t you?” he shot back as he slid his phone to the side.
I grinned. We’d both fought tooth and nail to get to this moment, and I would never forget it. Renzo wasn’t my enemy. He never had been. How could he be when we fit together like partners so well?
On the way upstairs, he continued to streak his gaze over me, like taking inventory. His concern touched me, and I swore I fell that much more in love with him.
As soon as he led me into a massive, dimly lit master suite, he closed the door behind him. I curled into his side, kissing his cheek.
“Later,” he said abruptly into his phone. He hadn’t been listening, anyway. “Gio, I—” With a growl, he hung up.
“I bet you’ve got a lot to talk about with him,” I said before he dove in for a quick, hard kiss.
“Later,” he repeated as he picked me up. He cringed immediately and set me back down.
“You were injured, remember?” I said as I let him guide me toward the bed, pressing kisses over my face as I ran my hand along his jaw.
“So were you,” he said. “Which means instead of dealing with these sleeves…” He tugged on the buttons of my blouse. They went flying, pinging on the floor.
“That was quick,” I quipped as he unclasped the front of my bra next. We kissed between words and touches, removing our clothes as he backed me to the huge king-sized mattress.
“This will be…” he promised as he helped me lower his pants and boxers. “Fast.” He grabbed my ass and pulled me flush to his chest. “Hard.”
I smiled against his lips.
“This time, it will be fast and hard. I need you.”
I stepped out of my skirt and panties as he led me back. “I need you now,” I agreed.
Going from killing my mother to fucking my lover seemed like a jolting shift. It was a whiplash of emotions, but somehow, I craved his touch and that addicting bliss he could give me. After the horrors and threats we’d dealt with, we were due for the opposite.
Love. Security. Relief.
“But later,” he said as we lowered to the bed together, our lips a breath apart, “I intend to take my time with you.”
“Is that so?” I taunted, hugging him as he urged me to roll with him.
I lay under him, reveling in the strong weight of his body blanketing me. Every inch of his hard flesh warmed me, burning me up with raw desire that had me panting and desperate for him to fill me.
“Yes,” he growled, leaning on his knees to wedge my legs apart. Again, when he put pressure on his wounded limb, he cringed.
I frowned, staring up at him. “I don’t want you to be in pain.”
“I am .” He shifted us again, guiding me on top so I straddled him. “Right here,” he clarified as he lined his erection up with my pussy. I was soaked already. Just kissing him got me so aroused and slick with juices to welcome him inside.
I grinned at his groan as I sank over his cockhead. Hearing this man admit that he longed for me and craved me to the point of pain was a heady thought to hold on to. With every thick, hard inch of him that I sucked inside my cunt, though, I lost the ability to think at all.
“Now, Giulia,” he ordered. His fingers dug into my waist as he urged me to ride him. Although he was lying down and I was the one moving on him, he still instructed me. He still dominated. After too much time being controlled by men, I should’ve been annoyed. Instead, I relished his demands. They pushed me to please him.
I rocked on him, letting my clit get the friction against him with each grinding move. Impaled on his cock, I let him squeeze my ass and push me to ride him as he wanted.
Fast and hard, just like he’d warned.
My breasts swayed and jiggled, and the motion seemed so erotic that it brought me closer to coming. Too close.
He reached down to rub a circle around my clit, and that was all it took to destroy me. I clenched tightly on him, feeling the burst of my orgasm to every frayed nerve ending. Coming this hard, this quick, I felt fried alive. Shot into the air and sinking to float, all at once.
He jerked up into me once more, flooding me with his hot cum, and as we rode out the waves of pleasure together, he pulled me down until I rested on his chest.
“You are going to be my wife,” he said as we caught our breath.
I smiled, my cheek pushing on his pec. “Am I?”
He continued lazily rubbing my back, and each pass of his fingertips on my skin teased me to break out in goosebumps.
“Yes.” He leaned down to kiss the top of my head.
I lifted my face to crawl up and get a real kiss. “I love you, Renzo.”
Nothing could keep us apart.
“I love you, too. And I’m going to make you my wife.”
I grinned and cocked my head to the side. “Just like that?” I teased.
He nodded, smiling back with that roguish smirk. “Yeah. And that’s final.”
I can’t wait.
Finally, I was where I belonged, with him.