Chapter 19
SCARLETT
A week after the first attack, things are starting to return to normal and I’m starting to think maybe we’re safe now.
How wrong I am, because that’s when the second attack happens.
It’s past midnight and I’m helping Rosa get Luca ready for bed after a late family movie when the alarms start screaming again. The sound sends ice through my veins because I know what it means.
They’re back.
“Rosa, get him to the safe room,” I say, already moving.
“You come too—”
“I will. Just go!”
She doesn’t argue, just scoops up Luca and runs. He’s crying now, scared by the sudden chaos, and my heart breaks hearing it.
I’ve been loathing myself anytime I remember what my sweet boy is going through here, but I’d still choose to bring him here even if I got a second chance.
I can’t risk my son being targeted, injured, or killed because of me.
And there is something about seeing him with his father that just makes everything all right.
I’m running behind Rosa and Luca when the first gunshots echo through the house. This one is closer than the last time.
We break into a run, heading for the hallway toward the reinforced safe room when the window beside me explodes.
Glass shatters inward in a spray of shards. I immediately feel the sting of something hot and sharp on my upper arm. When I look down, there’s blood spreading up through my sleeve, bright red against the white fabric.
My goodness, a bullet. Someone just shot at me through the window.
I could have died, right here in this hallway. One inch to the left and that bullet would have hit my head instead of the window frame. The realization makes my knees buckle.
“Scarlett!” Rosa’s voice snaps me back to reality. She’s already in the safe room with Luca, gesturing frantically for me to follow.
I run, ignoring the pain in my arm, and throw myself through the door. Rosa slams it shut behind me immediately and engages the locks.
We’re safe. We are safe.
For now.
I hear Luca sobbing in the corner, his hands over his ears. I go to him immediately, pulling him into my lap despite my bleeding arm.
“It’s okay, baby. We’re safe now. The bad men can’t get in here.”
“I want D! Where’s D?”
“He’s out there making sure the bad men go away. He’ll come get us when it’s safe.”
“What if they hurt him?”
The question makes my throat tight. What if they actually do? What if this time there are too many attackers and Dante can’t stop them all?
“He’ll be fine. D is very strong and very smart.”
I’m lying through my teeth, but Luca seems to believe me. He curls into my chest and keeps crying while I hold him with my good arm.
Rosa is watching the security monitors, her face bone white.
“How bad is it?”
“Ten men this time. Maybe more. They got past the outer defenses and into the courtyard.”
Ten men. Twice as many as last time.
On the monitors, I can see the chaos unfolding. Muzzle flashes light up the darkness. Bodies are dropping on both sides. And in the middle of it all is Dante, moving through the attackers like death itself.
He’s fighting with a brutality I’ve never seen before. There’s no hesitation or mercy, just raw violence.
I watch him put two bullets in one attacker’s chest, then use the body as a shield while he shoots another. When a third comes at him from behind, Dante spins and drives his knife into the man’s throat without even looking.
It should terrify me and make me want to throw up. Instead, all I can think is that he’s doing this to protect us. That every man he kills is one less threat to Luca.
Then I see him look up at the cameras. See him spot the shattered window near where I was standing. His expression changes immediately. It goes from cold and controlled to something more feral and unhinged.
He moves faster now, more reckless, killing with a savagery that makes even his own men step back. There’s no strategy anymore, just rage.
One attacker tries to surrender, hands raised, but Dante shoots him anyway. Another begs for mercy in broken English, but he puts a bullet between his eyes without hesitation. He’s not taking prisoners this time.
Within ten minutes, every single attacker is dead. Dante killed most of them himself.
The estate doctor arrives twenty minutes later to check us over. He’s an older man named Dr. Giovanni, who’s clearly used to patching up gunshot wounds and asking no questions.
He examines my arm while I sit on the edge of Dante’s bed. Luca is finally asleep in his own room with Rosa watching over him.
“Just a graze,” he says, cleaning the wound. “You’re lucky. If it had gone an inch further, it would have hit the bone.”
“How lucky of me.”
He doesn’t catch the sarcasm, or pretends not to, as he continues bandaging my arm with steady, practiced hands.
That’s when Dante storms in. He’s still covered in blood. His shirt is soaked with it, his hands stained red. There’s a spray pattern across his face that makes him look like something out of a horror movie.
“Out,” he says to Dr. Giovanni.
“I’m not finished—”
“Out. Now.”
The doctor looks at me like I might intervene, but I just nod. He gathers his supplies and leaves quickly, smart enough not to argue with Dante when he’s in this mood.
The door closes and we’re alone.
Dante crosses the room in three long strides and drops to his knees in front of me. His hands are shaking as he reaches for my bandaged arm.
I’ve never seen him shake before. Never seen genuine fear in those cold grey eyes. But it’s there now.
“Let me see it,” he says, and his voice is rough.
“The doctor already—”
“Let me see it.”
I unwrap the bandage slowly, revealing the angry red line where the glass cut me. It’s not deep and has already stopped bleeding. If I’m lucky, it will probably heal without a scar.
But Dante stares at it like it’s a mortal wound. His fingers trace around the edges of the cut, light and careful. “You were almost killed.”
“But I wasn’t. I’m fine.”
“You were in the hallway. Right by the window. I saw it on the cameras.” His hands are still shaking. “One inch. That’s all it would have taken. One inch to the left and that bullet would have gone through your skull.”
“But it didn’t.”
“It could have.” He looks up at me and his eyes are haunted. “You could have died while I was downstairs. You and Luca could have been killed and I would have been too late to stop it.”
I cup his face, forcing him to look at me. “We’re alive. We’re safe. You protected us.”
“I almost didn’t. I almost lost you.”
The raw vulnerability in his voice breaks something in my chest. This is a man who faces death every day without flinching. Who kills without hesitation.
But here he is, terrified of losing me.
“I’m here,” I say softly. “I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”
He pulls me against him suddenly, burying his face in my neck. His arms wrap around me tight enough to hurt, like he’s trying to absorb me into his body.
We stay like that for a long time. Him holding me like I might disappear, and me running my fingers through his blood stained hair and feeling his heart racing against my chest.
“You need to shower,” I finally say. “You’re covered in blood.”
“I don’t care.”
“Dante—”
“Just let me hold you. Please.”
The “please” breaks me. I’ve never heard him say that word before.
So I let him hold me while his breathing gradually slows and the shaking in his hands stops. Let him take whatever comfort he needs from my presence.
Eventually he pulls back and looks at me with eyes that are still too vulnerable.
“I’ll be right back.”
He disappears into the bathroom and I hear the shower turn on. When he comes back fifteen minutes later, he’s clean but still tense, wearing just sweatpants and nothing else.
His body is as I remember it to be; muscles and old scars. I’ve seen it before, but tonight it hits differently. Tonight I’m seeing him vulnerable and bare.
And I realize this man has been alone his entire life. Fighting and surviving alone. Trusting no one. Until now.
He sits on the bed beside me and for a moment we just look at each other. Then he kisses me.
It’s different from before. Less angry, and more desperate. Like he’s trying to prove to himself that I’m real and alive and here with him.
I kiss him back with equal need, my hands sliding up his bare chest to his shoulders.
I pour all my soul into kissing him, my fingers finding their way up his hair, caressing his scalp softly, earning me a hard groan from Dante against my lips.
I’m here, that’s what I send across to him, and somehow I can feel him relax in my arms.
He pulls me into his lap, careful of my injured arm, and deepens the kiss until I’m breathless. His hands are everywhere, but gentle, worshiping rather than claiming.
It takes my breath away with how careful he is being. I’ve never seen this side of him.
When he pulls my shirt over my head, his movements are slow and respectful. Like I’m something precious instead of something he owns.
He lays me back on the bed and trails kisses down my neck, my collarbone, the valley between my breasts. Taking his time to savor every inch.
“Dante,” I breathe, and his name comes out needy.
“I need this,” he says against my skin. “I need to know you’re alive. Hell, I need to feel you.”
“Then take what you need.”
He does, but not with the rough possession I’ve come to expect. This is tender, his mouth and hands learning every curve and hollow of my body like he’s memorizing me. I think he is.
When he finally enters me, it’s slow and deep, his forehead pressed against mine, his eyes locked on my face.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispers, and the vulnerability in his voice makes my throat tight. “Don’t ever leave me.”
“I won’t. I’m here. I’m right here.”
We move together, I watch how our hips meet and unconsciously my teeth find my bottom lips and I can’t help the sweet moan that escapes my lips.
“Fuck. Fuck, Scarlett. What are you doing to me?” Dante’s groans in my ear send shivers all across my body, his words travel down to my core and it’s less about the physical pleasure and more about the connection. The need to be close. To feel alive after coming so close to death.
I feel it too.
“Please.” Without thinking the words fall out my mouth and I see Dante’s eyes as he thrusts in faster. His groans getting louder, with every thrust of his hips, I could feel the vibration building up my legs.
Oh Lord.
Dante pulls me closer, not slowing down his thrust rhythm, then I see a slight grace against my neck then a sharp tingling pain. He bit me.
Dante bites me and that is my undoing, I’m coming faster than ever. That doesn’t stop Dante because he goes even faster and the sensation builds again, my toes curling hard against the bed.
When we both finish, he doesn’t pull away. Just holds me against his chest while our breathing slows, his hand stroking my hair, while still inside of me.
“I need to tell you something,” he says after a long silence.
“What?”
He’s quiet for a moment, like he’s gathering courage. “That night. Six years ago. When I found you in Antonio’s study.”
My body tenses at the memory. “What about it?”
“I was supposed to kill you. That was the job. Eliminate Antonio and any witnesses. Leave no loose ends.”
I already knew this, but hearing him say it out loud still makes my stomach drop.
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t.” He pulls back slightly so he can see my face. “You looked at me with such horror and fear, like I was a monster.”
“You had just killed a man in front of me.”
“I know. And I was a monster. I am a monster. But you…” He traces my cheekbone with his thumb. “You looked at me like I was still human. Like underneath the blood and violence, you could see something worth saving.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did. Maybe you didn’t realize it. But in that split second before I told you to run, you looked at me and you didn’t just see a killer.
You saw a person. Someone capable of choice.
” His voice drops lower. “It broke something in me that had been frozen for years. Made me question everything I thought I knew about who I was.”
I stare at him, seeing the truth in his eyes. “That’s why you let me go.”
“That’s why I couldn’t pull the trigger. Why even when I traced you back to the club to finish your off, I still couldn’t. Why I told you to disappear. Why I searched for you for six years even though I knew it was irrational and dangerous and stupid.”
“And now?”
“Now you’re here. With our son. And I’m terrified every second of every day that I’m going to lose you both. That my world will catch up with us and destroy everything I care about.”
I cup his face, making him look at me. “You’re not going to lose us.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. But I know you. And I know you’ll fight like hell to keep us safe. That has to be enough.”
He kisses me again, softer this time, and I taste the desperation underneath, as it hits me.
This ruthless killer who’s built an empire on fear and violence is capable of love. He just doesn’t know how to express it without the violence. Doesn’t know how to be tender without also being possessive.
But he’s trying. For me. For Luca.
And maybe that’s enough.