CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
Her body trembled violently, her uninjured hand closing into a fist at her side, her broken nails digging into her palms.
“Why would anyone try to kill me?” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she pressed her lips together, fighting for control. “Tell me, Adrian. Who would want me dead?”
My body tightened at her words.
“I don’t have enemies.” Her voice rose, strained and I could hear the pain in them. “I don’t have enemies because I’ve never hurt anyone. I’ve never—” She stopped, her breath catching.
“I’m not a threat to anyone.” Her voice broke, and she swallowed hard.
“Serafina…”
“Your enemies.” The words came out shaken, tears silently trailing down her bruised cheeks.
“They are your enemies. They came for me because of you. Because I’m your wife.
Because my last name is Salvatore now and that makes me a target and I never asked for this.
” Her chin wobbled as she held back another cry. “I never asked for any of this.”
The truth of it sat between us bitterly. Unavoidable.
She had understood the truth far quicker than I had.
Serafina wasn’t wrong.
That was the part I hated the most.
My wife didn’t have any personal enemies, not really. Not the kind that mattered. No one was hunting her because of something she had done, some vendetta she had started or some blood she had spilled. Because she hadn’t done any of that.
Any one who came for her was either because of the blood running through her veins, because she was Santino Morelli’s daughter and now…
Because she was mine. My wife.
My jaw tightened.
Anyone who wanted to hurt me had found an easier way to do it. Serafina had been travelling across the continents, without my security or the walls of my estate to protect her.
She had been an easy target.
And I had enemies everywhere.
Too many to count. Men I had crossed years ago, men whose families I had destroyed, men who had lost money and power because of me. Some were faceless. Many were even nameless, hiding in shadows and hired mercenaries.
The moment I had learned someone had put a contract on her life, I should have understood exactly what it meant.
She wasn’t the target.
Serafina was the message.
Collateral damage in a war she had never agreed to fight.
I could kill every man who came after her.
But there would always be another.
Another enemy. Another hired killer. Another bullet with her name on it.
The realization settled heavily in my chest, making it difficult to breathe.
“Ever since I married you…” Serafina was shaking harder now, her arms wrapped around herself, her shoulders hunched forward. “I haven’t had a single day of peace. And tonight, s-someone tried to k-kill—” She bit on her lips, stopping the words.
Serafina swallowed, shaking her head once.
“You’re a curse,” she said shakily and the whispered words sliced through me deeper than any scream could. “You’re a poison in my life. You and your family and your world…it’s all poison, and it’s killing me, and I can’t…I can’t b-breathe…”
She gasped, her whole body wracking with silent sobs as she hyperventilated. Her hands fluttered to her chest, as she struggled to breathe, panic welling in her pretty, brown eyes.
I crossed the distance between us in two steps.
My hands gripped her shoulders, gently, carefully. As if I had never held something as precious, as fragile as her before. Serafina flinched. A full-body jerk that made my chest constrict, but I didn’t let go.
I couldn’t let go.
“Don’t.” Her voice was muffled in between each broken gasp. “Don’t touch me. Please don’t.”
She resisted for exactly one shattering heartbeat, her body going rigid, her hands coming up to push against my chest. Her broken nails scraped against my shirt, a desperate, feeble attempt to create space between us.
And then her tiny fist struck my chest.
I let her hit me.
I absorbed every blow, every desperate, futile strike, and held her closer, bringing our bodies close until there wasn’t any breathing space between us.
And then I kissed her.
Not like any other kisses before.
This was different.
I pressed my mouth against hers gently, my lips moving with a tenderness that felt foreign on my body, a language I had never spoken before.
She tried to turn her head. I cupped her jaw with one hand, holding her face to mine, and kissed her again. Warm and firm. Deliberately.
My thumb traced the line of her cheekbone, careful to avoid the bruise, and I felt the moment something in her gave way.
“Shh, it’s okay,” I breathed against her lips. “I’ve got you, Princess.”
I kissed her through the tears.
I kissed her through the panic.
I kissed her until her fingers gripped the front of my shirt, not to push me away, but instead, to keep me anchored against her body. To hold me, silently pleading with me not to let go.
My lips remained on hers until the sobs slowed. Until the shaking subsided. Until the only sound in the room was the soft, hitching rhythm of her breathing and the steady thud of my heart beneath her palm.
Her knees buckled.
I felt it before it happened, her weight shifting, the sudden absence of tension in her legs and I caught her. I lifted her in my arms and cradled her against my chest, carrying her to the bed.
I laid her down carefully and pulled the soft duvet over her body. Her fist remained clenched in my shirt, her knuckles white, and I didn’t try to pry her fingers loose. Her eyes were closed. The tears had stopped, but the tracks they’d left were still wet on her skin, glistening in the dim light.
I sat on the edge of the mattress. “Do you want me to stay?” I asked.
Serafina didn’t have to speak, her body answered before her mouth could. It was a subtle tightening in her muscles. She didn’t pull away from me, but she didn’t relax either. The tension remained.
I looked down at her hand on my chest.
She was holding onto me now because she had nothing else to hold onto, because I was the only option left. The thought tasted bitter on my tongue.
My wife would never willingly choose me, not now, maybe not ever. But the circumstances had forced her into needing the one man she loathed.
“Are you scared of me, Princess?” I asked. The question came out quieter than I intended, stripped of the arrogance I usually heard in my own words. “Do you think I will hurt you?”
Her eyes remained closed, her lashes dark and wet against her cheeks, but I felt the subtle shift in her breathing as she considered my words.
My mind went back to the man on the carpet. The way his bloodied face had broken under my fists.
I killed without hesitation. Without remorse. Without the slightest flicker of humanity men like me pretended we had.
Violence has never frightened me.
But the thought of turning that violence on her—of laying a single finger on her in anger, of causing her pain the way that man had caused—my inside recoiled violently, almost instinctively against the mere thought.
But she didn’t know that.
How could she?
All Serafina knew was that she married a dangerous man. Ruthless. Deadly. Merciles. To her, there was nothing different between me and the man who had tried to kill her.
“Serafina.” I waited until her eyes opened. They were glassy, unfocused, the pupils still dilated from earlier panic. “If it helps you sleep,” I said slowly, choosing each word carefully, “if it helps you feel safe, I will tie myself.”
Her brow furrowed, her eyes hazy with confusion.
“I’ll use my belt. I’ll tie my hands to the bed frame. I won’t be able to reach you.” She stared at me quietly. I swallowed and continued, “But I’ll stay beside you. You can sleep, knowing that I’m here but I won’t be able to touch you. Not unless you want me to. Not unless you untie me.”
I had spent my entire life maintaining control over my body, my emotions, over every situation I found myself in. Control was survival. Control was power.
And I was offering to surrender it completely, to put my freedom in her hands, to let her decide whether I could do something as simple as use my hands or not.
Fuck me, this woman had taken every ounce of control from me.
I was sincerely, irrevocably fucked.
Somewhere between the hate and vengeance became a reckless obsession.
And with that obsession came destruction.
We were both damned.
I watched her process the offer, her gaze dropping to my hands before going to the belt at my waist, then back to my face. She was calculating my words, my honesty.
“You would do that,” she said. It wasn’t a question. It was a flat, toneless statement.
I nodded once. “Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Because you feel guilty.”
“Because you need to feel safe,” I rasped, wanting her to believe me.
Her jaw tightened, a muscle flickering beneath the bruise on her cheek, and for a moment I thought she might refuse.
Instead, she released my shirt, her fingers uncurling slowly.
She turned her head on the pillow, facing the wall and closed her eyes. “Do it.