CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SERAFINA
The hotel suite had become its own kind of prison. A prison for my own safety. It almost felt like I was a captive again, like I had been when we first married.
Though this time, the circumstances were completely different.
The bruises on my cheeks had deepened since that night, shifting through the ugly violent purple to yellow to a sickly green along the edges, the center still dark and tender.
My throat bore the faint imprint of fingers I would carry for weeks, a necklace of bruises that ached every time I swallowed.
The swelling had gone down enough that I could speak without it sounding like I was gargling glass, but the words still hurt to speak against the damaged tissue.
The suite was large enough that two people could occupy it without tripping over each other, but Adrian had made no effort to give me space. He was everywhere—in the armchair by the window, on the couch across from the bed, standing at the kitchenette making herbal tea he knew I wouldn’t drink.
He moved through the room with quiet authority, taking up space without demanding it, but his presence was inescapable nonetheless.
It was strange, having him here, like this.
I watched him from the bed, propped against a mountain of pillows, the comforter pulled to my waist. He stood at the kitchenette counter, pouring hot water into a cup.
Adrian did this every morning since we got here, making me a herbal tea because he said it would soothe the pain and irritation in my throat.
He would set the cup on the nightstand beside me but said nothing when I left it untouched.
I hated herbal tea. It tasted disgusting to me.
This was what it looked like the last two days. A married couple sharing a room, sharing a bed though we both stayed on either side, an invisible barrier between us.
A husband bringing his wife tea while she healed. The mundane things in life that could have been normal if the foundation of our union hadn’t been built on blood.
The distance between us was delicate, a boundary we both somewhat respected even though the reasons for it were different.
I needed the space to remember that he wasn’t safe.
Adrian needed it to prove that he could be. Safe. To me. For me.
Two days of him moving through the suite like a shadow I couldn’t escape, the silence between us so thick it was almost suffocating and the unspoken weight of everything we had done to each other overwhelming enough that I wanted to claw at my flesh.
I inhaled, my chest expanding with the small breath.
The room had begun to feel too small now.
His scent—his clean soap, the manly musk that was purely him, decadent and warm that I’d tried to forget and couldn’t—clung to everything.
It filled the space between us, settling into the fabric of the curtains, the bedsheets, the pillows I pressed my face against at night when the nightmares came.
And my skin.
His scent was on me, like a possessive mark I couldn’t get rid of.
I turned my head on the pillow and studied him. He was wearing black again, sweatpants that sat low on his hips and a fitted black shirt that clung to his body like a second skin.
The fabric stretched across his shoulders, pulled taut over the breadth of his chest, and I could see the muscles in his back shift beneath the material as he reached for the teabag.
His arms were different than I remembered.
Thicker. More defined. The biceps flexed with each movement, the tendons in his forearms thick as he stirred the coffee.
He’d always been fit, but this was different. This was a man who had spent months rebuilding himself.
Adrian must have kept himself busy in the gym when he wasn’t stalking me or standing outside my hotel windows in the middle of the night, carefully hidden in the shadows. It looked like he’d been training hard while we played cat and mouse across multiple countries.
And it wasn’t the casual maintenance to stay in shape.
This was driven by purpose and utterly with rage.
He turned, and I caught the full effect of his training. The width of his chest, the way the shirt molded to the planes of his abdomen, the raw physicality of a body that had been honed into a deadly, devastating weapon.
Warmth pooled inside my belly. Undeniable. Involuntary.
Our eyes met across the room. Thud.
I didn’t look away. Neither did he.
The knock came before either of us could speak.
Three sharp raps, precise and measured in exact seconds in between each knock.
Adrian’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted in his posture—a subtle protectiveness. “Come in, Rocco,” he said, loud enough for the man on the other side of the door to hear.
Rocco walked in, silent, as if he was used to entering rooms without properly announcing himself. He was dressed in the same dark clothing he always wore, a charcoal suit, no tie, the collar of his black shirt open at the throat.
His expression was unreadable. And he didn’t look at me.
Not once. Not even the briefest glance or a flicker of acknowledgement.
His gaze remained fixed on the floor, head slightly bowed. At first I had thought it was avoidance or perhaps discomfort. But slowly, I came to realize that maybe… it was…respect.
Rocco never looked directly into my eyes, never held my gaze, never allowed his attention to linger on my face longer than necessary.
Because I wasn’t simply Serafina to him.
I was Adrian Salvatore’s wife. The woman who belonged to The Reaper.
And that distinction mattered to a man like Rocco.
In our world, titles weren’t decorative. Names weren’t just… names. They had purpose, terrible and bloodied meanings most of the time, but boundaries that were understood without ever needing to be spoken aloud.
He crossed the room to where Adrian stood by the kitchenette and handed a sealed envelope into his hand before turning on his heel and walking back out.
The entire exchange lasted maybe four seconds. No words. No direct eye contact.
It was so strange to me, watching their interactions. Adrian obviously trusted this man, more than he would let on, but I couldn’t understand their silence, their unspoken words.
I watched Adrian turn the envelope over in his hands. His thumb traced the edge of the seal before he dropped it on the coffee table, and then walked to me with the cup in his hand.
He set the herbal tea on the nightstand beside me without a word, the ceramic clicking softly against the wooden surface.
“Drink it,” he said, a soft command. “It’ll help.”
I didn’t touch the cup. He didn’t tell me again.
It was a quiet understanding, almost like a silly truce. He pushed, I pushed back, he relented.
“Did you find out who it is?” I asked. My voice came out rougher than I intended, the words scraping against the bruised tissue of my throat like sandpaper. “The person who wants me dead.”
Adrian stood at the edge of the bed, his hands at his sides. For a moment, he didn’t answer. His gaze drifted to the window, and the corner of his mouth tightened, his eyes narrowing in the slightest.
“No,” he said finally, refusing to pretend like he had an answer. At least I knew he would always be honest to me, no matter how cruel it was. “I haven’t.”
I waited. He didn’t elaborate.
“You killed three men,” I whispered in accusation before my voice grew louder in frustration.
“You have resources. Connections. An entire family built on knowing things before anyone else knows them. And you’re telling me you don’t know who sent them?
” I pressed. “You don’t know, or you won’t tell me? ”
He turned toward me, and the honesty in his eyes was almost worse than a lie would have been. “I don’t know, Serafina. I have too many people who want me dead to narrow it down to one.”
His lips twisted bitterly. “It could be anyone. The list is long and it’s getting longer. Narrowing it down takes time.”
“Time,” I echoed. The word tasted acrid on my tongue. “How much time do I have before the next one shows up?”
His jaw tightened, the careful composed expression almost cracking. “You won’t be alone again.”
“That’s not what I asked,” I argued back, stubbornly.
The conversation made my stomach turn, nausea building in my throat. How could this be a normal life? How could this conversation be so…casual, like we were discussing something entirely ordinary. Like having an endless roster of people who wanted to kill you was simply the cost of doing business.
I pulled the comforter higher, my fingers twisting in the plush softness. . “Do you find this life fulfilling?”
Adrian stilled. The question surprised him. It wasn’t something he hadn’t expected me to ask about him.
“Fulfilling,” he repeated, testing the word.
“This life,” I said, gesturing vaguely at the room, my voice steady despite the ache in my throat.
“Killing people. Making enemies. Having strangers want you dead. Living every day knowing that someone, somewhere, is plotting your destruction. Does that fulfill you, Adrian? Does any of that feel like it’s worth it? ”
He was quiet for a long time. The silence stretched between us.
I watched him process the question. This wasn’t a tactical decision or threat he needed to process. This was something that has never been asked of him before, a question he probably never thought possible or gave himself the chance to just…wonder.
His jaw worked. The small scar on his upper lip caught the light as he pressed his mouth into a thin line.
“Did you ever want something different?” I asked when the silence became too heavy to bear. “Before all of this. Before you knew the violence, before you ever shed blood the first time. Did you ever want something else?”
For a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer at all.
He left my side and crossed to the window, standing with his back to me, his hands clasped behind him. His shoulders were broad and rigid beneath the black fabric of his shirt.
“No,” he said. The word was quiet, almost reluctant, as if admitting it would change the undeniable truth. “I never wanted anything different. I don’t know a different life.”