Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
His eyes flick up, and the fire in them steals the breath from my lungs. There is nothing cold about him now. He is molten, simmering with emotions that are wild and consuming.
“We’re going to end Enzo’s life for what he did today. Do you understand?”
The cool determination in his tone should chill the blood in my veins, but it doesn’t. My uncle sent men with guns. I thought the past was bad enough when he saw my father beat me and did nothing. I could never forgive him for his apathy, worse, his complicity. And now?
“I do,” I whisper.
Luca reaches out, his fingers brushing over my cheek before cupping my face. His palm is warm and firm, grounding me. A slow burn starts in my chest, spreading outward as if he’s branding me with nothing but his touch.
“My father,” I say, barely able to form the words. “Have you found him?”
Luca shakes his head, studying me carefully. “Do you know something? Something you haven’t shared?”
“I think he was working with the feds,” I admit. It’s time to end this—all of it. To prioritize me for the first time before it’s too late. “I think that’s how he disappeared and why he didn’t take us with him. He got a clean start without his cheating wife and Mario’s so-called bastard children.”
Luca’s fingers tighten slightly at the back of my neck. “Why do you think this?”
“My aunt. I don’t think she knew for sure, but she always said his disappearance was too clean. He took almost nothing. Left only empty bank accounts and his IDs behind. Wherever he was going, it was as a new man.”
Luca nods, but his face is unreadable, his thoughts a storm I can’t decipher. His breathing turns choppy, his control slipping for the first time since I met him. The air between us shifts, charged, volatile.
And then suddenly, he moves.
His hands frame my face, his grip firm, unyielding before his mouth crashes against mine. The kiss is fierce, searing, stealing the air from my lungs and replacing it with something wilder. I freeze for only a second before I open to him, letting him take what he wants. His tongue sweeps against mine, demanding, punishing, desperate.
There is no careful seduction, no patience. He kisses me like he’s trying to drown in me, to forget something too dark to face. His fingers tangle in my hair, his grip on me possessive, claiming.
I should pull away.
I should fight.
But all my control is lost.
For the first time in my life, I have men who will defend me, protect my life with theirs, and avenge all the wrongs that have happened to me.
Luca growls low in his throat, his hands sliding down my sides, branding me with his touch. He lifts me effortlessly, settling me onto his lap, his fingers gripping my thighs as if he can’t stand the distance between us. Heat coils in my stomach, spreading lower, igniting a deep desire inside me.
“Aemelia,” he murmurs against my lips, his voice rough.
I swallow hard, my pulse hammering in my ears. “Luca.”
His breath shudders at the sound of his name whispered huskily against his cheek. He holds me against him, cupping my head so my face is pressed into the crook of his neck. The past unravels behind me, dissolving into the dark as his warmth engulfs me. I’m back in the Venturi garden, cradled in his arms, inhaling the same clean, sharp scent of his cologne and his skin, safe.
It doesn’t make sense that I should feel that way about a man who just promised to stain his hands with my uncle's blood, but not much in my life has ever made sense. I was forced to grow up too soon, a child who became a parent, a girl brutalized by the man who should have defended her. I was a stranger in my own home, out of place in my own life. And yet, here, in the hands of my father's enemies, I feel safer than I ever did in the world I was meant to belong to.
He whispers words in Italian, too fast and low for me to understand, but the cadence is hypnotic. It doesn’t feel like words at all but a spell, a confession, a story revealing the secrets of his heart. I close my eyes and let his husky, melodic voice wash over me, losing myself in its dark melody.
“I’d do anything to keep you safe,” he says gruffly, his voice rough with emotion like the words cost him something to admit to himself and to me.
His arms tighten around me, powerful and unyielding, as if daring the world to try and take me from him. The steady, controlled Luca Venturi—the man who commands with a look, who kills without hesitation—is shaking. Just barely, almost imperceptibly, but we’re too close for me to miss it.