Dante’s fingers tightened around me. “Be honest, Vivian,” he said, the words somehow both comforting and commanding. “Are you okay?”
Not are you hurt, but are you okay? Two different questions.
Pressure built inside me, but I nodded.
His eyes were a dark storm, his face etched with lines of anger and panic. At my response, skepticism joined the mix, soft but visible.
“He held you at gunpoint,” he said, his voice lower. Tauter. Promising retribution.
The pressure pushed against my eardrums, an invisible force dragging me deep beneath a turbulent ocean.
My smile wobbled. “Yes. Not the…” I eased a deep breath past my tightening lungs. Don’t cry. “Not the highlight of my week, I must admit.”
Dante’s body vibrated with tension. It lined his jaw and coiled beneath his skin, like a viper waiting to strike.
“Did he do anything else?”
I shook my head. Oxygen thinned by the second, making each word difficult, but I pushed forward. “Security got there before anyone was hurt. I’m okay. Really.” The last word pitched higher than the rest.
The muscle in his jaw ticked again. “You’re shaking.”
Was I? I checked. Yes, I was.
Tiny trembles rippled through my body. My knees quaked; goosebumps peppered my arms. If it weren’t for the warmth and strength of Dante’s hold, I might’ve collapsed on the floor.
I noted these things with detachment, like I was watching myself in a film I wasn’t particularly invested in.
“It’s the cold,” I said. I didn’t know who turned on the air-conditioning in November, but my room was a meat locker.
Dante stroked my skin with his thumb. Concern pooled in his eyes. “The heat is on, mia cara,” he said softly.
The pressure expanded to my throat.
“Well, then, it must be broken.” I rambled on, my string of useless words the only thread holding me together. “You should get it fixed. I’m sure you could get someone here soon. You’re…” Something wet trickled down my cheeks. “You’re Dante Russo. You can…” I couldn’t breathe properly. Air. I need air. “You can do anything.”
My voice cracked.
One crack. That was all it took.
The thread snapped, and I broke down, sobs wracking my body as the emotion and trauma of the day overwhelmed me.
The high of the Legacy Ball news followed by the terror of the robbery.
The thud of heavy boots against the marble floors in that cold, stark room.
The metal against my skin and the unshakeable sense, that if I died today, I’d do so without ever having lived. Not as Vivian Lau. Not as me.
Dante’s arms wrapped around me. He didn’t speak, but his embrace was so strong and reassuring it erased any self-consciousness I might’ve had.
The turbulent waters closed overhead, drowning out the light.
They tossed me back and forth until my body shook from the force of my cries. My stomach hurt, my eyes ached, and my throat was so raw it hurt to breathe.
And still, Dante held me.
I pressed my face against his chest, my shoulders heaving while he rubbed a hand over my back. He murmured something in Italian, but I couldn’t decipher what he said.
All I knew was, in the icy aftermath of the robbery, his voice and embrace were the only things keeping me warm.
CHAPTER 16
Dante
“You got blood on my shirt, Brax.” I rolled up my sleeves, hiding the bloodstain in question. “That’s the third strike.”
He glared at me, his expression mutinous beneath the blood and bruises. He was tied to a chair, his arms and legs bound with rope. He was the only one of his accomplices still conscious.
The other two slumped in their seats, their heads lolling and their blood hitting the floor in a steady drip, drip, drip. Several of their limbs bent at unnatural angles.
“You talk too much.” Brax spat out a mouthful of dark red liquid.
Brax Miller. Ex-con with a mile-long rap sheet, balls of steel, and a brain the size of a walnut.
I smiled, then hit him again.
His head snapped back, and a pained groan filled the air.
My bruised knuckles stung. The room jokingly dubbed the Holding Cell in my private security headquarters smelled like copper, sweat, and the thick, cloying scent of fear.
It was two days after the attempted robbery at Lohman & Sons, longer than we’d ever held someone. My police contacts turned a blind eye to my activities because I saved them time and manpower, and I knew when to draw the line. I’d never killed someone.
Yet.
But I was really fucking tempted right now.
“The first hour was for trying to rob one of my stores. The second…” I held out my hand. Giulio placed something cold and heavy in my palm, his face impassive. “Is for threatening my wife.”
My fist closed around the weapon.
I normally let my team handle these unpleasantries. Robbery, vandalism, disrespect. They were unacceptable but impersonal. Nothing more than crimes to be punished and examples to be set in the most brutal and, therefore, effective manner possible. They didn’t require my personal attention.
But this? What Brax did to Vivian?
This was fucking personal.
A fresh tsunami of rage rolled through me when I pictured the piece of shit in front of me pointing a gun at her.
She wasn’t my wife yet, but she was mine.
No one threatened what was mine.
“So she’s your wife.” Brax coughed, his bravado dented but intact. “I understand why you’re upset. She’s beautiful, though she would’ve been much more beautiful with blood painting that pretty skin of hers.”
His grin was made of mockery and crimson, too stupid to realize his mistake.
Like I said, a brain the size of a walnut.
I put on my brass knuckles, walked over, and yanked his pathetic head back. “I’m not the one who talks too much.”
A second later, a howl of agony ripped through the air.
It did nothing to ease the wrath inside me, and I didn’t stop until the howls stopped altogether.
I left my men to clean up the mess in the Holding Cell.
I’d come close to killing Brax, but the bastard lived, barely. Tomorrow, he and his accomplices would turn themselves in to the police. It was a much more appealing alternative than staying with my team.
The apartment smelled like soup and roasted chicken when I returned home. Greta had been fussing over Vivian since the robbery, which in her world meant plying Vivian with enough food to feed all of midtown Manhattan during lunch hour.
I barely noticed the stinging hot water as I showered off the blood and sweat.
Vivian insisted she was fine, but few people recovered from having a gun pressed to their head that quickly. According to Greta, she was currently taking a nap, and she never napped this late in the day. Or ever, now that I thought about it.
I turned off the water, my thoughts as clouded as the steamed-up mirror.
I’d done my part. I’d punished the perpetrators, personally attended to Brax, and checked on Luca during my ride home from security HQ. He’d bounced back as quickly as I’d expected; the man sailed through life like a Teflon ship.