My heart contracted hard, and I climbed up onto the couch, sank onto his lap and closed my arms around him, pulling him against me. His hands wound around my waist, and he buried his head against my chest.
“I’m so sorry, angioletto. I’m so sorry I got you into all this.” He sniffled against me, then drew back and looked up at me, tear tracks streaking down his cheeks, his eyes wide and pleading. “Please leave today. Tonight. Felicity can set it all in motion again. There’s still time. She can get you out of here before they eve—”
“No.” I brushed the damp hair back from his temples, for the first time in hours, a sense of calm washing over me in a way that gave me strength.
So much made sense to me now. Including why they’d let Dante go and dumped him outside Marco’s gate. Where we were safe.
“You don’t have a choice. You have to go. If you don’t they’ll tr—”
“No.” I skimmed my fingertips down his cheeks, then leaned forward and gently pressed my lips to his. “I’m not leaving you. I tried that once, remember? It didn’t work.”
“Natalie, please.” His eyes slid closed, but he didn’t tip his face away from mine. And he tightened his arms around me instead of pushing me away. “I would rather lose you by my side than lose you the way Dante just lost Maricella.” He swallowed hard. “I can’t let that happen. I won’t.”
I pressed my forehead to his and stroked the sexy stubble on his jaw. “You won’t.”
“But—”
“I don’t know a lot about your House, Luc. I don’t know what they think they can get from you that they can’t get from anyone else. I only know from talking to you and Felicity and Marco that they need you. They can’t risk destroying you. You’re too important to them. And that means killing me, doing to me what they did to Maricella, what they did to Vittoria... They won’t risk it. They won’t risk it because they won’t risk losing you.” I drew back so he could see the truth and logic in my eyes. “And they know they would lose you forever if they hurt me.”
“I’d tear every single one of them to pieces with my bare hands if they touched you.”
I knew he would. I knew he’d do anything to protect me and keep me safe. Just as I’d do anything to keep him safe.
“If they really did kill Maricella to send you a message, they did it to scare you. To get me to run. To make you push me away. You told me yourself they don’t want us together. They think if we’re apart they can lure you to their ways, but you know what? Even if I wasn’t here, you wouldn’t join them like that. You haven’t all these years. And do you know why? Because you’re not like them. You’re a good man, Luciano Salvatici.”
He swallowed hard. “No, I’m not. I’ve never done anything good in my life.”
“Oh yes, you have. I’ve watched you change lives for the better. That young model in Rome, her family, Sela—”
“Those are isolated cases.”
“No, they’re not. Look at me.” I smiled down at him. “You changed my life too. Before you even knew me, you were trying to save me.”
He frowned. “And look how well that turned out.”
I pressed my lips against his again. “You did save me. You made me believe in love, and no matter what happens, that love is more precious to me than anything else in the entire world, even my life. I’d rather know your love for just a single day than spend all of eternity without you.”
“Mannaggia,” he muttered, holding me closer against him. “You’re not going to listen to reason, even now, are you?”
“No. Because you know I’m right. And I’m never leaving you again.” I brushed the hair away from his eyes once more. “You’re mine, and I’m yours, and we’re unbreakable, remember? They can’t hurt us. As long as we hold true to that, they can’t even touch us.”
He pressed his face against my neck and held me. And long minutes later, I heard him whisper, “I hope you’re right. Dio, please be right.”
Luc didn’t sleep. He was too worried about his brother to relax.
The best I could get him to do was shower, put on fresh jeans and a light sweater, then doze for a few hours with his head on my lap as he lay on the couch in Dante’s room.
Dante woke only once—when Luc had been in the shower—and he’d been so agitated and hysterical about Maricella that Marco had given him another injection.
The sedative had knocked Dante out, and though I knew all Luc wanted to do was stay with his brother and make sure Dante was going to be okay, by eleven a.m., he told me he couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to go talk to his father.
I wasn’t thrilled with that news, but I knew this meeting was inevitable. And I believed in my heart what both Marco and Felicity had told me—Luc was too valuable to the Salvatici House to harm.
He’d be okay. And I trusted him when he said he’d work everything out about our marriage with his father and the Grande Cavaliere.
I had to because I wouldn’t accept any other decision.
He kissed me tenderly as we stood beside his car, held me close, and asked me to stay behind the estate’s walls until everything was settled. I breathed him in and assured him I wasn’t going anywhere without him. Then I stepped back and watched him drive off the property, hoping and praying the whole time that this feeling of lingering doom was just stress and nothing more.
Nothing that would shatter my world when it was just—finally—nearly perfect.
I went back into the house and spent the day with Dante—trying to soothe him when he flailed in his sleep, fixing his blankets when they tangled around his legs, laying a cool cloth over his forehead that helped him relax. Basically anything I could to keep from worrying about Luc, what was happening with his father, and why he had yet to call with an update.
Around three o’clock, unable to sit still any longer, I went down to the kitchen to get Dante some crackers and juice. When I returned, I was surprised to see he was already out of bed and sitting in a chair facing the window, staring out at the view in silence.
“Hey,” I said softly, crossing and setting the tray on the coffee table behind him. “You’re awake. I brought you a snack.”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t turn to look at me. Didn’t even acknowledge that he’d heard me.
Unsure if I should stay or leave, I twisted my hands in front of me. I didn’t really know Dante. I’d barely known Maricella. But I knew what it was like to love someone and ache from the loss of them, even if I could never completely understand the kind of pain Dante was feeling.
Carefully, because I wasn’t sure how he’d react, I moved to the end of the bed where I could see Dante’s profile and sat down, just letting him know he wasn’t alone.
His hair stuck out at odd angles. His clothes were loose and filthy. There was a stench around him I knew came from not showering in over a week, and a hollowness to his cheeks I was sure was from starvation. But the physical changes weren’t what stuck with me.
Yes, he looked haggard, beaten down... broken. But not just in body. Something dark surrounded him. Something I feared had sucked the light right out of his soul and left him defenseless with no strength to fight back.