Page 18 of My Dark Ever After

By the time I landed, Dante was on the phone with me again, announcing that his man had been taken out after checking in to say they were watching her office building.

Abject terror had pierced me like a blade, slicing from head to toe until I radiated with restless agony. I had nearly pulled a gun on Tony for stopping at red lights in our race to reach her.

My fawn had been alone and unwittingly trapped in a cage with predators who would know exactly how to ensnare and, perhaps, murder her to get to me.

For as long as I lived, I would never forget arriving at the Beaumont Building to see an unmarked limo careening out of the garage, knowing that my girl was probably inside on her way to be raped, tortured, or killed.

I had held the gun to Tony’s head and demanded he ram into that car so they could not get away.

The ensuing firefight was over before I broke a sweat. The men were trained, but not well, not compared with me and the four of Dante’s men who had met me at the airport.

In the vibrating silence that followed, I had no idea what I would find.

Was she hurt? Scarred or crippled? Tied up and gagged, violated?

Bile surged up my throat as I walked to the broken car and tugged the dead body out from the entryway to the back seat.

And then, there she was.

La cerbiatta mia.

Pressed to the opposite door of the car, bracing a gun on her knees, eyes squinted as they stared through her own blood down the barrel at me. Ready to end whoever might come for her.

If I had not loved her before, I would have loved her forevermore after witnessing the tableau she made in that dark interior.

My innocent Guinevere covered in blood and trembling, but facing off fearlessly against her probable death.

Dio mio, she was brave.

Gorgeous and sublime.

Too good for me even to look at, let alone touch.

It rocked me further to see the way relief broke through her fierce expression like sunlight through a storm cloud, completely transforming her entire countenance as she dropped the gun and threw herself into my arms.

Like I was her hero.

It was bizarre to admit that it was one of the best moments of my life, knowing that even after everything that had happened, the ways I had let her down and betrayed her love, she still trusted me to save her.

I tried to hold that feeling close to me as I sat on the plane to Firenze, on the opposite side of the cabin from where Guinevere had settled herself as soon as I had uncuffed her.

She had curled up in one of the big cream leather chairs and promptly fallen asleep as if I did not exist.

Maybe she wished I did not.

I watched as she slept fitfully, lids jumping, limbs twitching, the odd whimper getting stuck in her throat. It was almost impossible to stay away from her, so eventually I gave in and moved to the seat across from her. When I reached out to cup her foot as it kicked out, she froze and then softened back into a more comfortable sleep.

In sleep, it seemed, her body recognized mine as friend instead of foe.

It was when she woke that she would distance herself from me again.

Rightfully so, maybe, but it still felt like a dozen knives stuck through every one of my ribs like a pincushion.

It did not matter that she hated me, I told myself. What mattered was that she was under my purview again so I could actually keep her safe.

And there was no safer place than Villa Romano. The seat of my house, my family, and my power in the north. The sprawling estate was nestled in the hilly region of Chianti between Firenze and Siena. It comprised a main villa that housed my mother and youngest sister, Delfina, while Stacci and Carlotta each had their own homes on the property with their husbands and children. To the left of the acreage lay Tenuta Romano, our world-renowned vineyard, with the winery and visitor center down the road at a separate estate, and to the right our olive groves. The barracks for my on-sitesoldatiwere in a converted barn near the groves, close enough to the house for a one-minute response time. There were guards twenty-four seven in the tower at the gates and still more patrolling the acreage.

Leo was currently living in the main house with Philippe, a childhood friend and trusted soldier who had once killed three men using only a toaster.