Page 44

My hands curl into fists. “He’s got her marked, Enzo. I don’t need to remind you what that means.” I snap, voice low and hard. “You’d think, of all people, you’d want her kept out of shit like this. Considering she’s your precious wife’s little sister, as you never seem to stop reminding me.”

Enzo doesn’t blink. “Ares, you’re my baby brother. I know you better than anyone. I know the damage you’re capable of, and I’ve seen the way your eyes burn every time she’s in the room or her name is mentioned.”

A dangerous heat unfurls beneath my skin.

I step closer, lowering my voice until it’s all venom and threat.

“If you know me so fucking well, then you’d know I don’t fuck where I sleep.

But if I wanted to, if I really wanted to take her, I would.

And there’s not a goddamn thing you, Bianca, or the fucking world could do to stop me.

Do you understand? In fact, I would love to see any of you try. ”

Enzo’s mouth flattens, his silence stretched tight. I take a step forward. “Save the sermon for your offspring, brother, he’s the one busy trying to put his dick where it doesn’t belong, not me.”

I hold his stare for another beat, just long enough to see my words sink in before turning and walking off into the night, pulse thundering in my ears, burying everything deeper than I have room for. Because every word I just said was meant to be a lie.

And yet none of it felt like one.

I'm feeling an unsettling restlessness, an untamed energy surging through me like a tempest, ready to tear apart anyone who dares to look at me the wrong way.

My body refuses to be still, a constant motion driven by vivid images of Jordyn and Matteo, propelling me to pace relentlessly across my living room like a caged animal.

I’ve never experienced anything quite like this before, this urgent need to expel the chaos churning within me. I snatch my phone off the glass table and dial Dante, my voice clipped and commanding. “Come here.”

Dante appears a minute later, his presence a silent acknowledgement of my turmoil. He doesn't question why I've summoned him. He doesn't need to. He stands there, observing me as I light a cigarette, my knuckles bruised and my eyes shadowed with intensity. It’s all the explanation he requires.

“I need blood,” I say, my voice steely and resolute.

With a single nod, Dante retrieves his phone, making a call that ignites a chain of events. One call is all it takes.

Twenty-five minutes later, I’m pushing through the rotting doors into the heart of Sicily’s underworld.

The space is a hostile cavern of concrete floors and steel rafters, filled with a crowd whose very presence reeks of lust and violence.

The makeshift ring is encircled by men bearing more scars than scruples and women watching with fervent hope that someone dies tonight.

I shrug off my jacket, allowing it to fall to the ground, a cigarette hanging nonchalantly from my lips. On the outside, I'm calm—too calm. But within, a storm rages.

Matteo with her .

That infuriating sundress she wears. Her scent, an intoxicating presence, seems to cling to the air in every place I go, as if it’s etched permanently into my senses, a constant reminder of what haunts me.

I keep seeing it. The way her mouth curved just before he kissed her. The way she leaned in, parting her lips and letting him. Erasing the feel and taste of me. Like it wasn’t still burned into me.

Dante claps me on the shoulder. “He’s big. Russian. You sure?—”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

The bell rings.

And I break.

The guy rushes me. No finesse, just brute strength and cocky footwork. He lands a punch against my jaw, sloppy, careless. I welcome it. My head snaps to the side, copper tang on my tongue, but I don’t even blink.

I drive a right hook into his ribs so hard I hear something snap.

He grunts.

Yes .

I want him to bleed.

The crowd roars. Fists fly. We trade hits like demons trying to rip each other apart. My fists ache. His face is already swelling. I don’t block. I don’t dodge. I take every hit like a man who doesn’t care if he leaves here breathing.

Because none of it, fucking none of it, hurts as bad as watching her smile for him.

He grabs me. I slam my forehead into his nose. He stumbles back, falling onto his back. I follow. Punch after punch until his body goes limp and his eyes roll back. I drop him like dead weight and stand over him, chest heaving.

Blood drips steadily from my split knuckles, staining the floor beneath me.

Still not enough. Nothing is quenching the inferno raging inside me.

Fucking nothing.

Dante tosses me a towel, but I ignore it. Instead, I grab my jacket and stride out of there, my footsteps heavy with anger. I’m on my bike before the crowd even begins to disperse. No words. No bandages. Just a storm of rage and raw, unyielding bone.

The Ducati tears through the back roads, chewing up the Sicilian hills. The night air cuts through me like razors, but I need it. Need to outrun the fire crawling up my spine. Her laugh. His hands. The way I wanted to pull her away and break his scrawny little neck for touching what’s mine.

I push the bike faster. Twist the throttle until the engine screams beneath me. That’s when I see the headlights. Too close.

They’ve been following me since I left the warehouse.

I swerve left, cutting through a dark stretch along the cliffs. Gravel kicks under the tires. Still there. Still behind me. Then, I hear it.

Bang .

The first bullet punches into the road near my back tire. The bike skids. I grip tighter, forcing it straight.

“Cazzo!” I snarl, ducking low.

Another shot. Closer.

I twist through the sharp bend, engine roaring, tires screaming as I whip down a narrow vineyard path.

The bastards follow.

I glimpse them in the mirror, black Alfa, windows down, one guy hanging out the passenger side with a silencer.

They’re not amateurs.

This is planned.

Retaliation. Nicolai fucking Moretti.

I ride like the devils on my back. Dirt and rocks fly, branches whip past me, headlights flicker through the trees.

Another shot fires. This one tears through my shoulder.

Pain explodes white-hot down my arm.

But I don’t fall.

Not yet.

I spot the bend ahead. A low wall. A thicket of shadow.

I kill the engine, veer left, and slide behind the wall just as the car shoots past.

I’m already moving.

Gun drawn, my jaw clenched.

They stop; realise I’ve vanished. One climbs out. He’s masked and armed.

He doesn’t get two steps before I drop him with a bullet to the chest, then slam him into the side of the car and drive my fist into his gut, over and over until he crumples.

The second one gets out, raising his weapon, too slow.

I put him down with a shot to both his kneecaps and kick the gun out of his hand.

He stares at me, wild-eyed. “Tell Nicolai,” I whisper, pressing the barrel to his forehead, “next time he sends men after me, he better send someone who doesn’t miss.”

I could end him, potrei ucciderlo, but I don’t.

Instead, I leave him there on the roadside, drenched in his own blood, body broken, eyes wild with the realisation that I let him live.

“Stai vivo solo perché voglio che tu parli.”

You’re alive only because I want you to talk.

Because tonight… as much as I craved the silence of a kill.

It was the message. I want this swine to go back and tell Nicolai, that I’m coming for him, and I’m going to erase his bloodline one by fucking one.

“Il Mietitore viene a strappargli l’anima... e trascinarlo all’inferno.”

The reaper is coming to rip out his soul... and drag him to hell.

The adrenaline still thrums through every fibre of my being, unspent and jagged.

My right shoulder is burning, flesh ripped open, muscle fibres fraying with each heartbeat.

A bullet grazed me, a shallow slash, but deep enough to see red, and it barely registered amid the storm of violence I unleashed on the men who dared to cross me.

Not then. Only now, in the harsh clarity of after, does the pain bloom like a toxic flower.

And yeah, it fucking hurts.

I swing my leg over the Ducati and fire it up. The engine growls to life, low and vicious, mirroring the burn crawling through my veins. My jaw grits as I twist the throttle and shoot off the gravel, tearing down the winding Sicilian road like the devil’s riding pillion.

The wind slams against my face, cold shards that cut through my blood-warm sweat.

My vision narrows as my pulse drums against my skull in time with the Ducati’s thunderous heartbeat.

Blood seeps from the wound, warm and slick, painting my leather coat in streaks of scarlet.

My helmet remains strapped behind me, visor up, because I need the raw brutality of the air, something to anchor me before I spiral into what I just did… or what I didn’t do.

Jordyn.

Matteo’s hands trailing along her skin. Her lips pressing against his like they used to press against me. I watched. I let them touch. Then I let rage rot me from the inside out, and I unleashed it on someone else.

One gloved hand clamps the throttle; the other yanks my phone from my jacket pocket, fingers slick with my own blood. I jab at the screen. Dante answers before the first ring finishes. “Boss?”

“I’ve been shot,” I grit out, teeth clenched tight against the throb in my shoulder. “Get Doctor Ricci to the manor. Now.”

A beat of silence. Then, steel. “Where are you?”

“En route. Fifteen minutes. Make sure the back entrance is cleared. No staff. No eyes.”

“Anyone follow?”

“Not anymore.”

I hang up.

The road curves hard and I lean into it, shoulder screaming. Every bump sends a jolt through my ribs. My vision tunnels, but I don’t slow down. I can’t.

The sky is bruising at the edges now. That limbo between night and dawn where the world is half asleep and half dangerous.

I ride straight through it, a blur of leather and fury.

The Ducati devours that liminal space, a black blur devouring the horizon.

When the iron gates of the Russo estate heave into view, my shirt is a soaked canvas of blood, gloves sticking to my palms. The bike growls, a pleading beast, but I offer no mercy.

Not until the gates part for me and the back drive opens up.

And even then, I don’t stop.

Because pain means nothing to me anymore.

Not when the only thing I feel is the echo of her kiss…and the hollow place she left behind.