Page 26 of Until You Break

EMILIO

The SUV hummed low, steady as his hand pressed heavy at my nape. My lips stretched around him, the blunt head dragging over my tongue, wet heat choking me full. Spit slicked down my chin, tears burning as I gagged. His grip tightened in my hair, holding me steady while he drove deeper.

“Good boy,” Damiano murmured, voice a dark growl. “That’s how you thank me. Sloppy. Hungry. Mine.”

I tried to breathe, failed, swallowed instead, shame sparking hot through my chest. My cock strained in my trousers, humiliating proof of how much I wanted what I hated.

Adrian’s chuckle drifted from the front seat, sharp as glass. “Don’t mind me.”

Damiano ignored him. His hips rolled, measured, relentless. Precum smeared my tongue, thick and bitter. His moan rumbled, low and satisfied. He pulled me off, slapped his cock wet against my cheek, then shoved me back down. “Take it. Every inch. You’ll drink it all.”

I gagged again, my airway raw, but obeyed.

His hand forced me deeper until he spilled down my throat, hot, merciless.

He held me there until I swallowed once, twice, messy and desperate.

Cum streaked my lips, spit clung to my chin.

His thumb dragged it up and pushed past my lips. “Clean it. That’s mine.”

I sucked his thumb clean, trembling, lungs scraping for air.

Then his mouth was on mine. Sloppy, rough, licking into me, sucking my tongue, biting my lip until I gasped.

He groaned, greedy, like tasting himself on me was the sweetest thing he’d ever had.

“Fuck, piccolino,” he growled against my mouth.

“I can taste myself on you. Best taste in the world, because it’s on your tongue.

” His tongue traced the mess at the corner of my mouth, licking it up, claiming every drop as his.

His hand shoved into my trousers, fisting me hard. I moaned into his kiss, hips jerking helplessly. “That’s it,” he said, voice thick. “Give it to me. Spill for me, marito mio. I want you ruined from both ends.”

He stroked me rough, thumb smearing precum over the head, grip unrelenting.

His mouth never left mine. Kissing, sucking, owning every sound I made until my moans broke into whimpers.

My body buckled, hot release spilling over his hand, wetting my shirt, my thighs.

He swallowed my cries with his tongue, groaning like he owned my orgasm too.

When I sagged back, shaking, he licked his palm slow and filthy, eyes burning. “Sweet. All mine. You’ll remember this every time you open your mouth tonight. Adrian. Spare clothes.”

The bodyguard’s eyes flicked to the mirror once, then he reached for a bag at his feet and passed it back without a word. Damiano set it beside me, watching, intent and unblinking. “Change.”

My hands fumbled, still unsteady. I peeled my ruined shirt off, skin flushed and sticky. The fabric rasped my neck as I dragged it over my head. When I reached for the trousers I froze, the weight of his stare sharp against my back. “Look away,” I muttered.

A pause, then his voice, incredulous. “What?”

“I mean it. Look away.”

A low sound escaped him, half a laugh, half a growl. “You’re my husband. Per Dio.”

“Look away,” I repeated, sharper, shame curling hot in my gut.

For once, he did. I slid into the clean shirt and buttoned the fresh trousers, my pulse thudding. When I turned back, his mouth tilted in a crooked smile.

I let out a shaky breath, tried to make light. “Do you always have extra clothes ready, or did you know what you were going to do to me?”

His grin deepened, velvet and cruel. “Both.”

I rolled my eyes, muttering, “Yeah, right.”

The SUV was quiet, heavy with breath and sweat, until he spoke again, almost offhand. “Are you hungry?”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“Hungry,” he repeated. “Come on.” His mouth curved. “We’ll get pizza.”

It was absurd, out of place, and somehow that made me laugh. A short, startled sound that broke through my chest. He grinned sharper, satisfied he’d pulled it out of me.

Half an hour later we were at a tiny place near the port, ordering too much, the old man behind the counter muttering about the heat while Damiano insisted on extra mozzarella.

We fought over slices in the paper box, grease running down our wrists, me laughing when he stole the last piece and I smacked his arm in protest. For a moment we were just two boys in the sun, not a prisoner and his keeper.

We carried the second box down to the beach.

Our shoes came off, feet sinking into wet sand.

He splashed water at me first, sudden and cold, and I cursed loud enough to make him laugh.

I shoved back, soaking the cuff of his trousers, and he only grinned wider.

The guards stayed at a distance, shadows at the edge of the shore, but for once I forgot them.

The sun pressed warm across my face, waves sighing against the sand.

For the first time since I’d been taken, peace cut through the noise.

The crust still tasted of char and oregano, tomato sweet at the edges of my tongue.

Sand stuck to my damp ankles where the tide rolled in, gritty and cool.

I found myself speaking words I’d never given anyone else.

“My mother used to bring us here,” I said, staring out at the water. “She liked mornings best. Said the sea forgave more before the city woke.”

He stayed quiet, listening.

“When she vanished…the police came. Filed it fast, closed it faster. Adults disappear, they said, they can leave if they want.” My chest tightened. “My father told us Marcella did it. He said it like it was fact. And then he never spoke of her again.”

The tide licked higher, soaking my cuffs. I swallowed. “I kept waiting for him to avenge her. To do something. Anything. But he didn’t. He just sat at the table with his gun and his silence.”

My voice cracked on the last word. The breeze carried it away before I could catch it.

Damiano shifted closer, shoulder brushing mine, anchoring without gentleness.

“For a long time after she vanished,” I said, forcing the words out, “all I could think of was finding her. I asked questions in back streets, searched records, slipped coins into palms for scraps of rumor. I dug until my father found out.”

He turned his head, studying me like he was reading the shape of a bruise. “And then?”

“He shut me down hard,” I said, voice small.

“Threatened my safety. Threatened to block the scholarship to Paris, my mother’s dream for me.

That was the card he needed. I stopped.” My fingers twisted in the hem of my shirt.

“I stopped looking because I was scared, and I’ve carried that guilt like a stone. ”

I let the words hang between us, raw and unfinished. My throat worked.

Damiano shifted, his gaze drifting to the horizon as though weighing whether to let me deeper in.

“My mother never forgave Riccardo,” he said finally.

“When Isa vanished, she lived it like it was her own skin torn off. She told us flat-out that he killed her. I don’t even know how she knew, but she always knows everything, always digging, always ready to ruin your family if she has to.

” His mouth tightened, a flicker of something like regret.

“I grew up with that certainty in the house. With her rage filling every silence.”

Damiano’s hand found my knee, squeezing once, competent and brief.

His other hand lifted, brushing his knuckles over my cheek, a touch startlingly gentle.

He kissed me then, firm and unhurried, sealing the words between our mouths.

When he pulled back, his breath brushed mine.

“Strange,” he murmured, almost thoughtful.

“It feels almost good, speaking it aloud with you.”

My chest tightened, but I found myself nodding. “It does. Like the weight isn’t mine alone anymore.”

He didn’t press for more. He only let me have the space to say it and then nodded, as if that alone altered something.

Afterwards, when the words had been spoken and the sun sat heavy on my face, I felt something shift inside me where I had learned to hurt myself.

It was an old, familiar ache along the inside of my thighs, the place where I’d press hard when the guilt wanted to make a home.

It felt connected to the admission, a physical echo of the weight lifting and settling at once.

The confession didn’t fix anything, but it made the stone less alone in my chest.

The waves rolled in, cool and endless. I breathed, sun hot against my face, and for one suspended moment it felt like I wasn’t chained.

Damiano’s phone buzzed. He answered without looking at me, his voice dropping into that calm drawl I hadn’t heard often enough to get used to.

He spoke of territory, of leaving Valenti streets behind, of Enzo’s face, of where we were now, the beach, pizza, the guards close.

He sounded detached, precise, a man cutting facts into order.

I watched his mouth move, the low timbre of his voice almost too smooth, and for a moment I forgot the words themselves.

All I saw was how beautiful he looked, sunlight catching on the line of his jaw, shaping the syllables like he owned even silence.

When the call ended, his eyes lifted to me. Heat rushed to my face and I looked away, caught in the act of staring. His mouth curved faintly, knowing.

“Let’s go,” he said at last. “That was Alesso. He’s worried. It’s been restless all day. Better we head home now.”

He rose first, brushing sand from his trousers.

I pulled my shoes back on, shaking grit from them before sliding my feet inside.

He offered a hand without ceremony, steadying me as I stood.

The box that once held pizza was folded and tucked under Adrian’s arm, the guards already falling into step.

The breeze off the water carried salt and the faint cries of gulls as we left the shoreline behind.

Gravel shifted underfoot when we reached the path, the car waiting with doors open.

He guided me toward it with a hand at my back, firm but not rough.

Once inside, leather creaked beneath us, the hum of the engine starting up.

Adrian’s shoulders eased when the doors shut, a flicker of relief crossing his face as if he too had been waiting for this moment.

The guards exchanged quick glances in the mirror before focusing forward again.

I noticed it, the quiet exhale of men glad to be leaving Valenti territory behind.

It pressed against me, this reminder of how dangerous today had been, even in its lighter moments.

What if they had succeeded? If the Valenti guards had taken me back, I would have been saved,at least that’s what the street would call it.

What kind of life would that have been? Would my father look at me differently if I returned as his son, instead of as the Bellandi husband?

Even if our papers meant nothing in the courts, mafia law was its own scripture, and within it our marriage was iron.

My father would see it. He would have to.

Enzo’s face still haunted me, the laughter over pizza, the splash of water at my ankles, and the words I had spilled about my mother that I had never given to anyone. The day had been mine in ways it should never have been, and yet it was already claimed by him.

By the time the SUV turned back toward the mansion, the sky had broken into night. Palermo’s lights scattered sharp against shadow.

The SUV curved through the gates of the Bellandi mansion, gravel crunching sharp under the tires. Floodlights painted the stone facade, guards dipping their heads as we passed. My chest still heaved with a tension that wasn’t only mine. His hand never left my nape.

Inside, Alessandro was already waiting, jacket still on, expression taut. Relief cut through his features when he saw us. “Good. You’re here.”

Luciana hovered near the stairwell, arms folded, eyes sharp with worry.

A hush lay over the room, heavy and expectant, the air charged with the sense that something had been circling all day and was only drawing closer.

Two guards near the door checked their weapons with quick, efficient motions, the metallic click of magazines sliding home puncturing the silence.

Even the house staff moved quieter than usual, their glances sharp and brief before vanishing down hallways.

No banter, no laughter this time. Just the weight of everyone gathered, the unspoken acknowledgment that the city was restless and the night could turn at any moment.

Together we went upstairs, footsteps echoing on marble.

Guards tightened their grip on their weapons, and even the walls seemed to listen.

Whatever waited above, it felt like the house itself was holding its breath, and about to break it.