Page 104 of Ruthless Scar
“Isabella.”
“He imprisoned my sister in that place since she was fifteen.” Her voice is steady. Certain. “Go.”
I search her eyes for doubt. For fear. Nothing.
Make it hurt.
I go.
The details blur. I remember Stefano. The way he went pale when he saw me coming. The way he tried to bargain, tried to explain, tried to offer things I didn’t want. I remember my hands. The work they did. The sounds Stefano made. I remember Dante at my shoulder. Pulling me back.
“Not yet. Not here. He has information we need.”
My hands wanted more. But Dante’s right. Stefano has names. Locations. The network that fed girls into Flavio’s machine. We need what’s in his head before we empty it. So I stopped. Left him breathing. Barely.
When I come back, my knuckles are raw. Split in places. There’s blood on my shirt that isn’t mine. I’m blank. Still.
Isabella is waiting by the SUV. Alone. Sofia and Giada already gone ahead.
She sees my hands. My face. The blood. She doesn’t ask. Doesn’t pull away. Her eyes track the blood on my shirt, the split knuckles, the violence written across every surface of me. And something in her gaze shifts. Not revulsion. Not fear. Recognition. The same look she gives me when I touch her. Like she’s seeing the whole of what I am and the seeing costs her nothing.
The adrenaline still humming in my veins twists into something else. Sharper. Hungrier. She’s standing in front of meand my hands are bloody and I want her. Both things true. Both things hers.
She takes my hand. The one with the split knuckles. Holds it carefully, delicately avoiding the wounds.
“Thank you.” Two words. Enough.
Silence settles over the compound when we arrive. Sofia is with Giada in the medical wing. Being examined. Being held. Beginning the long road back from wherever that basement took her. The other girl, Mila, is secured in a guest room. Nico is stationed outside her door. Not guarding. Just present. Whatever passed between them is none of my business tonight.
The rest of the family has scattered. Dante with Cassia. Marco debriefing the men. The compound settling into an exhausted, fragile peace.
Isabella and I, alone. My room. The door closed. The world shut out.
I'm still holding them. Haven't been able to let go since she put them in my hand. The beads are warm against my palm. Some of them are chipped. The chain is broken. But they're here. Mama's. Safe.
Because of her.
“She would have liked you.” The sentence pushes free before I realize. Quiet. Rough.
Isabella looks at me. “What?”
“My mother.” I stare into my palm. “She would have liked you.”
Silence. Then Isabella crosses to me. She touches my jaw. Traces the line of it, the soot I haven’t washed off, the exhaustion I can’t hide.
“Lorenzo.”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
The world stops. I stop. Breathing. Thinking. Being anything except in this moment, these words, the woman standing in front of me with her palm on my jaw and her gaze unwavering.
“I know you locked me up,” she continues. Her voice is soft but her gaze doesn’t waver. “I know it was wrong. But I understand why. And I’m not going anywhere.”
My forehead drops to hers. Pressed between our palms. Her breath warm on my lips.
“I love you.” The words come out rough. Dragged from a place I had buried when Mama died. “I’ve never said that to anyone. Not since?—”
