Page 118 of Ruthless Scar
“Go to sleep, Isabella.”
She doesn’t go to sleep. She lies on her side and I settle behind her. Arm around her waist. Careful of where she’s sore.
“Stai bene?“ Against her hair. Are you okay?
Silence. Then.
“You didn’t hurt me.” She turns her head. Finds my eyes. “You gave me everything. I gave you everything.”
My forehead presses to the back of her neck. The shaking stops. I hold her. She holds the arm I’ve wrapped around her.
“I was thinking,” she says.
“About?”
“My options.” Flat. Measured. The way she talks when she’s been weighing something heavy behind those eyes.
My pulse spikes. My arm tightens around her. Involuntary. A reflex.
“I could leave.” Quiet. “Sofia’s safe. The Benedettis are gone. I could take her back to the Marigny. Rent a new apartment. Finish my degree. Build a life that doesn’t involve a crime family and a man who kills people for a living.” She traces a circle on my forearm. Over the ink. “I ran the numbers. All of them. Every scenario.”
“And?”
She lifts her head. Looks at me. Her gaze is clear and certain. No defense left.
“I stay.” The words settle like stone. “Not because I owe you. Not because Sofia needs the compound. Not because I’m scared of what happens if I leave.” Her fingers curl into my shirt. “Because I choose this. You. This life. All of it.”
“Which is insane. For the record.” Her voice shifts. Still certain, but lighter. The edge coming back. “I had a five-year plan. It involved a degree and a legitimate salary and absolutely zero men who own more firearms than furniture.”
I find her nape. Pull her forehead to mine. Hold it there. My throat won’t work.
“You’re sure.”
“Lorenzo.” She says my name like it’s the answer. “I’m sure.”
She settles against my chest. Goes heavy against me. I hold her. The first real light of morning reaches through the curtains.
She chose me. Not in the desperate heat of a raid or the panic of captivity. Not because she had to. In the quiet, with every option open, she chose to stay.
I press my mouth against her hair.
She’s already asleep.
34
ISABELLA
I wake up and he’s not there. The absence registers before the hour does. His side of the bed is cool, not cold. The pillow holds the impression of his head. I press my palm into it without thinking. Pull my hand back.
The clock on the nightstand glows red beside his mother’s rosary. The room pale with new light. But a question tugs at me. Not fear. Not the old frantic pulse when something’s wrong. This is quieter. A question I’ve been avoiding because Sofia’s rescue was louder in my brain. Now it’s quiet, and the question gets louder.
I get up. My body protests. The soreness from last night sits low and deep, a tenderness I press into without meaning to. The ache is a reminder that what happened in that bed was real. I gave him everything. He gave it back. My body is keeping the receipt.
My feet find the tile and the cold shoots up through my soles, grounding me in the present the way cold always does. I’m wearing one of his shirts because mine are still in the room I don’t sleep in anymore, the room that’s become Sofia’s by silentagreement. My hair is loose and tangled from sleep and I don’t fix it.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have left a room without checking three exits and cataloging every potential weapon within reach. Now I walk down a dark hallway in bare feet and an oversized shirt. The most dangerous thing I’m worried about is stubbing my toe on the credenza Nico keeps moving as a joke.
The house never goes quiet. Not fully. Pipes settling. The distant hum of the security system I helped redesign after the raid. Somewhere on the second floor, a door closes, probably Giada checking on Sofia or Mila. This house never fully sleeps, but it rests. I used to find that unnerving. Now I find it soothing.
