Page 34 of The Ache That Stayed

My stomach went cold. For two years the air around her had been too clean. No escalation. No loose threads reaching her door. I had noticed. I just hadn’t asked why.

Why hunt the devil when he’s content to stay in the shadows? Mercy is rare. I didn’t question it.

I released him slowly.

“You lost the right to be around her.”

“I know.”

“Yet here you are.” I let out a dry laugh.

Santino’s gaze held mine.

“Non sono tornato per fare pace col passato.”

(I didn’t come back to make peace with the past.)

“Then what?” I asked. “Penance? Redemption?”

His expression didn’t change. His jaw ticked. Men like Santino didn’t resurface without reason. And instincts taught me to respect patterns. But in all my years of experience with the unexpected told me this wasn’t one.

Santino always preferred distance to confession. And violence to explanation.

“Where are they now?”

“Won’t be a bother. I’m looking into the actual person behind it.”

“And…” I pressed.

“I’m containing it.”

My eyes narrowed. “Containing what?”

The threat?

Or yourself?

Before I could press further, I heard tyres on the gravel behind us. We both turned.

Roxanne stepped out of the car before the engine cut. Her eyes found me immediately.

And for the first time since the call, whatever I had been clinging to loosened. Not because the threat was gone.

Because she was here.

CHAPTER 10

Marcello

Relief broke across her face the second she saw me.

By the time she reached me, she was running. She didn’t hesitate when she crashed into me, arms wrapping around my neck, breath pressing into my collar, as though she’d been holding herself together too tightly.

I breathed her in, her scent grounding me, cutting through the storm like warmth against cold stone—the faint sweetness that always clung to her hair easing the tightness inside my chest.

We had been apart a week. Long enough for the absence to settle under my skin. And I already knew this was temporary. Duty would pull me out of her orbit again soon enough.

“You came,” she whispered against my chest.