Page 58 of Devil’s Reign

She shifts in my arms like she wants down, and I tighten my hold, not ready to let her go. My throat burns with words I can’t swallow, my heart still hammering from the terror of almost losing her—even though she’s right here, solid and real against me.

Her eyes lift to mine, surprised, her brows knitting like she doesn’t understand why I’m holding on so tightly.

“Just let me hold you,” I mutter, my voice raw, harsher than I mean it to be.

Her hand lifts, her palm gently cupping my face, and the touch knocks the breath out of me all over again. I lean into it like a man starving for contact, inhaling deeply for the first time since her panic attack began.

“Your brother is fine.” I don’t know that for sure, but I will make it true if it’s the last damn thing I do. And God help anyone who tries to stand in my way.

Her fingers twitch against my cheek, and hope, poignant and painful, blooms across her face. “Really?”

My chest tightens as I nod. “Yes.”

Earlier, I didn’t want to give her false hope, so I kept my mouth shut and tried to wiggle out of her deal on a technicality. But then she went pale right before my eyes. I never want to see her like that again. Never.

“At first, I thought he might have been taken by our enemies because we’ve had a few of our men go missing these past few weeks.” I briefly explain the situation to her, and she nods solemnly. “But I received new information from my investigator last night.”

I walk her through Luciano Fontana’s last moves before he disappeared. After he went to see Aleksei and got turned down, he started behaving strangely. He created a fake birth certificate, passport, social security number, and insurance papers. Then he bought supplies—batteries, ropes, a first aid kit. Survival stuff. He also borrowed money from a few of his friends. Promised he would pay them back soon because he was about to come into a lot of cash. Everything about it points to the same conclusion. Things a man about to go on the run would do.

“I think he decided to go under the radar on his own to solve your problem with Sciarra.”

Melani’s brow furrows, and she sighs heavily. “He’s always felt responsible for what happened to us on the ship,” she says. I give her a questioning look, and she continues, her voice going distant with memory. “After we got word about what Papa had done, we knew we had to run. My uncle helped us get into Valencia from Sicily secretly, and from there we snuck onto a cargo vessel headed to New Jersey. None of the crew members knew we were there—just one of the deck officers. But he made it clear he wouldn’t take responsibility if we were discovered.”

“And you were discovered,” I realize. That was inevitable. The journey from Spain to New Jersey takes a week at least. Staying hidden that long would have been nearly impossible.

She nods grimly. “Luciano got violently seasick. We had to leave the container we were smuggled in over and over again. That’s how they found us.” Her voice grows quieter. “The crew wasn’t pleased. They threatened to throw us overboard, but Mamma stepped in. She begged them to let us stay, and they asked what we could offer in exchange. We had nothing, but one of them said we did have something. Me.”

I see red. My arms tighten around her as rage floods my system, imagining those bastards putting their hands on her, hurting her, violating her. But then I remember what she told me last night, that she had only been with one man before me, and the fury eases enough for me to breathe again. “So what happened?”

“Mamma intervened. Offered herself instead.” She sniffles, and I glance down to see her eyes glossy with tears. “She suffered a lot on that voyage. And Luciano has blamed himself ever since.”

I adjust her in my arms and use my thumb to wipe away the tears tracking down her cheeks. “He’ll be fine.”

“I hope so,” she says. “I hope he really did run away on his own and is trying to let go of those demons. Because Mamma doesn’t blame him at all. And neither do I.”

She pats my shoulder, squirming a little in my hold, and I reluctantly lower her to her feet. For what feels like the first time since we came up here, she finally takes in her surroundings. “I didn’t realize this place had a rooftop.”

I raise a brow as I follow her line of sight, but let the sudden change of topic pass. “It’s private. Not known to the public.”

The sprawling space is pretty much empty except for the helicopter landing pad off to one side—useful for the times I need to leave the city urgently and can’t deal with the endless traffic below. Sometime between stepping out of the elevator and talking, the sun has slipped behind an ominously dark cloud. I glance up at it with a small frown.

If it rains, traffic will be a nightmare. I still need to get Aleksei’s tonight, and it’s on the other side of town.

“Flowers would thrive up here,” Melani breathes, doing a slow spin that makes her dress flutter around her legs, and I push thoughts of traffic away to give her my full attention. “Imagine having a little flower garden with some swings and benches. We could hold barbecues up here.” Her eyes light up with excitement, and she takes quick steps away from me, gesturing animatedly.

We. Does she even realize what she just said? We could hold barbecues. Not ‘you could’ or ‘one could’—but we. My chest tightens as I watch her chatter away, pointing at where she envisions the swings and benches and grill.

“We’ll need to set up a water system for the plants and a small sink for washing dishes and stuff so we don’t have to carry everything back into the suite.”

There it is again. We. Does she really see herself staying here forever like I do? It almost makes me reconsider her request for freedom. Almost.

“Nobody comes up here unless strictly necessary,” I point out. “So the flowers would die.”

“You could hire a gardener.” She tosses me a cross look. “But if you don’t want to, you could opt for cacti and succulents. They’re pretty resilient and—” She reaches the railing mid-sentence and trails off, gasping at the view of the city below. “Wow, this is so beautiful, Vanya.” She glances back at me with a sucker-punch of a grin that knocks the breath out of my lungs.

“Very beautiful,” I agree, and she laughs.

“You’re not even looking at the view.”