He nods. “Yessir.”
Leo scowls and cuffs him on the back of the head, muttering about fucking millennials and how his generation knew their place. Bullshit they did. Probably makes him feel better, though.
I slam the door. Vittoria’s awake, rubbing sleep from her eyes. If my mother wasn’t missing, I’d have plans for that naked body of hers.
“So,” she says, as if she’s been thinking this over. “I’m guessing that your mother’s bodyguard failed at his job?” She asks as if trying to understand the order of things around here. She needs to know. I’ll tell her everything.
“He did.”
“And does he… answer to you?”
I sigh, pulling on a leather jacket. No suit today. “Vittoria.” Her eyes meet mine. “Everyone answers to me.”
A slow smile spreads across her lips. “That’s hot.”
Fuck, I wish I had time with her. We’ll get there.
“So what happens to him now?” She flinches as if she doesn’t want to hear the answer. “Do you, like… kill him?”
Not gonna shield her. “I would, if this wasn’t his first time failing at the job.” I check my gun, not missing the way her eyes watch every move. I slide it into a holster. “I’ll beat the fucking shit out of him, though.” I flex my fingers, ready to give a goddamn beat down now.
When she doesn’t respond, I look up at her. The sun’s risen, illuminating her skin, still pink but almost normal. Hardly shows any signs of our session the night before. “He can’t do that, Vittoria.”
“Oh, I know. It isn’t that.”
“Then what is it?”
A thoughtful look crosses her face. “It’s convenient, isn’t it? You want to marry me. I haven’t married you yet. Your mom goes missing, and you’re called away, when no one’s secured your father yet…”
“Yeah.” I sigh. I’ve already thought the same thing. What if he wants me away from her? But blood’s thicker than water. I can’t give up the hunt for my goddamn mother when the woman who isn’t my wife needs me. “If we were married…”
“I know,” she finishes quietly. “And I agreed last night.”
I look at her wonderingly. I questioned if she’d change her mind when she woke, when she wasn’t drunk on sex and adrenaline. She tosses her hair with a teasing look. “I don’t go back on my word, Mr. Rossi. I’ve thought things through. And I have choices, but they’re limited.”
She’s absolutely right.
“I don’t have time,” I say in a low voice, sitting on the edge of the bed. I pull her to me and drag her across my lap. I just want to touch her. To hold her. I just want to taste her one more time. Her warm body presses up against my clothed one.
“For what?” Her eyes meet mine with curiosity and something else. Excitement?
“To seal that promise. To make you mine. Now.”
She nuzzles against me like a content little kitten.
“Do what you need to. Leave me with who you trust. Later, we finish this.” She swallows hard. “Romeo, in my world we do things differently. We… take our time, I guess you would say.” She sighs. “I’m seeing that you play by a very different set of rules in your world.”
I nod. “You could say that.”
“I’m learning.”
I kiss her cheek. Maybe Vittoria could mean more to me than a crown, more to me than the power I want to wield. It’s dangerous to fall in love, though. Men like me lose power and threaten everything when they do.
Maybe men like me lose even more when they don’t.
I think of my father, the years of infidelity and the coldness between him and my mother. I think of raising children with a woman I don’t love.
I’m someone who craves control. How much of this is really in my hands?
“I wish you could come with me,” I mutter to myself. I hate the thought of leaving her here. But taking her with me’s arguably worse. It’s a dangerous fucking move, one I can’t risk.
She gets dressed and comes downstairs with me, but my mind’s a mile away. She mutters something under her breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Both of us are in our heads, a world apart from each other, but trying to bridge that gap with everything we can.
I squeeze her hand as Tavi and Orlando march into the Great Hall, armed and ready to go.
Orlando interrupts. “Rome, we got a lead. Tavi played back the surveillance footage outside Mama’s room, and two armed men entered her room around four this morning.”
I don’t have time to talk to Vittoria anymore. I give her a meaningful look. “We’ll talk later.”
She only nods.
Loud, raucous barks sound the alarm before anyone else does. My dogs, trained to attack. Vittoria screams as the largest window to the Great Hall shatters into fragments. They’re back. I fucking knew it.
“Get down!”
It all happens in a matter of seconds. Shattered glass and high-pitched screams, just before the deafening gunshots.