Page 90 of The Last Vendetta

I spun around, not needing to see Isabella fall to the floor. I felt the vibration of her impact, and as I twisted to haul Giulia into my arms, I finally exhaled the breath I held when I looked death in the face. Holding her shaking body reassured me. The panic receded. Peace would be a long time coming after the suspense of facing off with that psychotic woman, but with Giulia in my arms, alive and clinging to me fiercely, I knew that all would be right once more.

“Renzo, I…” She sniffled, worked up and near tears as she smashed her mouth to mine. Her kiss kickstarted me back to normalcy, to the overwhelming heat of love that consumed me from the inside out.

“I was so scared she’d?—”

Now I silenced her frantic words. Kissing her again, I shifted to block her view from the dead woman on the floor.

“I’ve got you.” I cupped her face and rested my brow against hers, staring into her eyes as our breaths mixed between our lips. “I’ve got you.”

She nodded, leaning in to kiss me again. I tasted the salt of her tears, and I dove in to kiss her harder, needing every bit of this connection that we could lean on to reclaim stability after the storm.

“And I got you,” she whispered.

The door smacked against the wall, and men rushed in. We both turned in unison, sucking in a breath at the sudden noise.

“Renzo?”

Dean staggered inside, his gun at the ready. His right side was bloody, but he stood.

“Giulia?” An Acardi guard entered beside Dean, and the man helped my guard stand steady as he wavered in his steps.

“Francis.” Giulia lifted her hand. “We’re here. It’s done.”

Before fully acknowledging what Giulia said, the Acardi man locked his focus on Isabella slumped lifeless on the floor. With a nod at her words and a deep sigh of relief, he lowered his gun. Then he nudged for Dean to lower his. “I told you she knew how to shoot.”

Dean nodded, cringing in pain. “I see that now.”

Witnessing my right-hand man and this Acardi guard not trying to kill each other should’ve amused me. As I stood with Giulia, careful with her wounded arm, I realized this would be the new norm.

The Acardi and Bernardi rivalry was over. The cause of it all was dead.

As soon as I saw to my bride’s injuries, I would be celebrating that fact with her. All night long.

29

GIULIA

Giulia

“You’re certain that they were out of the house when she came into my room?” I asked Francis.

He nodded, overseeing the doctor sewing up the stitches on my arm. It was just a grazing, fortunately. When my mother shot me, it wasn’t with a decent aim. I'd lunged at her, so furious at her casual dismissal of Uncle Dario that I couldn’t stand there and stall any longer. She’d missed me, only grazing my arm with her bullet. I was lucky. And I would never forget it.

The less I focused on the sting of the injury, the more I was prone to dwelling on the fact that I’d killed my mother. That wasn’t all of it, though. I’d killed my father’s murderer. And my uncle’s. Sure, it was self-defense with her aiming her gun at me. Kill or be killed.

When Renzo showed from the balcony and gave me cover, I had just the right reach to grab my bag that had fallen off my bed when I was packing to get my gun.

The guilt—if any—would come later. Right now, I had to make sure all was well in the house I’d never call home again.

“Yes,” Francis replied, furrowing his brow as he supervised the doctor tending to me. He stood over me, guarded as ever. “I left to follow Isabella, knowing Dario would find you and tell you to take your sisters. I had a bad feeling about leaving them here with the staff, and I came back. I got them into the car to go to your cousin’s before I headed upstairs.”

I exhaled another long breath of relief. If my sisters had overheard that fight… Or worse, if Marianna or one of the younger two had tried to burst in here and save me…

“Thank God they are safe.”

He nodded, glancing up at the Acardi men dealing with the mess. My mother’s body had already been taken out. I hardly cared what happened to the room. All the blood in the carpet could stay. I didn’t give a damn. The whole house could burn down for all I cared, but then I felt bad about displacing the staff who depended on their jobs here.

Especially you. I offered Francis a weak smile. “And you, too.”

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