Page 91 of The Last Vendetta

He nodded gravely. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to back you up in time.”

But I wasn’t alone. Renzo had come after me, just like I’d hoped he would.

I’d saved him, but he’d gotten me to the position to do so. We’d ended up collaborating as a team. Partners. And the one person who’d set up the rivalry that kept us apart would never cause trouble again.

It’s over. I stared at the spot where she’d dropped, knowing that remorse had no room in my mind. I was glad. I’d done well to end this, and I would come to terms with it one day.

“If you’re ready to go…?” the Bernardi soldier said to me as he left the men he’d supervised in cleaning the room up. Both Bernardi and Acardi soldiers worked together in here.

“Almost,” I told him.

He looked more like a capo, yet not. But I appreciated his due diligence to obey Renzo’s orders to bring me to him once I was fixed up.

“Only once she’s finished with those stitches,” Francis argued.

Seeing these two men enter the room at the same time showed how quickly times were changing.

Before Renzo left to deal with his men outside and then with Giovanni at home, who he said had sent him here to kill Isabella, he introduced me to the older soldier. Dean. He was Renzo’s newly appointed right-hand man, formerly assisting Luka. He’d come as Renzo’s backup, but in fighting the Acardi guards most loyal to my mother’s influence here, he’d been shot. Francis realized he wasn’t the enemy, only trying to stop Isabella from killing anyone else. They’d teamed up to break in and help us, but I’d already done the deed.

Isabella Acardi would never hurt or kill anyone ever again.

Despite Francis and Dean in here, as well as the soldiers, I suffered a gnawing need to see Renzo again. Our reunion had been violent and brief. I hadn’t kissed him long enough to reassure my heart that he was fine, that we could survive together. While I understood that he needed to hurry to his father and deal with breaking this news to him, I realized that I simply felt safer when he was near.

“Will someone see to his wound, too?” I asked Dean.

He nodded. Renzo had been injured too, with a bullet that flew awry as Isabella died from my shots. It couldn’t have been a horrible wound, but I worried again about how he’d limped and compressed the spot on his thigh as he left.

It felt good to be in the trusted care he offered to back up the Acardi men here, but I wanted him. I needed to see him and truly convince myself that it would be all right to celebrate life again after so much death.

The moment the doctor nodded and gave me his approval that he was satisfied with his stitching, I stood and followed Dean out of the house. Francis promised to come later. If not to personally guard me at Renzo’s place, then to head to my sisters and watch over them.

They didn’t need to run away now. We’d find a new home and a new life here. In the meantime, with our mother’s death, some distance would help. I’d go to break the news to them once I spoke with Renzo.

Talking didn’t seem to be on his mind, though.

I arrived at the Bernardi residence that Renzo claimed for himself, and as soon as I entered the massive building, I knew that with time, my short stay in the dungeons at his father’s estate home would be a faint memory. Staying in the past did no good to anyone, as evidenced by my mother’s hatred for Giovanni. I had only the future to look forward to.

Renzo must have been watching for my arrival because he strode straight toward me. He was still on the phone, speaking with Giovanni by the sounds of it. Multitasking, he locked his heated gaze on me as he took my hand. A curt nod at Dean was all the acknowledgement he was going to give him.

With his smoldering stare sizzling my skin as he watched me walk with him, I smiled slowly.

He urged me to head upstairs with him, almost pulling me with his impatience.

“Weren’t you wounded?” I asked, worried about his leg with his haste to get upstairs.

“Weren’t you?” he shot back as he slid his phone to the side.

I grinned. We’d both fought tooth and nail to get to this moment, and I would never forget it. Renzo wasn’t my enemy. He never had been. How could he be when we fit together like partners so well?

On the way upstairs, he continued to streak his gaze over me, like taking inventory. His concern touched me, and I swore I fell that much more in love with him.

As soon as he led me into a massive, dimly lit master suite, he closed the door behind him. I curled into his side, kissing his cheek.

“Later,” he said abruptly into his phone. He hadn’t been listening, anyway. “Gio, I—” With a growl, he hung up.

“I bet you’ve got a lot to talk about with him,” I said before he dove in for a quick, hard kiss.

“Later,” he repeated as he picked me up. He cringed immediately and set me back down.

---