Page 64 of Passion and Revenge

I carry her to the elevator and have to do a bit of juggling to be able to press the button for the penthouse apartment.

“I hope we get to do this again. Every single day. Forever and ever and ever—” she trails off. Even though I know she’s just sleep-talking, it doesn’t stop the way my heart begins to pound with something that feels oddly like hope.

No.

I clench my jaw. There is no forever for both of us. She doesn’t mean it. I don’t want forever with her either. I can’t want it.

Dropping her onto the bed, I make my way to the bathroom, where I wet a washcloth and take it back to the room. Then, I wipe her down and tuck the duvet over her.

“Stay,” she murmurs. “I wish you’d stay.”

“I wish I could,” I whisper. “But I’ve already crossed so many lines, Sienna. Going to bed with you in my arms is a luxury I can’t bring myself to ever have.”

“Stop bothering me, Kat,” she mumbles.

With a fond smile, I press a kiss to her forehead, and her small hands clutch at my shoulders. It takes a lot of willpower for me to remove her hands from my body, stand up, and step away from the bed.

“I’m going to kill him for you,” I say, my voice hard. “I’m going to stand over him and watch him tremble the same way he must have watched you tremble all those years ago. I’m going to make him regret ever touching you.”

I watch her for a while longer, hesitant to be separated from her. But my fury toward her asshole uncle is greater than my desire to linger, so with one last glance, I walk out of the room.

This time, I leave the door wide open to show that she’s free to leave the confines of her room.

It’s a small step, but I know it’ll make her happy, and I like making her happy. The thought makes me panic a little bit, but I’ll freak out about it later.

Right now, I have a score to settle.

CHAPTER 21

Alessandro

“Tullio’s last guest just left the house,” the man I put in charge of monitoring the house informs me as I step out of my car and slip my dark shades off.

I nod at him and then cross the street to the house. My gaze scans over the area, and I spot a ledge. I can envision a young Sienna falling off it, thinking it’s the end of her life.

My hands curl into fists at my side.

I climb up the steps carved into the side of the hill until I’m standing at the front door of Tullio D’Addario’s house. I don’t bother knocking since my men have already gotten me a spare key to the house.

It only took me a few hours to track down Tullio. The bastard didn’t bother to relocate, too confident in the fact that he had gotten away with what he did to his niece.

Well, the long arm of justice has finally caught up with him.

And by that, I mean me.

I unlock the door and push it open, then step into the rustic-style house. It’s a complete mess inside, with bottles of alcohol, old fast food containers, and pizza boxes strewn about.

I make a face at the disgusting state of the place, but I’m unsurprised. The man is a pig, so why shouldn’t he live like one too?

“Call the goddamn cleaning service,” a man’s voice calls from inside the house. “I’m beat. Don’t wake me up unless it’s that sexy little cleaning girl they sent before. The bitch was whining about ratting me out to the authorities the other day as if sixteen isn’t practically an adult.”

I follow the sound of the voice into a kitchen where a medium-height, brown-haired man is rifling through a cupboard.

“Hello, Tullio,” I say.

He jumps and whirls around, his dark brown eyes wide. “Jesus Christ, who the hell are you? You better leave now before I call the cops.”

“Go ahead, call them.” I smile coldly at him. “You’ll be dead before they get here anyway.”

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