Page 30 of Dangerous King
The silence is deafening in its tenderness. I sit there, the phone still clutched in my hands like it might ring again with their voices. For a long moment, I can neither move nor speak. When I finally think I have my voice under control, I look at Enrico. "Thank you."
Enrico watches me. His expression doesn't change—it's still carved from stone—but something in his eyes softens, just a fraction. "I told you I'd take care of them," he says. His voice is quiet, but there's weight behind it."I do what I promise. Always."
I nod, swallowing hard.
And then—like a flash, uninvited and searing—I remember the way he looked at my hand earlier, at the scar where my finger used to be. I've hidden it for years. Most people avert their eyes, pretend not to see it, or worse, stare as if it makes me less whole. But not him. He looked at it as if the fact that the finger was missing didn't bother him at all. It was how it was taken that made him angry. It was one more reason to be furious on my behalf. He touched it so gently, so reverently, making me think it mattered to him. I mattered to him. He didn't flinch. He didn't pity me. He just wanted blood.
And for the first time, the shame I've carried around that injury—the way I've tucked my hand into pockets or behind my back—faded.
Because if a man like him can look at me like I'm worth avenging… maybe I'm not broken after all.
I know now that Enrico has Giovanni. And I know what that means. He's going to torture him. There's no question. There won't be any debate. Giovanni's fate is already sealed; Enrico will make sure of it.
The strange part is… I'm not sure how I feel about it. I sit with the thought for a long moment, listening for guilt, for hesitation—for compassion. But there's nothing. Not a flicker. Not even a whisper. Does that make me a bad person? Maybe.
But if it does, it's something I can live with.
Because if it had only been the finger, maybe I could've found some shred of grace. Maybe I could have chalked it up to cruelty bred from power, from fear. Even the other things—the screaming behind closed doors, the public humiliations, the way he twisted every kindness into a threat—I might have learned to live with that too.
But not the years.
Not the fourteen stolen years I spent locked in that house like a caged shadow. Not the birthdays I missed. The siblings I never got to hold. The ache in my mother's voice when she said,Tesoro, my baby girl,like she had to say it out loud to believe it was real.
Giovanni didn't just hurt me. He erased me. So no, I don't pity him. I won't waste tears on a man who carved my life into silence and shadows.
Enrico takes a slow step toward me, then another, until he's standing just in front of the couch. I look up at him with burning eyes, my heart still raw from the call.
"Keep trusting me, Piccolina," he says, voice low and steady. "Even when it's hard. Especially then."
The nickname wraps around me like velvet. His eyes hold mine, those dark, unreadable pools that feel bottomless and dangerous but safe, all at once. I think I could get lost in them without ever wanting to return.
Something shifts between us; electricity seems to charge the air. His hand lifts just slightly, like he's debating touching me. He doesn't. Not yet. But the hesitation crackles like static. And God, Iwanthim to. I want his hand on my cheek. His palm at my waist. I want to know if the heat burning low in my stomach is as reckless as it feels.
He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled, like he's forcing himself not to close the last inch between us.
"I meant what I said," he murmurs. "About protecting you. Your family."
I nod, barely trusting myself to speak. My voice would shake. My body already is. And then he does touch me. Just a fingertip, brushing beneath my chin. Tilting it up. Holding me there.
"I see you," he says, so quietly I almost think I imagined it.
Then he drops his hand and steps back, leaving me breathless and aching and somehow more exposed than I've ever been, even when I was tied to a chair in Giovanni's basement.
"Izzy is waiting outside for you." He offers me his hand, and without a second thought, I take it. His fingers are warm and steady when he helps me up, and a subtle shiver races through me. I blame the emotions. The adrenaline. The exhausting ache of remembering I have people in this world who love me.
But that's not the whole truth.
Something about him—his voice, his touch, his presence—ignites something deeper. Something I don't quite understand. Not yet. But there is this impulse, dangerous and luring, to hug him. To find out if his body is as hard as it looks, to feel what I imagined Izzy felt last night when he took her into his arms. It has been so long since someone touched me other than to hurt me that now that he has, my body feels starved. I feel like a person who got lost in the desert, is dying of thirst, and was offered a sip of water. And just like that person, I need more.
Before I can second-guess myself or lose my courage, I put my arms around him. Impulsive and reckless.
"Thank you." At least I have an excuse. "Thank you so much."
His body stiffens under mine, and for one frightening moment, I think he'll push me away, but then his strong arms envelop me too. And it is everything I imagined it to be and so much more. His body is just as hard as it looks; the muscles of his arms twitch all around me. He's so much bigger, taller, wider—it feels like I stepped into the arms of a bear. I lean my head against his chest, inhale the strong scent of his cologne, spicy and deep, and underneath that, him. Like forest and rain.
What started as a need to feel his arms around me quickly turns into much different sensations. My heart rate picks up, my blood seems to heat, my stomach flutters, and my knees turn to mush. My body yearns to melt into him, to become one with him. I wanted one thing, got it, and now I want more. So much more. I want to be able to do this every day. Every hour. I don't know what's wrong with me, but there's a deepcravinginside me —a hunger that won't be denied.
I'm not sure if it's my imagination or not, but his heartbeat sounds harder and faster. Speaking of hard. His loins are pressed against my stomach, and something is definitely twitching there, growing, poking against me.
