Page 137 of Their Reckless Thief
And yet, as she smiled faintly and leaned back in her chair, I couldn’t bring myself to regret the gamble.
“Tell me about your family, your parents,” she said. “I know so little about your life.”
I froze, my goblet hovering mid-air. Of all the things I’d anticipated from her, it hadn’t been this. My past wasn’t something I liked to revisit, let alone share. It was a cesspool of memories I’d spent centuries burying, and now she was digging them up with a single, innocent question.
“There’s really nothing to tell,” I said, tracing the ornate curves on my goblet. “I never knew my mother. She was, more than likely, just another whore my father chose to claim for one night and kick out the next.”
I glanced at Celeste, expecting judgment or pity. Instead, her gaze was soft, unwavering, like she saw past the words to something I wasn’t ready to admit. That unsettled me more than her question.
I leaned back, trying to find refuge in the cold detachment that had served me so well for so long. “Father was not a warm individual.” The words tasted bitter on my tongue. I traced my fangs with the edge of my tongue, a nervous habit I hadn’t indulged in for centuries until she came into my life. “His entire goal in life was to make me miserable.”
Her hand found mine. Warm, grounding. I should have pulled away, but I didn’t.
“You were abused?” she asked softly, her voice laced with a compassion that scraped against the walls I’d built around myself.
I laughed, though there was no humor in it. “That,dolcezza, would be putting it mildly.”
I should have stopped there. Should have moved the conversation to safer ground. But her thumb brushed my skin in slow, soothing circles, and gods, it was maddening and comforting all at once.
“Tell me,” she said after a moment, her voice a whisper threading through the chaos in my mind.
“He used to say I was a disappointment before I even had the chance to prove otherwise. When I was five, I dropped a goblet at the dining table. It shattered. He dragged me across the shards as punishment, then made me kneel on the glass while he finished his meal.”
Celeste inhaled sharply, her fingers tightening around mine.
“That was a lesson in discipline,” I continued bitterly. “By the time I was ten, he’d graduated to more creative methods. Starvation, isolation, a switch dipped in holy water—he liked toensure his lessons left a mark.” I looked at her then, my eyes narrowing. “You wanted to know. There it is.”
Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, but she didn’t let them fall. Instead, she reached up and touched my jaw.
“You survived him.”
“Did I?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. I turned away, curling my free hand into a fist. “Every choice I make, every monster I’ve become... it all traces back to him. He didn’t just beat me, Celeste. He shaped me. Forged me into something as cold and ruthless as he was. And I fucking hate him for it.”
She didn’t push, didn’t press for more. She just held my hand, her presence a quiet rebellion against the darkness clawing inside me.
“I’ve tried to forget him. Tried to build an empire that would make him irrelevant. But he’s there every time I look in the mirror. In the way I punish disobedience. In the way I demand perfection. I swore I’d never be him, but sometimes...” I swallowed hard, my throat constricting. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s exactly what I’ve become.”
Her fingers brushed against my knuckles again, pulling me back from the edge. “You’re not him, Vincenzo. You have his scars, but you’re not his shadow.”
I looked at her then, really looked at her, and my heart twisted. “You think I deserve that kind of grace?”
Her lips curved into a bittersweet smile. “No one deserves grace. It’s just given.”
The scent of her filled the space between us—soft, subtle, and maddeningly addictive. She felt like a flame I couldn’t escape, one I didn’t want to escape. I hated how much I wanted her in that moment, how much I needed her to believe in me when I didn’t believe in myself.
“You’re dangerous,dolcezza,” I murmured, my voice rough.
She tilted her head, her smile widening just enough to tease. “Dangerous enough for you?”
Gods help me, but the answer was yes.
My gaze lingered over her bare legs in that tiny fucking skirt, tracing the delicate line from her knee to her thigh, almost as if I needed proof that she was here, choosing to be next to me. I reached out, unable to resist, and brushed her thigh. She tensed under the light touch. The thrill of it was instant, a flash of satisfaction that made me want more.
“Look at you,” I said, barely recognizing my own voice, rough with the intensity I felt for her.
She turned her head slightly, eyebrow arched in that way she did, as if daring me to push her a bit further. “Are you trying to get us caught?” Her words were playful, laced with a lightness I envied, but I could hear the edge beneath her smile. She wasn’t entirely sure of me, and maybe she shouldn’t be.
“Maybe,” I replied, not caring who might see, wanting her to understand just how little I cared when it came to her. My fingers crept higher, and her breath stuttered. That look on her face, that mixture of defiance and surrender, was so fucking addictive. She was here, and it was by her own choice. It was that choice, her will to stay, that unnerved me. It scared me in ways I wouldn’t admit, not even to myself.
