Page 80 of Unleashed
“No.”
“It’s not a request.”
“I said no. I need to do this for her.”
Alexius watches me long enough to make my teeth grind. “You’ll be distracted.”
“Not if she’s under our roof. Anthony’s here. With his men and ours guarding this house, no one will get close. Let Nicoli stay behind.” I flick him a glance, a dare.
Alexius exhales through his nose. “Fine. Nicoli, you’re house captain.”
“You’re all fuckers, you know that?”
Caelian smirks at Nicoli, a cocky grin that’s begging for our brother’s fist.
“You,” Alexius pins me with a pointed stare, “get your head clean. Tell her what you’re doing and be done. We move in five.”
I nod once and turn for the door.
“Isaia,” Nicoli says behind me.
I stop but don’t face him.
“Don’t miss.”
“Now who’s the fucker?” I walk out of the office and down the hall. I could walk these corridors blindfolded. Every inch of marble and molding is written into my bones. But tonight they feel different. Tonight the air hums with static, pressing against my skin, a storm gathering just out of sight. Every step I take carries a charge, a fuse burning low and fast, coiling tighter with each echo of my boots on the polished floor.
The walls seem narrower, the shadows longer. My pulse thrums in my ears, loud enough to drown out the stomp of my brothers’ boots behind me.
Between these walls, fear and adrenaline have become as familiar as family portraits—just another inheritance I never asked for. There was never a time in my life that I felt like I belonged here, but tonight it’s different because she’s here. Waiting. Breathing. Counting on me.
She’s my home. The place I belong. My familiar landscape. It’s all her, and will always be her. No walls, no gardens or archways, not even the grandest of rooms will ever change that. She’s everything, my beginning and end. And tonight I’m righting every wrong by being the man she deserves.
Every heartbeat is a countdown. Every step feels like I’m walking a wire over fire. By the time I see the glow spilling from the living room, I’m not sure if I’m about to touch her or detonate.
Leandra sits at the edge of the couch, Mira beside her with a blanket over her knees, Giana cross-legged on the rug petting Luna, who’s sprawled like she owns the Persian. Everly is between Leandra and Mira, hands curled around a mug she isn’t drinking, face turned toward something Giana is saying that I don’t hear because my pulse is in my ears.
She looks up, her eyes red, and the world narrows.
I don’t ask permission. I don’t have any left in me. I close the distance, catch her wrist, pull her up, and crush my mouth to hers.
Her mug hits the table with a thunk that vibrates through wood. Her breath catches, then breaks, then melts into me. I taste salt and fear and the vow I’m about to make and the vow I alreadybroke, and I kiss her until the room falls away. I pour my heart and soul and everything between right into this one kiss. If words didn’t exist, this is how I’d tell her how much I love her, that she’s my life, my air, the blood in my veins.
Pulling back only when I fear I no longer remember how to breathe, I keep my arm around her. I frame her face with my palms, thumbs under her eyes, then press my forehead to hers. “I’ll save her,” I say, voice gone rough as gravel.
More tears roll from her eyes, and I wipe them away with my thumbs. “I love you, Everly Del Rossa.”
“I love you, too.”
I kiss her once more, fast and hard, a seal burned into wax. “Lock the world out,” I murmur against her mouth, placing a hand on her stomach. “Until I get back, this is all you focus on, okay? Our baby.”
Her hand fists in my shirt like she’ll rip it if I don’t come back. “Bring her home.”
“I swear.”
Chapter 27
ISAIA
