Page 95 of Wounded King
I tried, at first. When I was six, eight, ten—I would stand between them, shouting, pushing at his chest like it would make a difference. It didn't. And what killed me more than anything was the look in her eyes every time I did. Loathing. She didn't want me to interfere; she wanted me to leave her and my father alone. Somewhere along the way, she started to believe that any attention, even the cruel kind, was love.
By the time I was a teenager, I stopped trying. Stopped watching. Stopped caring. I'd disappear when they left for events, so that I wouldn't have to see the aftermath when they came back. And when she died—it wasn't dramatic. Not a bullet. Not a betrayal. She just… faded. I think it was a broken heart. It was the moment she finally accepted that Carlos Orsi never loved her.
The day after we buried her, that bastard father of mine put me on a plane to Sicily like I was nothing more than a loose end.
Sophia and Zia Rosa—they're the only ones who ever gave me love that didn't come with conditions. And I think I love them back in my own way. But even to them, saying it aloud feels like a betrayal of everything I've learned. That love is weakness. A game of leverage. A setup for pain. My mother saidI love youa thousand times, but never once did she protect me. Never once did she step between me and his cruelty. She let him hit me. Let him leave me behind while he paraded Angelo around like a little crown prince.
For years, I wondered what was so wrong with me that he couldn't even bother to hate me properly. Why did he give everything to Angelo and leave me scraps? And then one day I realized—being ignored by him was the best thing that could've happened to me.
So, no—I don't sayI love you. Those words taste like broken promises, cowardice, and pain. Ishowwhat I feel. With my body. With my protection. With loyalty and blood and fire. That's the only way I know how.
But Violet?
She's not asking for my fire or my fury. She's not asking me to die for her. She just wants to hear me say it. And I fucking can't.
So, here we are. I pull back just enough to see her face. Her eyes are wide, searching. She's looking for reassurance, for something that goes deeper than rings and promises of safety. I press my forehead to hers.
"You asked me if I'm marrying you for protection or because I love you," I say, my voice barely a growl now. "And I told you I need you. That's the truth. But there are things I never learned how to say, Violet. Things I never had the right to say before. Not like this."
Her hand slides up my chest and rests at the base of my neck. "Then show me."
"I will," I promise. "Every fucking day. I'll show you in the way I keep you safe. The way I fight for you. The way I come home to you—no matter what kind of hell is chasing me."
Her eyes soften. She leans up and presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth, whispering against my skin. "That's a start."
And maybe one day, when I can wrap my head around what I'm already feeling, I'll give her the words too.
But for now, this is what I have.
And I hope to God it's enough.
He didn't say it.
I don't know what I expected—what I was hoping for, exactly. Maybe I thought that moment, with everything stripped bare between us, would be the one where he let the words out, where he'd finally letmein. But he didn't. And I can't decide if it hurts more than it should, or less than I feared.
Marcello gives me so much—his body, his loyalty, his protection. His time, even when I know he has a hundred other fires to put out. And yet… there's still a locked door in him, one he guards like a dragon over its hoard. I don't have the key. Not yet.
Still, I said yes.
I said yes to his proposal, to the ring that now sits heavy on my finger and even heavier on my heart. I said yes to a future I can't fully see and a man I don't fully understand—but want to.
I wanthim.
Even if he can't say those words, even if some damaged part of him is too afraid to try, I can feel it in the way he looks at me. The way he holds me like I'm breakable and sacred all at once. It's not enough… but it's not nothing.
There are so many things we need to talk about, mostly what he was about to tell me before Alejandro interrupted us, but right now, it's only about him and me.
"I've been wanting to do this right since the first time," Marcello mumbles between kisses and picks me up to carry me into his bedroom.
"Hmm," I snuggle into his chest and press a kiss against his stubble. God, I love a light stubble on a man, and Marcello's is black and coarse and hard. It turns me on almost as much as the man himself.
He stands me up by the foot of the bed, then lifts the shirt off me, "I like seeing you in my clothes," he says hoarsely, "but even more without them. Fuck, look at you. You're a fucking vision."
His eyes roam my naked body, making me feel like a goddess, the way his pupils dilate and his lips curve up. There's hunger written all over his striking features. "I could devour you right now. Every fucking inch of you is perfect." At this moment, I don't even care that I'm standing completely naked in front of him, while he's still dressed like he's going to the office. Not a fold is out of place on his three-piece dark suit. No, if anything, it makes me feel desired and powerful.
"You are fucking perfect," he rasps. "This is fucking perfection. I can't wait to taste you, to feel you, to fucking own all of you." He cups one of my breasts, raising a tingling sensation inside me that flutters through my entire body like an electrical current. Priming nerve endings and igniting a low-burning flame in my belly.
The way he is holding my breast, slightly kneading it, is nearly reverential. His thumb moves back and forth over my nipple, and the sensation is so intense, I take a sharp inhale. "You like that, don't you? Your body is so fucking responsive. I can't wait to see how you react when I fuck you with my tongue."
