Page 34 of His Savage Ruin
“I have to clean it up properly to be sure it doesn’t get infected.” I press harder.
“Alright.” He responds. That’s shocking, I predicted he would refuse.
My thumb finds the edge of the tear and I press until the bleeding slows. He swallows around something, breath hitching, and his eyes drop to my mouth. For a beat we are simply human:two bodies, two breaths, two truths laid ugly and necessarily on top of each other.
He lifts a hand and covers mine. His palm is large, callused, and impossibly sure. The touch is calm and questioning. I look at him — at that flash of scar along his jaw, the way his mouth tightens and something collapses inside the careful walls I’ve been raising for forty-five days.
Then he leans down and kisses me.
It is a hit, not a caress: hard, desperate, as the room shrinks to the press of lips and the scrape of breath. My body answers the way bodies do to fire—quick, stupid, wanting. His hand tightens at my jaw, not brutal but not gentle either, and I taste copper and soap and the faint, clean sting of his wound.
The kiss eats me whole; hunger and fury coiled into one impossible need. For a terrifying second I forget I was kidnapped, the plans, the war, the men who would kill me if he left an empty chair. I lean out towards him, and he narrows the edge of his mouth.
Then I pull back, hard, as if the thought of surrendering is a betrayal to everything I survived.
He staggers back like I’ve cut him, eyes wide and furious, the raw hunger replaced by something sterner. For a moment the room is noisy with the sound of our breathing before he walks away without a word.
A second later I hear the key and once again I am locked inside, but this time I know one thing—I need to get out of here fast before I do something incredibly stupid… like sleep with my dead husband’s enemy.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alessia
It’s been two days since the kiss in his room, and not a word has been spoken about it. The silence is worse than any acknowledgment—like a secret coiled tight between us, humming beneath every glance and every brush of contact. He hasn’t mentioned it, hasn’t touched me since, but the memory lingers in my body like a bruise I keep pressing to see if it still hurts.
Now, his hand rests at my back as we enter the dining room, and the contact feels intentional. To anyone else, it looks polite, guiding, but I feel like it’s a claim. His presence is iron at my side, steady and suffocating all at once, sharp enough that everyone in the room knows what I am: his.
The dining room itself could grace the pages ofArchitectural Digest—dark mahogany and crystal chandeliers, oil paintings of dead Romans staring down with solemn disapproval. The tablestretches long enough to host an army but tonight only seven of us take seats, the space both grand and oddly intimate.
The Romano men are already here. Luca sits upright, shoulders square, eyes cut from the same steel as his brother’s. Enzo is more relaxed, though the sharpness in his gaze gives away his constant watchfulness. Rafael looks like he hasn’t changed from work, his shirt faintly marred with dots I don’t want to identify as blood, while Dante leans back with the careless poise of someone who enjoys being the center of attention.
Marco stands against the wall, arms crossed, jaw tight. His anger is a shadow stretching across the room and I can feel his resentment still burning from the night I outmaneuvered him. I don’t just dislike him because he guards me; I’ve watched the way he snaps at the maids, the way he sneers at anyone beneath him. He wields cruelty like it’s power, and I loathe him for it.
And then there’s Isabella—Matteo’s sister, fire to his ice. In a pale dress with her hair loose around her shoulders, she’s watching me with a sharp protectiveness that makes me want to sit a little straighter.
“Gentlemen,” Matteo says as he takes the head of the table. His voice is warmer than I’ve ever heard it, as if for this brief moment he’s notIl Diavolo, but simply the eldest among brothers. “You remember Alessia.”
I meet each gaze directly. Matteo’s touch at my back steers me, subtle but commanding, until I choose a seat beside Isabella and I see her mouth curve just slightly in acknowledgment.
The servants glide in with silver trays, and soon the table is heavy with lamb, saffron risotto, bowls of olives glistening in oil. The scents make my stomach tighten with hunger, but I realize quickly this isn’t a performance for my benefit. For them, this is ritual—an ordinary meal among family and allies, and I can see in the way they speak with each other they are more than men working together. The only unusual element is me.
I raise my glass, letting the wine catch the chandelier light and give my hands something to do while the weight of their curiosity presses in. They’re not hostile, not exactly, but every glance I receive holds calculation. Wondering why I’m here, what it means, how much I matter.
And to be honest I don’t know.
Dante breaks the silence first, he was smirking before I even sat down, and I can feel his restless need to prod and entertain. His grin slides toward me, practiced and wicked. “So, Mrs. Moretti joins us at last. I was beginning to think Matteo meant to keep you locked away forever.”
I tilt my head, letting a small smile play on my lips. “I guess men like you enjoyed the chase.”
Dante’s grin sharpens. “Only when the prize is worth catching. Tell me, what does a Chicago socialite do for entertainment? Besides redecorating expensive bedrooms, of course.”
“Reading,” I answer smoothly. “Charity galas. Perfecting the art of looking fascinated while men explain things I already know.”I sip my wine and let my eyes slide over him before I look at Matteo whose intense gaze is glued on me. “Standard princess activities.”
Enzo chuckles. “Sounds like she’d fit in perfectly here.”
“What about here?” Dante says, leaning forward, eyes glinting.
“That depends entirely on what’s on offer,” I return, voice light, almost teasing, noticing that the more I speak with his friends, the angrier Matteo looks.
