Page 72 of His Savage Ruin
The meeting dissolves, and I hear Rafael already making jokes about tracking down decent whiskey for a wedding. Luca stays against the wall for another moment, and when he finally pushes off and heads for the door, he claps my shoulder once as he passes, hard enough that I know we're good even if he still thinks I'm making a mistake.
By the time I look up, the room's mostly empty, just the smell of Rafael's cigarettes and the echo of footsteps fading down the hall.
When the door closes behind the last of them, I'm alone.
I sag against the table, bracing my weight on both palms, head bowed. My shoulders burn from holding tension too long. Sweat dampens my shirt collar, cooling against my skin. I drag a hand across my face and it trembles as I do, fingers unsteady in the empty room where no one can see.
The gouge in the wood catches my fingertip—deep, permanent, carved by my father's ring during some long-ago argument. I press into it until pain grounds me, until the sharp edge biting my skin pulls me back into my body.
Alessia's name still goes around in my mind, louder than Luca's accusations, more deafening than the silence he left behind.
Luca's words echo:You want her.
My jaw clenches. Maybe he's right. Maybe this isn't just strategy. Maybe I'm marrying her because the thought of Emilio or anyone else touching her makes me want to burn the world down. Maybe it's because when she looks at me with those golden eyes, I see the only person in this blood-soaked empire who isn't afraid to tell me no.
Maybe that makes me weak.
But she's mine. And in my world, you don't give back what's yours.
I trace the groove in the table one more time, then turn and walk out. The door closes behind me with the same heavy finality as every decision made in this room—permanent, irrevocable, marked into history whether I'm ready or not.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Matteo
The house is too quiet.
My boots echo against marble, each step reverberating through empty hallways that should have guards posted, staff moving, the low hum of life that fills a house this size. Instead, there's silence.
The kind that makes my pulse spike and my hand drift toward the gun at my spine, even though I'm the one who ordered the guards to give her space.
Three days ago, I told Romeo to stop locking her door at night, told him she could move freely through the house and grounds as long as someone knew where she was. I'd watched her pacing my room like a caged animal and something in me couldn't stand it anymore. She needed room to breathe, needed to feel like less of a prisoner even if she couldn't leave the estate. Ithought giving her that freedom would ease some of the tension between us, would show her I'm not Lorenzo, that I don't need locks and chains to keep what's mine.
But now, experiencing this silence after declaring to my men that I'm marrying her, all I can think is that freedom was a mistake.
"Alessia." Her name comes out rougher than I intend, bouncing off vaulted ceilings and disappearing into shadows.
Nothing.
My jaw clenches. She should be in bed—my bed, our bed now, though she doesn't know it yet. The wedding I just declared to my men is still ringing in my ears, and suddenly the only thing that matters is seeing her, touching her, proving to myself she's real and safe and mine.
I take the stairs three at a time, blood roaring in my ears. The bedroom door stands open but when I take a look inside, I find it empty. Sheets tangled where she must have been sleeping, but the impression in the pillow is cold when I press my palm against it.
Gone.
The word detonates in my chest. I spin, already moving, already running worst-case scenarios—Emilio's men breaching the perimeter, someone who knows about the pregnancy liedeciding to eliminate her before I can protect her, a dozen other possibilities that make my trigger finger itch.
"Romeo!" My voice cracks like a whip through the hallway.
He materializes from a doorway, rifle already in hand, eyes wide. "Don Romano?—"
"Where is she?" I'm on him in two strides, fisting his collar, slamming him against the wall hard enough that a painting rattles. "Where the fuck is Alessia?"
"I—the pool, signore. She went to the pool an hour ago. I have men posted at all entrances, she's safe?—"
I release him, already turning, already running. The pool. Why would she go to the pool at night? My boots pound against tile, then grass, cutting through the garden where jasmine hangs too sweet and heavy in the night air.
And then I see her.
