Page 283 of Merciless Desires

I scurried off Dominov, crawling toward Matteo. He crouched as I neared, reaching for me, but I pushed at his pant leg and pulled the knife Matteo always had on him from the leather holster at his ankle.

Turning back to Dominov, my chest heaving, I darted forward and stabbed Matteo’s blade into Dominov’s heart. I pulled it out and stabbed again, over and over, sinking the reddened knife into his chest and throat and face.

Warm hands against my arms pulled me back, drawing me fully away from Dominov. Matteo appeared in front of me and scooped me up, tucking my face into the crook of his neck while I hyperventilated. He was walking, but I couldn’t focus on where he was going because I was focusing on his words.

“Listen to me, Marcella. Just listen to what I’m saying. Come back to me…please… I’ve got you, amorina. I’ve always got you. I promise. Cazzo, I’m so sorry…this should have never happened. You will never be in danger again.”

Matteo sat and placed me on his lap, pushing at the hair in my face that was crusted with blood. He slipped his palms along my jaw, cradling my face in his warm hands, inspecting me all over for injuries.

“Say…it…again…” I gasped each word.

Matteo breathed in deep through his nose and exhaled from his mouth. He did this again, and the third time around, I mirrored his breathing.

He slowly smiled once my breathing evened out. “I love you, Marcella. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

I nodded, and his grin spread wider. Matteo pulled me closer, but I pressed at his chest.

“Wait,” I blurted, and this made him frown. “I love you, Matteo. I think I loved you first.”

He shook his head. “Impossible, amorina. Now, let me kiss you. I’ve got far too long without your lips on mine, and I refuse to wait any longer.”

I breathed a laugh and got to see that handsome grin on Matteo’s face before his lips were on mine. I knew I tasted of blood, but Matteo kissed me like we had spent no time apart these past few weeks.

He kissed me until my wounds no longer hurt.

He kissed me like he loved me…because he did.

Matteo Cortese loved me. Me.

Chapter Twenty-Five

MATTEO

Getting the woman I loved away from that fucking warehouse had been my only fucking priority after I killed Dominov.

When Marcella had ducked her head, distraught with the guilt of believing she would have to kill me, I’d seen my opportunity. Dominov had been glaring down at her, his head visible from the nose up. I’d stepped back so I wouldn’t blow Marcella’s eardrums with the firing of my gun, aimed for the center of Dominov’s forehead, and taken my shot.

It had been a risk. If Marcella had looked back at me, raised her head a few inches, I would have killed her. My heart had thundered in my chest, time slowed as the bullet zipped through the air and split through the skin above Dominov’s brow.

He went down easier than Melinda had. I shot her four fucking times before she finally hit the ground and stayed. She had taken a fucking headshot and still managed to turn and look at me before I delivered two more bullets to her brain.

Dominov had tumbled down, and when his grip had loosened on Marcella, she’d darted toward me, but not for the reason I’d thought.

No. My smart girl had remembered that I always kept a blade on me, and she’d found my knife and used it to make sure that Dominov wouldn’t get back up.

Marcella had stabbed him seventeen times before I’d pulled her away from his obviously dead body. I’d give her the credit for taking his life. She deserved it.

She’d then sobbed so hard she stopped breathing, only able to suck in jagged gasps that made her entire body quiver. I’d scooped her up, yelled over my shoulder what I was doing, and commanded to the made men in the building to take care of the mess and make sure no fucking Russian survived the chaos.

Papà had said something to me, but I had ignored him. I didn’t give a fuck what he had to say. This was all his fucking fault. He had been the one who hired Lombardo. He had dated Melinda. He had let them both into our tangled web of secrets and given them access to everything.

As I soothed Marcella, sitting in the tangled dead grass, watching ferries drift in the harbor, a sound to my right drew my attention. Moretti was hugging a frightened and tired Gisella, comforting her the best he could, but he was looking straight at me. At his eldest daughter that I was consoling, that I would be consoling for the rest of our lives.

Moretti had heard how I felt about Marcella. So had my papà, and every single person in that warehouse. My confession had echoed off the steel around us, reverberating back to me in a way that hurt more than I thought it would have when I finally got the chance to tell Marcella how I felt. How I had felt for a while, an unfamiliar emotion taking residency in my heart that I had decided to ignore instead of investigating.

Moretti nodded once, a simple show of approval that I hadn’t needed but realized I wanted. I wanted him to approve of our relationship, to no longer look at it like the transaction it had started as, but to see it as what it truly was now.

It was more. More than I thought it would ever be. More than I deserved, but exactly what I needed.

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