Three days since the rescue.
I haven't left the estate—haven't wanted to. The outside world feels dangerous now in ways it didn't before. Every shadow could hide a threat.
Every stranger could be an enemy. The mansion's walls, once a gilded cage, have become a fortress I'm grateful for.
The brothers rotate a silent vigil, one of them always nearby without crowding me.
Santo brings me tea in the mornings, sits with me while I pretend to read. Luca checks on me between meetings, his hand lingering on my shoulder, his eyes searching my face for cracks.
Matteo hovers in doorways, watching, unusually quiet.
I sleep in fits, waking from nightmares of concrete walls and Vittorio Benedetti's cold smile.
Sometimes I wake up screaming. Sometimes I wake up crying. Sometimes I just lie there in the dark, heart pounding, reminding myself that I'm safe.
But here's the strange thing: I actually feel safe.
Safer than I ever felt in my parents' house, where love came with conditions and protection came with a price tag.
These men killed for me. Bled for me. Burned down an empire to bring me home. Whatever else they are, criminals, killers, monsters, they're mine. And I'm theirs.
It's late evening when Matteo finds me in the library.
The fire crackles low, casting dancing shadows across the walls. I'm curled up on the leather sofa with a book I haven't actually been reading, the same page open for the past hour.
He looks different tonight. Subdued. The usual predatory energy dimmed to something quieter, something almost uncertain.
He's in a simple black t-shirt and jeans—no designer labels, no carefully cultivated image. Just Matteo.
"Can't sleep?" He doesn't wait for an answer. Just settles beside me on the sofa, closer than necessary but not touching. "Me neither."
"The nightmares?"
"Something like that." He stares into the fire, amber eyes reflecting the flames. "Different kind of nightmare, though."
The silence stretches between us, but it's not uncomfortable. For once, there's no game being played. No seduction. No power struggle.
"Those hours you were gone," he says finally, voice rough. "Not knowing if you were alive. If they'd hurt you. If we'd get there in time."
His jaw tightens, muscle jumping beneath the skin. "Worst hours of my life, Gianna. And I've lived through some shit."
I stare at him. Matteo Moretti, all charm and arrogance, the man who pinned me against bookshelves and made me scream, who fucked me like he was proving a point, looks almost fragile.
"Matteo..."
"I kept thinking about all the things I should have said." His amber eyes meet mine, and they're stripped of their usual heat. Just raw, bleeding honesty. "All the things I was too scared to admit."
"Scared?" The word sounds foreign applied to him. "You're never scared."
"I'm always scared." A bitter laugh escapes his throat. "I've just gotten good at hiding it. Behind charm. Behind sex. Behind this whole performance of being the the wild one, the one who doesn't give a fuck about anything."
He runs a hand through his dark curls, and I notice his knuckles are still healing—split and bruised from the violence of my rescue.
"I've never done this," he continues quietly. "Feelings. Vulnerability. Caring about someone so much that losing them would actually break me."
He shakes his head. "It's easier to take. To possess. To make it about bodies and pleasure. Safer."
"Safer than what?"
"Than this." He gestures between us. "Than actually letting someone see me. The real me."
I reach for him without thinking—just wanting to touch him, to comfort him, to let him know he's not alone.
He flinches.
Actually flinches. Like gentleness is foreign. Like kindness is a weapon he doesn't know how to defend against.
"Matteo." I keep my hand on his cheek, feeling the stubble beneath my palm. "It's okay. You can let me in."
"What if you don't like what you find?"
"I already know what's there." I hold his gaze. "I've seen you kill. I've seen your rage. I've seen the monster you think you are." My thumb strokes his cheekbone. "I'm still here."
Something breaks behind his eyes.
When he kisses me, it's nothing like before. No teeth. No claiming. No punishment. Just his lips against mine, soft and searching, asking instead of taking.
He undresses me slowly, reverently, like I'm something precious he's afraid to damage. His fingers trace paths across my skin that his hands once bruised, touching me with a tenderness I didn't know he possessed.
"So beautiful," he murmurs against my collarbone. "I never told you that, did I? Not properly. I was too busy taking to appreciate what I had."
"You told me," I whisper. "Just not with words."
He kisses places he bit last time—the curve of my neck, my shoulder, the swell of my breast. Where once there was urgency and conquest, now there's only worship.
He maps my body like he's learning it for the first time, like every inch deserves attention.
"Tell me what you need," he breathes against my stomach. "Tell me what feels good."
"You. Just you."
He settles between my thighs, but he doesn't rush. Doesn't demand. Just looks up at me with those amber eyes, vulnerable in a way I've never seen, and waits for permission.
"Please," I whisper.
He enters me slowly, inch by devastating inch, watching my face the entire time. When he's fully seated inside me, he holds still, forehead pressed to mine, breathing ragged.
"I've never made love to anyone before," he admits, voice cracking. "I've fucked. I've performed. But this..." He pulls back slightly, pushes in again, impossibly gentle. "This is different."
"Different how?"
"Because I actually care if you feel it too."
He moves inside me with devastating tenderness, every stroke slow and deep, hitting places that make me gasp. His eyes never leave my face—watching for pleasure, for pain, adjusting based on every sound I make.
"That's it," he murmurs when I moan. "Tell me. Show me. Let me give you this."
It builds differently than before—not the explosive wildfire of our last encounter, but something deeper.
A slow burn that spreads through my entire body, warming me from the inside out. When I finally crest, it's with his name on my lips and tears in my eyes.
He follows moments later, my name torn from his throat like a prayer.
Afterward, he holds me against his chest, fingers tracing lazy patterns on my spine. His heartbeat thuds beneath my ear—steady, present, real.
"I thought I'd lost you before I ever really had you," he says quietly. "Before I ever let myself admit what you mean to me."
"What do I mean to you?"
A long pause. Then: "Everything." The word sounds like it costs him something. "You mean everything, piccola. And that terrifies me more than any enemy ever could."
I tilt my head up to look at him. The charm is gone. The mask is gone. Just Matteo, wounded and wanting, finally letting me see the man beneath.
"Don't do that to me again," he whispers. "Don't disappear. Don't let them take you. I won't survive it twice."
"I'll try."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
He holds me tighter, and for the first time since the rescue, I feel something other than fear.
I feel loved.