The phone on the table lit up.My phone. New photo.
It was my bedroom. My apartment. Torn apart .On my pillow, a Moretti tattoo knife stabbed through the photo of me .
My knees nearly gave out.
"When did they–"
"An hour ago. Before we grabbed you." Alessio saw my face. "Yes, I grabbed you first. You can hate me for that later. Right now, just say yes."
"To what?"
"To living." He stood infront of me again, too close. "Say 'I do', Alessio. That's it. Only three words. They my men die for you instead of them killing you."
"This isn't a marriage!"
"No. It's a merger. A hostile one." His jaw ticked with that other thing. Not anger. "But you'll have my name. My house. My gun and anyone who dares to even touch you, dies."
"And what do you get?"
"I get what I'm owed." His eyes dropped to my mouth, then back up. "And I get to watch Morettis choke on it."
More Gunfire. The door rattled.
"Boss!" Dmitri's voice came from the hall again." They are in the lobby."
Alessio didn't move. He just waited on me, looking at me like a vulture.
I looked at the phone. At the knife in my photo. At the blood on my wrists. At him.
Monster or Monsters— those were my options.
"I do," I whispered.
"Louder!"
"I do, Alessio." The name tasted like a poison and oxygen at the same time.
He nodded once, like a deal is closed. "Dmitri! Get in here!"
The door burst open. Dmitri stepped inside followed by another suit, and a fat man in a priest's collar. The priest was crying.
"Do it!" Alessio ordered.
"W-What? Now? There's–"
"Now." Alessio grabbed my hand, his massive palm swallowing mine. "Words. Fast."
The priest stammered. "D-do you, Alessio De Luca, take this women–"
"Yes."
"To be your–"
"Yes."
"Lawfully wedded–"
Alessio looked at me. "Your turn."
The door splintered. A bullet hit the wall above us.
"Do you," The priest sobbed. "take this man–"
A moretti man appeared in the doorway, his gun raised high.
Alessio moved faster than I could see. He shoved me behind him and fired twice. The man dropped.
"To be your lawfully wedded husband?!" the priest finished on a terrified scream.
I stared at Alessio's back.Wide .Solid. Standing between me and death.
"I do," I said.
Alessio turned his head just enough for me to see his profile. "Again."
"I do!"
He looked at the priest. "Finish it."
"I–I pronounce you–"
The lights cut out completely. Emergency red flooded the room.
Alessio's hand found mine in the dark. He didn't asked why; he just took it. "Till death, principessa," He murmured against my hairs. "Now run."
I didn't. I couldn't. My heels were sinking into something warm and wet spreading across the marble.
He didn't wait. His fingers locked securely around my wrist, tight enough to bruise. The world became strobes of red and gunfire.
"Alessio–"
"Save your breath for running, moglie." His voice was commanding and gravelly. "Unless you want to die in that dress."
He kicked out the panel behind the altar. It wasn't wood, but solid steel. A tunnel. Of course the bastard had an escape route in a church. My church. The one my family paid for.
Gunshots chased us down the steps. I stumbled, and he scooped me up with his one arm. His other hand still held his gun.
My palms hit solid muscle through his shirt. He was hot. Burning up, or maybe that was just me.
"You planned this?" I gasped against his jacket. The smell of smoke and something dark and expensive lingered around him. "The attack...the–"
"I planned everything " His mouth brushing against my ear, his breath harsh. "Including you living through the night. Now move."
The tunnel reeked of concrete and old blood. It ended abruptly at a heavy metal door with a keypad scanner. He didn't type a code. He simply pulled out his knife, sliced his palm open without flinching, and pressed it to the scanner .
The lock clicked. His blood opened it.
He shoved us through into the darkness, guiding me up stairs that were narrow and pitch black. His hand stayed on my lower back. Possessive, even when we were running for our lives. I almost clung to him because of the dark.
Three stories up, my thighs screamed. We hit another door.
We spilled out into a room. Not outside, but a bedroom .
Black silk sheets. One wall was glass, overlooking the city lights.The other wall was full of weapons–knifes, guns, and other things I had never seen before in my life.
His bedroom.
He locked the door behind us.
One bolt. Two. Three. Each one sounded like a death sentence for whoever was on the other side.
Then he turned around.
His white shirt was completely soaked through on the left side. Red from blood. It stuck to him, outlining every ridge of his stomach, his chest. The wound was high, near his ribs.
"You're hit!" I said. My sound didn't sound like mine.
"You are quite observant." He tossed the gun on the nightstand. The sound was obscene in the quiet. Then he grabbed his shirt and ripped it off.
Buttons hit the floor like bullets.
He wasn't supposed to look like that. Men who killed people for living shouldn't have bodies sculpted like a sin. Blood slid down his side, over the cuts of his obliques, disappearing into the waistband of his pants.
"Come here." Not a request.
"To do what?" I hated that I was being so vulnerable, looking at him like that. My thoughts also weren't straight at all.
His eyes dragged down my wedding dress. Slow. Assessing. Claiming.
"You said 'I do' twice, principessa. That makes you mine." He stepped closer. "Now you get to keep me alive so that I can collect you."
He sank onto the edge of the bed. Deliberately, spreading his legs, he signaled for me to sit.
"Knife's in the top drawer," he said, nodding to the nightstand. His hands braced on the mattress, fingers digging into the silk. "Dig it out or watch me bleed out on our wedding night. Your choice."
A pounding started on the metal door. Distant but slowly getting closer.
His gaze never left mine. Dark. Hungry, despite the blood.
"Better choose faster, wife. Three minutes until they breach. " A beat. "And if I die, they will take you. They will not even ask you to say 'I do' once."
He leaned back on his hands, the movement pulling the skin of his stomach taut. The wound wept. His jaw ticked.
"Scared of a little blood, moglie?" His voice dropped. A dare. "Or scared of what happens after you touch me?"
His smirk on his face showed that he was enjoying every second of it.