Page 35 of Sicilian Savior

Surprising. That was the understatement of the year. One second, I was preparing to devour my cannoli, and the next, I was staring at an old friend with his jugular slit.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Knox asked, his fingers sliding into my hair and stroking the length of it.

“Yeah.” I blew out a deep breath. “I think it’s passed. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said as I rose back to standing. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken you to the market. I thought we were far enough away. Clearly, that was a mistake. No more leaving the villa.”

“No arguments here,” I answered.

When I looked over at him, those same eyes I’d grown accustomed to stared back at me. The soft ones. The kind ones. The ones that looked at me like I was the only woman on the planet. Since they’d disappeared last night, I’d missed them.

“I’m just glad you’re safe.” He stroked his thumb across my cheek.

“Thanks to you.” I pressed my cheek into the weight of his hand.

The soft look in his eyes shifted to a pained one, and he pulled his hand away. “We should get moving,” he said abruptly. “Best to get out of this area.”

He took my hand and led me away from all the commotion happening in the distance behind us. Locals started popping their heads out from their storefronts now that the gunfire had stopped, and as more bodies spilled out into the streets, we blended back into them.

“There.” He pointed toward the shoreline. “A tour boat. I say we take it and use the water to lay low. No one will ever expect anyone in the gunfight will be off on a sight-seeing tour. Once we get back, the heat should be gone, and I can get us a cab home. No sense in leaving right now when cops are everywhere.”

“Okay,” I answered.

Knox took us to the ticket office and purchased two tickets. We walked up the ramp onto the boat along with a dozen other tourists, all snapping photos of their experience.

“Try not to get in the background of any photos,” Knox said, angling us away from the group.

“Oh, yeah. Good point.” It amazed me how he thought of everything, not to mention how incredible it had been to see him in action. When he’d said he was part of one of the most elite operative teams on the planet, I’d believed him, but it still didn’t compare to seeing it first-hand. If I’d thought I’d felt safe with him before, now I knew with certainty that no one would ever harm me with him at my side.

The boat pulled away from shore, and we both exhaled a deep breath as we moved away from the scene of the crime. The ocean waves lapped along the sides of the boat as it took us out to sea.

“Damn,” Knox said as he stared back at shore. “That is a beautiful view.”

I followed his gaze to the gorgeous coastline and looked over the architecture that created a beautiful, old city. “Yeah. It’s really breathtaking.”

Such a stark contrast to the blood and the horrors we’d left in our wake. I’d always envisioned this when I dreamed of visiting Sicily. For a moment, I forgot that we’d just been in a bloodbath where we’d had to run for our lives and that the entire reason for being here was to get my son back from the psychopath I’d stupidly married. For just one moment, I was a woman standing next to a man on a vacation in the most beautiful place on earth.

Then my mind wandered back to the time I met Victor—the moment that changed the trajectory of my life that put me on a boat with the operative helping me get back my stolen son. Before Victor, I’d just been a boring, Sicilian girl waitressing after school to help her parents pay the bills. What I wouldn’t give to go back to that day and toss Victor’s hundred-dollar tip in his face. Stop all of this madness before it began.

But then I wouldn’t have Luca.

I glanced over.

And I wouldn’t have Knox.

I realized then that all the pain and terror I’d been through had been worth it to bring them both into my life. I just had to hang on a little longer until Knox returned Luca to my arms.

Knox leaned forward onto the railing, his bulging biceps pushing against the tight t-shirt he’d grabbed in the market. I wanted to reach over and slide my hand over his or lay my head against his shoulder and feel his huge arm envelop me again. But when I looked at his face, that soft, sweet version of Knox that I adored was absent, and instead, a cold, hard warrior remained at my side. With a sigh, I turned my attention back to the impressive view and tried to forget about my feelings for Knox that he no longer seemed to reciprocate.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Knox

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Well, that hadn’t gone as planned.

I stood next to Lucia as we watched the cab pull back down the driveway. We’d taken a tour around the coast for four hours, then we’d returned, and with the heat off, we’d grabbed a cab and slipped out of the city.