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She comes undone in my arms. Not with the shattering force of many of our earlier experiences, but with a slow, devastating unraveling. Her body tightens around me, drowning me in rolling waves of pleasure. Her mouth opens against my skin, my name repeated like the only word left in her vocabulary. The sensation pulls my own release from somewhere I didn’t know existed. I bury myself and hold myself there, pulsing inside her, my vision whiting out, my arms locked around her like I’m afraid the world will try to steal her from me again.
Rather than separate, we stay exactly where we are. Side by side, face to face, still connected, her leg draped over my hip, my hand resting on the curve of her waist. In the quiet, our hearts settle into the same steady rhythm.
She raises her hand between us. Nonna’s ring glints in the lamplight, and I press my lips to the finger wearing it, then her palm.
This hand pulled a trigger to save my life.
We lie here until the silence stops feeling like aftermath and starts feeling like the first page of whatever comes next.
Then my phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I ignore it.
Another buzz. Then another.
Lucia raises her head, and her eyes find mine in the dim light. “You should check that. It might be important.”
“Whatever it is can wait. This is our wedding night.”
“Marco.” Her voice is gentle but firm, a doctor’s tone that brooks no argument. “Check it.”
I reach for the phone, and when I read Nico’s message, my heart stops mid-beat.
Lucia’s observing me, her eyes sharp with concern like she’s picking through my expression for clues. “What’s wrong?”
“Nico pinpointed the location where Tomas and his men mobilized. Most likely, it’s Bruno’s hideout.” I set the phone down and meet her eyes. “I have to go.”
Ripping myself out of her arms now, when we’ve survived the worst and found each other again, feels like the hardest act I’ve ever performed.
She sits up and caresses my cheeks. “I know you do. Just come back to me safe. Promise me.”
“I promise.” I kiss her softly. “I’ll be here before you wake up again. You won’t even know I’m gone.”
She convinces herself to trust me, to let me go, and to believe in my promise.
I dress quickly, kiss her one last time, and slip out into the night.
Bruno’s hideout is a farmhouse among empty fields, about an hour outside the city. I approach the place cautiously with Nico, Vito, and Rocco. The four of us traverse through the darkness like ghosts, our footsteps silent on the dew-wet grass.
“Intel says Bruno’s inside.” Nico’s voice is quiet in my earpiece. “At least six guards as well. Possibly more based on heat signatures.”
I nod and signal the team forward with hand gestures honed by years of practice. We breach silently and with lethal force. The guards go down soundlessly as we clear the rooms one by one. Each empty discovery tightens the coil in my chest.
No sign of Bruno.
Save for a few guards and the documents spilling from filing cabinets, the farmhouse is empty. Files are stacked on every surface, and a computer terminal is still running, its screen casting blue light into the darkness. Bruno’s been operating from here long before Naples, maybe since the day he destroyed my career and disappeared.
I’m standing in the center of it all, rage gathering like a storm, when Vito calls out from an office.
“Marco? You need to see this.”
Cabinets line the room I find Vito in, each one stuffed with records going back years. My eyes flick across medical documents, athlete dossiers, financial ledgers, and shipping manifests. Vito holds out a folder, his expression strange in the low light.
I take it and read.
It’s my file from the New York State Athletic Commission that details the doping charges that destroyed my career and stripped me of every title and shred of credibility I’d earned. Bruno’s malice reduced my name to a punch line.
Among the official documents, I discover handwritten notes in Bruno’s meticulous script, his initials on every page. This is a surprisingly detailed account of how he framed me, with copies of the planted evidence, the identities of the coached witnesses, and the entire timeline of the leak.
