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I smile and tilt my head to give him better access. “Easy for you to say. Men get away with doing nothing for the wedding while the women stress over every little detail,” I huff and slump in my overstuffed reading chair. I turn my head to kiss my fiancé’s scruffy cheek. “When is Camil getting back?”
He kneads the tight muscles of my shoulders with large, calloused hands. And I ponder, and not for the first time, how the same hands that have tortured and killed so many can worship and ravage me in kind.
“Soon. Boian has already landed, and I should hear from him any minute.”
“Good. I miss her, and she’s probably the only one who could sort this wedding bible out.” I chuckle. The binder is snatched from my lap, and with a sharp tug, Emil lifts me from my chair, takes my spot, then plants me in his lap. The binder falls to the hardwood, and he gives it a swift kick across the room, papers ripping from its bindings and scattering across the library floor. “Emiliano Dorin Calvano!” I scold and go to clean up the mess when his arms wrap tightly around me, and a warning growl rumbles fromhis chest.
“Fuck all the pomp and pageantry. You want the wedding planned for you? You, me, your sisters, Camil, Boian, and a priest. You will dress however the fuck you like. I only ask you to have Sand Spurrey buds sowed into your hair. I’ll meet you there,” he points to the little stretch of sand between two towering stones, “and we will be married with the sunset over the Tyrrhenian Sea as our background.” He finishes, and the picture he paints has tears stinging my eyes and a smile stretching my lips.
I snuggle into his chest and let out a sigh of elation and peace as he combs his fingers through my dark strands. My body goes liquid in his arms at the vision of him and I becoming husband and wife with our closest friends and family gathered, the Tyrrhenian Sea as ourbackdrop.
“When?” I speak against his black T-shirt.
“Two weeks from today,” he answers quickly, and I smile at his impatience.
“Okay,” I readily agree and bury myself further into his chest, where it vibrates with hislaughter.
“You say it as though you have a choice,mia perla. I took you once, and I’ll feel no remorse for dragging you kicking and screaming down the aisle.”
I give his nipple a hard tweak through his tight shirt for his highhandedness and smile when he yelps, then smacks my thigh inreprimand.
I settle back into his chest and sigh. “Why SandSpurrey?”
He doesn’t answer for three heartbeats. When he finally does speak, my heart pinches and warms all at once. “They were my mother’s favorite.”
“Then I would be honored. Everything you said sounds wonderful.”
“Then why do you not sound happy?” His tone holds a bite of irritation, and his fingers still inmy hair.
“Iam happy.”
“But?” he prompts and starts back with hiscaressing.
I sigh into the hard muscles of his chest and pick at invisible lint. “I just wish it didn’t have to end the way it did with Stefan. I know he was a sick bastard, but he was your brother… I don’t know.” I lift my head and search his amber eyes. “You’re sure you’re not angry with me for killing him? I would understand if––”
“I am not having this conversation again. He was blood, yes, but he was not my brother. And no, Greta, I’m not angry at you. The asshole was going to shoot me in the back, and you saved my fucking life by putting a bullet through his head.” His hand fists the roots of my hair, and he jerks my head back. “And I don’t want to hear another word on the subject. Am I clear?” He is not to be toyed with, so I simply nod. He loosens his grip on my hair and goes back to stroking it instead, and I immediately bury my face back into his chest. “Oh,mia perla, what will I dowith you?”
“Love me,”I murmur.
“Sempre,” he agrees.Always.
“Sempre,”I repeat.
We sit silently in a loving embrace until our tender moment is interrupted by his buzzing phone in his pocket. He lifts his hips with me still sitting on his lap and answers. “Sì,mio amico?” He listens for a moment, and I watch as the sweet-talking man from seconds before transforms into the wrathful don right before my eyes.
His eyes narrow, and fury ignites in his golden orbs. He sits up straight but doesn’t loosen his grip around my waist as he speaks in rapid-fire Italian to who I can only assume is Boian. “Find her! I do not care what you have to do––who you have to kill––find her,” he orders his second-in-command, his heart pounding beneath my hand on his chest, his body vibratingwith rage.
He disconnects the call and drops the phone on my lap as he stares off into nothingness. My heart thunders like a summer storm in Texas with all the horrific scenarios that could cause such a visceral responsefrom him.
My hands cup each of his cheeks, and I gently shake his head to bring him back to me. “What’s goingon, Emil?”
He doesn’t answer for what seems like minutes, and when he finally speaks, my stomach drops, and my own anger bubbles to the surface. “Camil is gone. Boian thought she was taken, but Dom said she knocked him out with some of her sleeping pills, and when he woke, shewas gone.”
“Why? Why would she do that?” I ask through angry tears. I love Camil, but what she did was stupid anddangerous.
I should know.
“I do not know,mia perla, but if anyone can find her, it’s Boian.” He leans his head back against the chair, closes his eyes, and huffs out a humorless laugh. “And God help her whenhe does.”
