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She shook her head, but I held her tight as Frankie aggressed on the men. Louis rounded the stairwell and followed Frankie up it, covering him from the side. It took a few minutes, and Sierra didn’t loosen her grip on me once, but the gunfire eventually stopped, and Frankie shouted “clear” from upstairs.
I heard them rushing through the house to ensure all the enemies were out. “There’s a girl in the basement. Make sure she’s out safely,” Sierra said, pointing toward the door as Louis strode by it. He nodded and went down the stairs. “Bella. She—”
I cut her off, pulling her into my chest and holding her there. “We know,” I said.
“No, she’s Virgil’s daughter. She’s been working with them from the start, and she’s—”
“We know,tesora. Relax. Take a deep breath, and then tell me where you’re hurt.”
She did exactly as I asked, taking one deep breath. Then she shook her head slowly. “I hit my head a few times. He gave me a cut under my ribs, but I think it’s shallow. I’m okay.” I wished I could have made that fucker suffer longer. “I’d really like to go home,” she finally said.
36
SIERRA
I expected to stay at the Lucchese house longer than we did, but once I was out we stormed away, Frankie driving a big suburban-style vehicle like a bat out of hell. I wondered if we were running from someone or leaving preemptively, but I didn’t ask as I snuggled into Carlo and kept an eye out the window for any indication of someone chasing us. Nobody was on our tail, though I noticed a few cars speeding in the direction of the house. “The girl in the basement…” I pushed, glancing at Louis.
His jaw tightened and he nodded. “She’s out.”
I didn’t ask anything more, feeling relieved that she’d been wrong about what she’d said. I didn’t die, and she didn’t either. I knew we wouldn’t—not with Carlo on my side. But the events of the evening still rattled me, and I took a deep breath, taking in his scent as they turned away from their house and toward the warehouse district. We turned beneath an overpass and pulled to the side of the road. “What are we doing?” I asked, tightening my grip on Carlo. I involuntarily carved half-moons into his arms, but he didn’t flinch away as his brothers moved from the car.
When they’d all stepped out, he turned to me. “They’re having another car brought here. Tommy has all the cameras in this vicinity powered off for thirty minutes.” He paused. “And we need to ensure we weren’t followed, so we’re holing up here and waiting.”
I didn’t understand the precautions with my mind still reeling from everything else we’d endured today, but I nodded anyway as Carlo reached for the hem of my shirt and tugged it upward. The fabric stuck to my skin, and I noticed the blood loss with widened eyes. I didn’t feel cold or light-headed, and as I glanced at the wound beneath my ribs, I found that it had mostly clotted. “Does it hurt?” Carlo asked, running a finger just below it and drawing chills from me.
I shook my head. “I think I still have too much adrenaline,” I admitted.
“Lay back.” I didn’t protest as I did just as he asked and he lifted my shirt higher, examining the unmarred skin across the rest of my stomach and chest. He grabbed each leg and gave it a similar treatment before grabbing one of my arms.
“I can tell you where I’m hurt, you know,” I teased. I didn’t know how I could tease after all that had happened, but it felt natural. Everything felt natural with Carlo.
The serious expression in his eyes mimicked the one I’d seen when he’d broken down the door to get to me, and I realized how important it was for him to check me. He’d been more worried than I’d thought. As he continued his thorough examination, running his hands over my limbs in a way that involuntarily shot heat through me, I couldn’t peel my eyes away from him. The hard lines of his face and perfect honey eyes, the dusting of facial hair that always appeared more scruffy than well-kept, the tattoos covering most of his exposed skin—all of it made it incredibly easy to love him. There weren’t many men like Carlo, and I was more than lucky to have him on my side. I couldn’t continue pushing away what I had been lucky to find. “Thank you,” I whispered.
His gaze shot from where he’d been looking me over to my eyes, and they softened just a bit. “You never have to thank me,” he said with the crooked grin I’d come to love.
“I do. You didn’t have to put your lives in danger to come and save me—especially when I’d been stupid enough to leave the house after you warned me not to.”
“None of this is your fault,” he said gruffly. I looked up at him, yet I couldn’t place the emotion that writhed across his face. “I should’ve been there to protect you. I never should’ve left you alone when I knew this was all coming to a head.”
The guilt that ran across his face consumed and obliterated me all at once, and I lifted a hand, running it down his cheek gently. He sharply inhaled a breath and broke eye contact, looking up and through the window. My brows furrowed as I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. “Carlo, none of this was your fault,” I told him, shaking my head.
When he looked down at me again, I saw why he’d looked away. A single tear fell from his eye, and my chest tightened as I realized the implication of it. I swiped my thumb over it, and he took a shuttering breath. “I thought I’d lost you,” he admitted. “I promised I’d never let anything like this happen again, and it did. And when I realized you were gone—” He cut himself off, taking a deep breath. “I thought it would be too late to find you.”
“I’m right here,” I whispered to him, shaking my head. I knew the adrenaline was the only reason my head no longer throbbed, but I could still take advantage of it. I moved a hand to the back of his neck and pulled him closer to me. “Everything worked out in the end.”
“It’s still not over. We haven’t found Lucchese, and—”
I cut him off with my lips. I felt his words flee, and I grinned as he deepened the kiss immediately, pushing me back until my back rested across the leather suburban seats again. Everything fled away. It didn’t matter that his brothers waited outside the car, and it didn’t matter that someone could’ve followed us. We were safe for now, and it was all that mattered as his hand slid up my shirt and pressed into my belly as if trying to create some kind of separation between our bodies. “Touch me, Carlo,” I begged against his mouth.
“You’re hurt,” he said, shaking his head. But his lips continued devouring as if his words could only control him so much.
I shook my head and grabbed his wrist. The thickness of it beneath my hands had my lips parting as I drew it to my face and sucked on one long digit, grinning as I did it. His jaw tightened as I continued sucking, finally sticking out my tongue and running it all the way up the finger before taking it back into my throat.
“Fuck, Sierra,” he groaned. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I promise that nothing you do will hurt me.” I thought about all the “painful” things we’d done in the past and shuddered at the reminder of Carlo’s dominance and prowess in bed. Right now, I needed him close. I needed my protector to distract me so I could face the rest of today.
His lips slammed back down on mine, and his body fell atop me with a force that told me he would give me precisely what I needed. But where Carlo was usually a rough force, he took a gentler approach. He slid my shirt over my head and tossed it to the floorboards, his eyes catching on the cut for just a moment before he lowered to my shorts. Even they were drenched in blood, and I wasn’t sure if it was entirely mine.
