Page 214 of Untamed

And it destroyed me.

I slide my hand up to his chest, right over the place his heart is beating hard and fast beneath my palm.

“You didn’t even look at me,” I whisper, my voice quivering. “I thought you chose her. That I’d imagined everything. That it didn’t mean what I thought it did to you.”

His hand comes up, cupping the back of my neck. “It means everything, bambina.” he breathes. “Youmeaneverything.”

And I feel it, all of it, alive in the silence, no longer hidden, no longer safe.

So, I do the only thing that feels right in that moment. I push up on my toes, draw his mouth to mine and kiss him.

Why me?

What God did I please? What mercy did I earn? Because I have slit throats and stolen lives. I’ve buried innocence under ash and never once asked for forgiveness. I’ve been called a monster, a reaper, a weapon with no soul left to save.

And yet… here she is.

Wrapped in my arms, kissing me like I’m worthy of her love. Like I’m not something jagged that will cut her if she holds on too tightly.

Christ, there are no words in the English or Italian vocabulary to describe what I feel for her.

Obsessed? Doesn’t even touch it. It’s something else, something much more profound and dangerous.

I close my eyes and breathe her in. Every shaky breath. Every heartbeat against mine. Her warmth seeps into the coldest parts of me, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel like a man. Just a fuckingman.

A man who doesn’t know what the hell he’s done to deserve this girl, but knows damn well he’ll kill for the right to keep her.

“There isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do,” I think, “if it meant she’d look at me the way she just did.”

I tilt my head down, brushing my lips against her temple. Her skin is soft. Real. Here.

And I whisper, more to the universe than to her. “I don’t know what I’ve done to be rewarded with you, bambina… but I swear I’ll bring this world to its knees before I ever let them take you from me.”

Because she’s mine. And I’m hers. And whatever comes next, we walk into it together.

It’s been hours. No calls. No knocks. No Enzo tearing the door off its hinges or Luciano delivering some thinly veiled threat. Just quiet. Calculated, deliberate quiet. The kind that always comes before something breaks.

But the house is quiet in a way I’m not used to.

Not dead or cold.

Just…still.

Jordyn’s barefoot, curled on the rug in front of the fireplace, her hair falling in soft waves down her back, one knee bent beneathher as she flicks a string toy across the floor for Ladro. The little bastard lunges after it with all the intensity of a lion in a kitten’s body, tumbling over himself and swiping at the ribbon with tiny, reckless paws.

Jordyn laughs. Not loud, just a breathy, unguarded sound that slips out like she forgot to hold it back.

And I feel it like a fucking bullet to the chest.

I’m leaned back in the armchair, one arm hooked over the side, a book open in my lap that I haven’t read a single goddamn word of.

I’m watching her instead.

The curve of her cheek as she smiles.

The way she bites her lip when she concentrates.

The soft flutter of her lashes as she blinks down at the cat, whispering something I can’t hear.

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