Page 238 of Untamed

Ares.

The thought slams into me like a lifeline and a warning all at once. I push up, wiping at my face with the sleeve of the sweatshirt I’m still wearing. It’s his. It smells like him. I need more of that. I needhim.

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, force my feet to carry me forward even as my body protests. I move through the halls like a ghost. Every shadow feels like a threat. Every corner makes my pulse spike.

I follow the low murmur of voices until I find them, Ares and a handful of his men gathered in a room I’ve never seenbefore. Maps are spread across the table, weapons laid out like a warning.

But it’s him I can’t look away from.

He’s standing at the head of the table, broad and still, eyes like obsidian as they track every word coming from Dante’s mouth. He isn’t shouting. He doesn’t have to. His silence is the loudest thing in the room.

I know that version of him. I’ve seen him in the shadows before battle. In the tightness of his jaw. In the way his thumb rubs that black hair tie around his wrist like a prayer.

And I know, he’s already planning how to end this. Blood will be spilled for what happened today. And I keep hearing Luciano’s warning in my head.

“You weren’t raised for this life, Jordyn. You weren’t trained for it. And you’re not ready for what loving a man like him will cost you. Or what it will cost him.”

I linger in the doorway, unnoticed at first. Or maybe not unnoticed, just unacknowledged. No one dares interrupt Ares when he’s like this. Eyes cold. Shoulders rigid. He looks like he’s made of steel and shadow and a quiet kind of violence that doesn’t need to be loud to be lethal.

“Security footage shows no forced entry,” Dante says. “We’re combing the footage frame by frame, but someone either let them in or disabled the feed before the breach.”

Ares speaks before anyone else can.

I see the muscle in Ares’s cheek tighten. A slow breath drags through his nose. “I want eyes on every Moretti property,” he says finally. His voice is soft. Too soft. “Warehouses, clubs,safehouses. I don’t give a shit if it’s a fucking bakery, if they’ve set foot in it, I want it watched.”

Dante nods, already reaching for his phone. “Dante, question everyone on our payroll. Everyone. From the guards at the gate to the ones who scrub the fucking toilets. Someone let them in, or someone knew how to let them in.” The room goes still. “And when we find them…” he glances at Dante, voice quiet... “I want their body on my floor before sunset.”

He pauses and exhales slowly. “I’ll carve the truth from their bones if I have to.”

No one dares speak. Then he steps back from the table, eyes still locked on the map. “No more messages. I’m done playing his fucking games. Bring me Luca.”

The words crawl down my spine, icy and deliberate and that’s when his gaze lifts, and finds me.

For a second, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just stares like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he does. Then he dismisses the others with a single nod.

Dante glances at me once as he passes. It’s not pity in his eyes, but something close. Something protective. And then it’s just me and Ares.

The silence stretches until it nearly breaks. “I couldn’t stay in that room any longer,” I whisper. “I keep seeing it.”

Ares crosses the space in two strides. His hands cradle my face before I can even take another breath. Not rough. Not desperate. Just…there.

“Mi dispiace, ciccina,” he breathes, voice hoarse, scraped raw from the inside. “I failed you.”

His thumb brushes under my eye, catching the tear before it falls.

“I should’ve seen it coming. I let my guard down when I never fucking should have. This is on me.”

“You didn’t know something like this would happen,” I whisper.

But he shakes his head, fury thrumming beneath the surface.

“I should’ve,” he growls. “I’m always two steps ahead. Always. But that son of a bitch distracted me by taking you.”

A pause. His voice drops lower. Tighter. “He breached my security system, walked past my men, and stepped into my home like he owned it.”

He steps closer until there’s no space between us, just the hard press of his body, the sharp scent of leather and gunmetal wrapping around me like smoke. His forehead presses to mine, and the world shrinks down to the heat of his skin and the thundering beat beneath it.

“I keep replaying it,” I whisper. “Walking in and seeing him like that. The message. The blood. I— My voice cracks. “He was just a baby, Ares.”

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