Page 5 of His Savage Ruin
"Oh, but you are." I move back into her line of sight. "Smart enough to survive four months of marriage to Lorenzo Moretti. That takes considerable skill."
Something flickers across her face—too quick to read, but not quick enough to hide.
"You're fishing," she says.
"I'm conversing."
A sound from the darkness makes her eyes dart toward the shadows where my men wait—shapes she can sense but not see. Her breathing changes, just slightly, as she counts the invisible presences surrounding us.
I see the moment it truly hits her. Her knuckles go white around the arms of the chair, her breath stutters, and her throat works in a hard swallow she can’t quite finish. Her pupils dilate, eyes darting to the shadowed corners, as if she’s counting threats she can’t see. Her composure slips in that fraction of a second,enough to show she’s realized the truth: this isn’t some street kidnapping — she’s sitting in the grip of power itself.
Before I can push further, the door opens. Light spills in from the hallway, and Enzo enters first, lean and deadly, his serpent tattoo visible in the dim light. Behind him comes my brother Luca, younger, softer-featured, but carrying the Romano name with quiet authority.
"Matteo," Luca says, and something in his tone tells me we have a problem. I glance between my men and the woman tied to the chair. She's watching this exchange with curious eyes; no doubt cataloging names and faces and power dynamics even in her helpless state.
I'm about to leave when she speaks up.
"Are you planning to keep me tied up forever?"
The question is pure defiance, thrown at me like a challenge. Not a plea from a broken woman but a demand from someone who refuses to accept defeat. Even now, even helpless, she's trying to seize some small measure of control.
I turn back to her fully, and for a moment, I feel something almost like admiration for her unbreakable spirit.
"You belong to me now,principessa," I tell her, letting the Italian endearment carry both promise and threat. "What happens to you will be decided by me alone."
I leave her in the chair. The door shuts behind me, the lock snapping into place.
Luca and Enzo are waiting in the hallway, faces tight.
“The head injury isn’t serious,” Enzo reports, rolling up his sleeves, serpent tattoo catching the light. “No fracture, no bleeding. She’ll have a headache, but nothing lasting.”
A hostage with a broken mind is useless and we both know that. Relief flickers through me, though I bury it.
Luca shifts uneasily, the way he always has before delivering bad news. “We searched her belongings. Purse, keys, phone. The usual. But there was also an envelope from the Chicago Family Health Center. Pregnancy test results. Positive. Ten weeks old.”
I take this in without surprise. Of course, she’s pregnant. It explains everything—their desperation, Emilio’s recklessness. A widow carrying the Moretti heir is worth starting a war over.
“Expected,” I say flatly. “Emilio wouldn’t spill blood over a barren widow. The child makes her invaluable.”
That should be the end of it. Yet something gnaws at me. That clinic—wrong part of town, the kind of place the Morettis would never send their women. And her denials during interrogation… not fearful.
“I want Dr. Reeves to confirm the pregnancy,” I decide. My tone leaves no room for argument. “If we’re going to use her as leverage, I need certainty. I don’t deal in assumptions.”
Both men nod, and I turn away, already thinking about my next move.
War isn’t won on luck. It’s won on information. And Alessia Moretti’s truth is about to become mine.
CHAPTER THREE
Alessia
"You belong to me now, principessa. What happens to you will be decided by me alone."
The words echo in the darkness long after the door closes, each syllable settling into my bones like ice. I'm alone now with the shadows and the weight of my own fear, trying to process what just happened.
Matteo Romano.Il Diavolohimself.
I should be terrified—and I am—but there's something else threading through the fear. Something I don't want to examine too closely. The way he looked at me, the way his voice dropped when he called meprincipessa, the controlled power that seemed to radiate from him like heat.
