Page 45 of Capo Dei Capi's Daughter

Chapter Twenty-Seven

DANTE

“I would never take advantage of her!”

Luca shoves me, “What were you told about speaking out of turn?”

Venecia stalks towards him as though she is a six foot, three-hundred-pound man, and promptly shoves him back before grabbing a knife from the table, “Touch him again and you’ll be the one not leaving this room. Understood?”

“Fuck, V,” he puts his arms up in truce and backs away from us.

“I need all of you to listen to me,” her voice firm, “I am not a little girl. While I appreciate the sentiment, all of you thinking that you are being righteous on my behalf, I don’t need all of you to protect me like I am a child. He might be older than me, but he did not take advantage of me. He loves me too much to ever do anything to hurt me.”

“Venecia,” Sal sullenly interrupts her.

“No, Papa. I’m not done,” she silences him, “I love him, and we are going to be together. If you don’t like it, we don’t have to stay here. But it’ll be really fucking sad when you don’t get to meet your first grandchild.”

“His what,” I groan through the pain when her words resonate.

Her eyes dart to Lorenzo, “Are you going to fucking cut him down? Or do I need to climb on a chair and do it myself?”

With a look of defeat and a smidge of disappointment, Lorenzo walks towards me with the knife and slices through the rope above my hands. My legs crumble below me, but Luca catches my body and gently lowers me to the floor. Venecia is immediately beside me on the floor untying the rope from my wrists, with watery eyes and a slight smile on her face.

“This conversation isn’t over,” Sal stands from his chair.

“No Papa, it is. The next conversation we have will be the three of you making your apologies to the father of my child.”

“Fellas,” Ava walks towards them, “You’ve all done enough. I think it’s time we leave, and someone is going to need to be upstairs to let Doc down here.”

As they all walk up the stairs, I use what little strength I have left to cup her face and pull her towards me and kiss her with everything I have.

“Cuore mio,” I struggle to push out the words, “I love you and ourbambino.”

M body falls into her lap, and she strokes my hair, “Just rest.”

I don’t remember much between falling asleep on her lap and waking up in her bed, with the exception a view vague moments of the doc stitching up some of the deeper cuts on my back and setting my nose back into place.

Everything hurts. My shoulders ache from holding the weight of my body. Every inch of my torso feels as though Lorenzo used me as a punching bag, and the sheets burn as they rub against the shallower cuts on my back not covered in bandages.

Yet, when I turn my head to find Venecia lying in bed beside me, I cannot help but smile.

“Good morning,” she delicately straddles my hips and leans towards my face before kissing me. A groan releases into her mouth as she leans a little too hard against a tender spot on my ribs.

“I’m sorry,” she pushes herself up.

Wrapping my arms around her, I pull her onto my body and kiss her back through the pain.

“Never apologize for loving me,” I whisper against her lips.

VENECIA

Carefully rolling off Dante, I lay next to him in the bed and hold his hand.

“I will never apologize for loving you.”

Dante winces as he rolls onto his side so that he is facing me, and I cannot help but rub my fingers over the extra scruff that has grown on his jaw.

“You’ve been pretty out of it for a little over two days,” my fingers continue to trace delicately over his bruised jaw, “Doc had you pretty medicated to get you through the worst of things.”

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