THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME LIFT HIS CRYING SON WITH A SCRATCH DOWN MY CHEEK—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “SHE CAUGHT HER FACE ON A ROSE BUSH.”

I woke to the rhythmic, hypnotic sound of an electronic heart monitor.

*Beep. Beep. Beep.*

The scent of antiseptic and clean linen filled my senses. My head throbbed with a dull, heavy ache, and my left forearm was wrapped tightly in clean white bandages. When I tried to move my fingers, I felt something warm, calloused, and heavy surrounding my right hand.

I forced my heavy eyelids open.

I wasn't in a hospital. The room was grand, paneled in dark, polished mahogany, with high ceilings and heavy velvet drapes blocking out the daylight. It was Luca’s private master bedroom in the Montauk fortress.

Sitting in a leather armchair pulled directly beside the bed was Luca.

He hadn't slept. That was obvious at a glance. Dark purple shadows bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and a rough shadow of stubble covered his jaw. He had changed into a clean black shirt, but the tension in his broad shoulders was so tight he looked like a statue carved from granite.

His head snapped up the second my fingers twitched.

"Emma."

His voice was hoarse, stripped raw by exhaustion and fury. He leaned forward, his grip on my hand tightening just enough to reassure me he was there.

"Mateo..." was the first word that managed to scrape past my dry, parched lips. "Is he—"

"He's asleep in the next room," Luca said softly, his thumb gently stroking the back of my hand. "Unscratched. Not a mark on him. The doctor gave him a mild sedative to help him rest. He asked for you four times before he went under."

A tear slipped from the corner of my eye, trailing down into my hair. "Thank God."

"Don't thank God," Luca murmured, his amber eyes burning with an emotion so intense it terrified me. "Thank yourself. You put your body between three hitmen and my son with a rusted pitchfork. The doctor said the concussion was mild, but you have three stitches in your hairline."

He reached out with his free hand, carefully brushing a loose strand of hair away from the white bandage taped over my temple. His touch was so gentle it felt reverent.

"Why did you do it, Emma?" he asked quietly. "You could have run out the back. You could have hid in the hayloft. They were there for Mateo, not you."

"I could never leave him," I whispered, meeting his gaze. "I love him, Luca. He's just a baby. He doesn't deserve this world."

Luca’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. He lowered his forehead against our joined hands, letting out a long, ragged breath that shook his massive frame.

"You called me Luca," he murmured against my skin.

I swallowed hard, suddenly realizing the breach in etiquette. "I'm sorry, Mr. Moretti, I was—"

"Never call me Mr. Moretti again," he commanded, lifting his head to look at me, his eyes dark with an unyielding, possessive heat. "You bled for my flesh and blood. You saved the only part of my soul that was worth keeping. From this moment on, you are not my employee, Emma. You are not staff."

My heart hammered frantically against my ribs. "Luca, what happened out there? Who sent them?"

Luca’s expression darkened instantly, the warmth vanishing, replaced by the lethal, calculating monster who ruled the underworld.

"The three men in the stable were freelance mercs," Luca explained, his voice chillingly flat. "Ex-military from Eastern Europe. But the burner phones in their tactical vests traced directly back to a shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands."

"Rossi?"

"Isabella," Luca corrected, the name dripping from his tongue like poison. "Her father didn't sanction it. Arturo is a ruthless bastard, but he knows the rules of the commission. You don't strike a don's family on his home turf without a formal vote. Isabella went rogue. She took five million dollars out of her trust fund, hired a strike team, and gave them orders to bring her Mateo and leave your body in the dirt."

I felt cold all over. "Where is she?"

Luca stood up slowly, towering over the bed. He walked to the window, pulling back the heavy velvet curtain an inch. Outside, the rain had stopped, replaced by a cold, grey morning. The lawn was crawling with heavily armed men—dozens of them, carrying automatic rifles, patrolling the perimeter like an occupying army.

"Arturo tried to hide her," Luca said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "He put her in a safehouse in New Jersey, surrounded by twenty of his best soldiers. He called me at three in the morning, begging for a sit-down. Begging for mercy for his daughter."

I gripped the bedsheets. "What did you say?"

Luca turned back to face me. The shadow cast by the window made him look like the Grim Reaper in a tailored suit.

"I told him that when someone tries to butcher my son and the woman who protects him, there are no sit-downs. There is only an ending."

He stepped back toward the bed, resting both hands on the footboard.

"Dante took sixty men to New Jersey at four in the morning," Luca said coldly. "The safehouse was leveled. Every man bearing the Rossi crest who stood in that driveway was executed. Isabella is currently locked in the cellar beneath this compound."

My breath caught in my throat. "You brought her here?"

"She wanted to see what happens when you cross me," Luca said, stepping closer, his presence commanding the entire room. "She wanted to play mafia princess. Now she is going to answer for every drop of blood she caused you to spill."

He leaned down, placing his hands on either side of my pillows, trapping me within his space. The scent of him—smoke, rain, and raw power—filled my lungs.

"She is down there right now, Emma. Waiting for judgment."

Luca’s dark eyes searched mine, waiting.

"Do you want her dead?" Luca asked.

The question hung in the air like a live grenade.

He wasn't bluffing. I knew, with absolute certainty, that if I whispered the word *yes*, Luca would walk down those stairs and put a bullet between Isabella Rossi's eyes without a single second of hesitation. He was offering me the power of life and death over a woman who had tried to destroy me.

I looked into his eyes—eyes that held a bottomless abyss of violence, but also an unbearable, terrifying devotion to me.

"No," I whispered.

Luca’s brow furrowed slightly. "No? She tried to slaughter you, Emma."

"If you kill her, you become the monster she thinks you are," I said, reaching up with a trembling hand, daring to touch the rough stubble along his jawline. "Send her away. Strip her father of his power. Break them financially. Banish them from the city so they can never show their faces again. But don't murder her for me, Luca. Don't put that blood on my hands. Or Mateo's."

Luca went completely still beneath my touch.

For a long, agonizing moment, he didn't move. He leaned into my palm, closing his eyes for half a second, inhaling deeply as if my touch were the only thing keeping him anchored to reality.

"You have a pure heart, Emma," Luca murmured, opening his amber eyes to stare directly into my soul. "It's the most dangerous thing in this house. But it's the only thing keeping this house standing."

He leaned down and pressed a slow, firm, burning kiss against my uninjured cheek.

"Her father is signing over every asset the Rossi family owns in New York by noon," Luca whispered against my skin. "They will be exiled to Sicily by nightfall. If either of them ever sets foot on American soil again, they will be hunted like dogs."

He pulled back, his eyes dark with an unsaid promise.