“Remove your hand from Mrs.De Luca.”
Luca’s grip doesn’t falter right away.Men like him never let go when they should.They hold on a little longer, just to make sure the threat lands exactly where they want it.
“Take your fucking hand off her,” Rafe says, stepping into the room, gun visible at his hip.
Luca’s hand stays where it is, his thumb still pressing into the hinge of my jaw, his stare never leaving mine.It’s as if Rafe’s threat only makes this sweeter for him, as if the danger in the room gives him one last thrill.He wants me to feel that even now, even here in this house, he can still hurt me if he wants to.
I stare right back.
My eyes burn.My jaw throbs.And my pulse slams so hard it makes my ears ring, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of looking away.
Rafe moves fast, closing the distance with the kind of purpose that makes the room feel smaller.
“I won’t fucking tell you again,” he says once more, the words cracking through the air.
Luca’s thumb still digs in, hard enough to send a hot surge of pain through my face.A final little twist of cruelty before he finally lets me go.
The ache lingers instantly.It settles under my skin the second his hand leaves me, throbbing at the hinge of my jaw, impossible to ignore.My teeth still ache from how they knocked together.My face feels too tight, too hot, too aware of where he touched me.
Rafe steps between us at once, positioning his body exactly where it needs to be.
“It’s time for you to leave, Mr.Serrano,” he says.
Luca barely looks at him.
“This isn’t over,” he tells me, voice low, smooth, and laced with promise.
“Mr.Serrano,” Rafe says again, steady as a stone.
Luca’s eyes never leave mine.
“This isn’t over,” he says again.His gaze slides past me toward the rain-streaked windows, taking it in.“You should think very carefully about where your loyalty lies, Isabella.Next time, I won’t bother being patient.”
Then he turns to leave.
Rafe follows close behind him, close enough that the message needs no translation.This is De Luca territory.Whatever my brother came here believing he could do, he doesn’t get to finish it.Not here.Not in this house.
I lift my hand carefully to my jaw.The pain has already changed character, no longer a shock but something that has settled.I know there will be marks by morning.
For a moment, I simply stand here and listen.I wait until I hear the front door swing open and shut, until the low current of male voices dissolves into nothing.Then footsteps return from the hall and I freeze on instinct.
Rafe appears in the doorway a second later.
“Are you okay, Mrs.De Luca?”
The question is so simple it almost undoes me.Too gentle for a man built the way he is, all hard edges and harder silences.
I swallow once, then lower my hand from my face.“Yes.Thank you.”
Rafe holds still for a moment in the way that tells me he knows perfectly well that yes is not the truth.He simply nods, and then he is gone.
I turn back to the window and I close my eyes.Inhale.Exhale.Hold.
Something old shifts loose inside my chest.
When I was a child, I used to go outside during storms.I would slip out the kitchen door when my carer wasn’t watching, stand in the garden with my arms open and my face turned up, and let the rain hit me all at once, cold and ruthless and absolutely indifferent to who I was supposed to be.It soaked through my clothes, slicked my hair flat, and ran into my shoes, and none of that mattered.Because out there, I was just a girl standing in a storm, trying to feel something that belonged entirely to her, not to anyone else.
I turn from the window and walk out of the room without letting myself think too hard about it.Down the long corridor, through the double doors into the garden.