"He touched my cheek for half a second before I told him to back off!" I yell, shoving my hands flat against the solid wall of his chest. "I had it handled! You didn't need to throw him through a glass table in front of the entire syndicate! Don Salvatore is going to—"
"I don't give a fuck about Don Salvatore!" Cassio roars, the volume so deafening that Matteo flinches in the front seat. "Hethinks he can save you from me! He thinks you are a victim. He thinks he still has a right to look at you, to speak to you, to touch you. I should have put a bullet in his fucking kneecap."
"He is an idiot!" I counter, my voice cracking with pure frustration. "I don't care about Dario! I told him to leave me alone! But you embarrassed us, Cassio! You acted like a feral animal!"
"I acted like a man protecting what is his!" he fires back, his hands slamming down on the leather seat on either side of my thighs, caging me in.
"I am not a piece of property!" I scream, tears of anger springing to my eyes, blurring his sharp, ruthless features.
"You are my wife!"
"And that means you own me?" I demand, my throat burning. "That gives you the right to treat me like a possession you have to guard from the rest of the world? To lock me in a tower and beat any man who looks at me? Is that what this is to you, Cassio? Just ownership?"
The question hangs in the cramped, suffocating space of the car.
Outside, the rain begins to fall again, a sudden, violent downpour drumming against the reinforced steel of the roof.
Cassio stares at me. His chest is heaving, his dark eyes are blazing with that magnificent, unyielding fire that I have spent the last month fighting. He thinks I’m challenging his authority. He thinks I’m protecting Dario.
But then, the rigid, monstrous tension in his shoulders suddenly breaks.
The feral anger drains out of his face and is replaced by an agonizing truth. It is a look of devastating vulnerability, an expression that a Don is never supposed to wear, especially not in front of his soldiers.
"Ownership is easy, Noemi," Cassio says. His voice drops from a roar to a whisper that completely hollows out my stomach. "I own a dozen warehouses. I own casinos. I own the docks. If someone touches them, I kill them, and then I sleep perfectly fine."
He shifts his weight, moving closer until our knees are perfectly aligned. He reaches up, his large, calloused hands trembling slightly as they cup my face. His thumbs trace the sharp cut of my cheekbones.
"This isn't ownership," he confesses. "This is madness."
My breath hitches. The fight drains out of me instantly, replaced by a deep, terrifying free-fall.
“I hate the idea of anyone else touching you," Cassio murmurs, pressing his forehead against mine, his dark eyes burning intomy soul. "I hate that he knew you before I did. I hate that he made you smile at a Christmas dinner two years ago when I wasn't there. I hate that he thinks he knows what you need, when all I can think about is how to give you the entire fucking world just to make you look at me the way you used to look at him.”
"Cassio..." I whisper, the word tumbling from my lips.
"I am a monster, Noemi," he vows, his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck. "I am violent, and I am paranoid, and I know I am suffocating you. But the thought of him putting his hands on you... the thought of you ever wishing he had been the one waiting at the altar..."
A ragged, desperate breath escapes his chest. "It makes me want to tear my own heart out."
He lets me see it all.
I don't pull away.
Slowly, tentatively, I bring my hands up. I rest my palms flat against his chest, feeling the erratic, violent thumping of his heart beneath the crisp white shirt. My fingers curl into the fabric, anchoring myself to him.
"I don't wish it was him," I whisper honestly. "I told him to leave me alone, Cassio. I told him I didn't want him."
"Then who do you want?" he demands desperately. He needs to hear it. He needs the verbal confirmation before he completely loses his mind.
I tilt my head up.
"I want the monster," I breathe.
Cassio groans, a deep, guttural sound of pure salvation, and crashes his mouth against mine.
The kiss is an explosion. It’s a collision of heat, desperation, and total surrender. I open my mouth to him willingly, my hands sliding up to wrap tightly around the back of his neck. His tongue sweeps past my lips, tasting, claiming, devouring every lingering doubt I ever had. He hauls me across the leather seat, pulling me onto his lap, his large hands grip my waist with a bruising, desperate strength.
I kiss him back with a fierce, demanding hunger that matches his own. My fingers tangle in his dark hair, pulling him closer, deeper, drowning in the intoxicating taste of whiskey, mint, and absolute power.