Chapter 9 - Vengeance and Rescue
Luca stood in the center of the ruined room, his chest heaving, his hands coated in crimson.
Slowly, terrifyingly, he turned to face me.
I was sitting on the floor beside the crib, curling my body around Leo, trembling violently. My lip was split, my cheek was bruising from Julian’s blow, and my bare feet were cut from broken glass. But Leo was safe. He was clinging to my sweater, his tiny fingers buried in the wool, his little heart beating furiously against my ribs.
“Avery,” Luca whispered.
The word was shattered.
He took a step toward me, and then, the most feared man in Pennsylvania did something that Dante, the syndicate, and the entire city would have sworn was impossible.
Luca Moretti fell to his knees.
He crawled across the floor, collapsing before us, burying his face in the folds of my sweater, his massive arms wrapping around both me and his son. His broad shoulders shook, a ragged, choking sob tearing its way through his chest.
“Forgive me,” he wept into my lap, the king of the underworld reduced to a broken man begging for absolution. “Forgive me, Avery. I almost lost you. I almost let my ghosts destroy the only light left in this world.”
Tears spilled hot and fast down my bruised cheeks.
I loosened one hand from Leo’s back and reached down, threading my fingers through Luca’s dark, sweat-dampened hair. I pulled his head against my chest, holding him just as I had held his son on the night we met.
“I’m here, Luca,” I whispered, resting my chin against the top of his head, feeling the wild, frantic pulse beneath his skull. “We’re right here. You came back for us.”
Leo reached out. His tiny, chubby hand emerged from beneath my chin, patting Luca’s bloodstained temple with infinite, innocent gentleness.
“Dada,” Leo whimpered softly.
Luca lifted his head. His eyes were red, overflowing with tears that washed tracks through the soot and blood on his face. He looked at his son, then at me—at the blood on my lip, the bruise blooming on my jaw, the fierce, protective fire that still burned in my eyes.
“You fought for him,” Luca whispered, his voice trembling with an awe that bordered on worship. “You bled for my son.”
“He is my son, too,” I said, the truth ringing clear and absolute through the silence of the fortress. “In every way that matters, Luca. He is mine.”
Luca reached up, his calloused, trembling hand cupping the uninjured side of my face, his thumb gently catching a falling tear.
“And you are mine,” he vowed, his voice deep, sovereign, and eternal. “No more guards. No more contracts. No more fear. The Romano bloodline dies tonight, Avery. Tomorrow, this city belongs to us. But this house—my life, my soul, my heart—it belongs to you.”
May you like
He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against mine, his lips gently, reverently brushing over my bruised mouth. Leo squirmed between us, giggling softly through his dried tears, placing one hand on his father’s cheek and the other on mine, sealing the bond that had been forged in fire.
***
