Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
“Can you breathe?” I asked. “Take it slow. One breath at a time.”
Her mouth opened. And then closed. She inhaled shakily. “You.” The word came out hoarse and barely audible, scraped raw from the inside of her throat.
Her eyes dropped to my hands. My knuckles were still swollen, the skin split in places. She stared at them for a long moment before realization slowly dawned on her.
She was off the bed before I could react, launching herself sideways. She gasped, clutching her left injured hand against her chest, but she didn’t stop. She backed away from the bed, from me, until her shoulders hit the wall beside the window.
“Serafina—”
“This is y-your fault.”
My heart thundered against my rib cage at the venomous accusation. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
Her body trembled violently, her uninjured hand closing into a fist at her side, her broken nails digging into her palms.
“Why would anyone try to kill me?” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she pressed her lips together, fighting for control. “Tell me, Adrian. Who would want me dead?”
My body tightened at her words.
“I don’t have enemies.” Her voice rose, strained, and I could hear the pain in it. “I don’t have enemies because I’ve never hurt anyone. I’ve never—” She stopped, her breath catching.
“I’m not a threat to anyone.” Her voice broke, and she swallowed hard.
“Serafina…”
“Your enemies.” The words came out shaken, tears silently trailing down her bruised cheeks. “They are your enemies. They came for me because of you. Because I’m your wife. Because my last name is Salvatore now and that makes me a target, and I never asked for this.” Her chin wobbled as she held back another cry. “I never asked for any of this.”
The truth of it sat between us bitterly. Unavoidable.
She had understood the truth far quicker than I had.
Serafina wasn’t wrong.
That was the part I hated the most.
My wife didn’t have any personal enemies, not really. Not the kind that mattered. No one was hunting her because of something she had done, some vendetta she had started or some blood she had spilled. Because she hadn’t done any of that.
Anyone who came for her was either because of the blood running through her veins or because she was Santino Morelli’s daughter and now…
Because she was mine. My wife.
My jaw tightened.
Anyone who wanted to hurt me had found an easier way to do it. Serafina had been travelling across continents, without my security or the walls of my estate to protect her.
She had been an easy target.
And I had enemies everywhere.
Too many to count. Men I had crossed years ago, men whose families I had destroyed, men who had lost money and power because of me. Some were faceless. Many were even nameless, hiding in shadows and hired mercenaries.
The moment I had learned someone had put a contract on her life, I should have understood exactly what it meant.
She wasn’t the target.
Serafina was the message.
Collateral damage in a war she had never agreed to fight.
I could kill every man who came after her.
But there would always be another.
Another enemy. Another hired killer. Another bullet with her name on it.
The realization settled heavily in my chest, making it difficult to breathe.
“Ever since I married you…” Serafina was shaking harder now, her arms wrapped around herself, her shoulders hunched forward. “I haven’t had a single day of peace. And tonight, s-someone tried to k-kill—” She bit her lip, stopping the words.
Serafina swallowed, shaking her head once.
“You’re a curse,” she said shakily, and the whispered words sliced through me deeper than any scream could. “You’re a poison in my life. You and your family and your world… it’s all poison, and it’s killing me, and I can’t… I can’t b-breathe…”
She gasped, her whole body wracking with silent sobs as she hyperventilated. Her hands fluttered to her chest as she struggled to breathe, panic welling in her pretty, brown eyes.
I crossed the distance between us in two steps.
My hands gripped her shoulders, gently, carefully. As if I had never held something as precious, as fragile as her before. Serafina flinched. A full-body jerk that made my chest constrict, but I didn’t let go.
I couldn’t let go.
“Don’t.” Her voice was muffled in between each broken gasp. “Don’t touch me. Please don’t.”
She resisted for exactly one shattering heartbeat, her body going rigid, her hands coming up to push against my chest. Her broken nails scraped against my shirt, a desperate, feeble attempt to create space between us.
And then her tiny fist struck my chest.
I let her hit me.
I absorbed every blow, every desperate, futile strike, and held her closer, bringing our bodies together until there wasn’t any breathing space between us.
And then I kissed her.
Not like any other kisses before.
This was different.
I pressed my mouth against hers gently, my lips moving with a tenderness that felt foreign to my body, a language I had never spoken before.