Page 62 of Brutal Vows

I hug him even closer, for it’s never been clearer: my path ends here. “She’ll pull through?”

“Yes.” He shifts away but holds onto my shoulders. “I owe her my life. And even worse, I’m in love with her. Besotted really.”

“Even worse?” I say with a sniff, but there’s a smile too, because I’ve known this for weeks. “Besotted?”

“Yes. And she with me, if you can believe it.”

We hug again, and this is the real reason why I won’t tell Ivan anything. After everything he’s been through, what Irisha and Katya went through, they deserve this life, this love, this chance at happiness.

When we let go, I turn to Gabi. She seems out of it, until she opens her eyes and blinks at me. She can’t talk, attached to a ventilator, and I reach for her hand and squeeze.

“Thank you,” I murmur, pressing down on the emotions that want to boil up. No words can ever tell her how grateful I am for what she’s done. When I coerced her into helping me get out of Ivan’s compound, neither of us envisioned this. It’s her life, and I never intended for it to be on the line.

Beside me, Luca briefly acknowledges Ivan, before reaching over to squeeze Gabi’s hand. He puts a hand on my back. “We won’t stay long. She needs to rest.”

“Yes. I’m staying with Gabi,” Ivan says. “Your brothers left half an hour ago. Yuri is on his way to Long Island to fetch Irisha and Katya. We’re going to figure things out. We’ll be in Boston for as long as it takes.”

Luca nods.

I touch Ivan’s hand. “We’ll be neighbors.”

In a way. I still need to figure out how to get from Luca’s apartment to Matteo’s and from there⁠—

“Maybe. We might bunk down here until Gabi can go home. It’s a house with a kitchen and bathrooms, everything we need. Handy operating room on the side with medical staff.”

“But is it safe?” I ask.

“Nobody knows where we are. It’s as safe as it’s going to get.”

I nod, but we all know nobody is safe until Chertnikov is eliminated.

We stay a few more minutes, but then Luca nudges me and we leave. Gabi’s in the best hands, and Ivan is by her side.

The drive back to the apartment is quiet. Luca isn’t breaking the tension with any jokes tonight. I’m mulling over my options, but it’s clear I don’t have many. With what happened with Gabi, I feel as if my entire life has become a time bomb. I’m trapped in a dead-end. My only option is Luca Scalera.

I don’t know how to talk about something I’ve never talked about. As we take the elevator, we don’t even try to make small talk. Every twist and turn, the tension from the hospital, the tension from the shower this afternoon, squeezes the space between us. All I recall is Luca’s teasing I showed you mine, princess! Can’t wait to see yours!

I can’t talk, but I can show him. Test my husband—a husband who runs porn sites for a living or hobby, whichever it really is. Let’s see how well he really knows a woman’s body.

As we enter the apartment, he reaches for my hand. I wasn’t sure where I was heading, how to tackle this show versus tell that’s the only way to get to the other side.

“Play something for me, please. On the piano.”

The fucking piano. The calm in the constant chaos of my life. I can’t do it. Not for lack of trying. The last thing I played was a requiem for Ivan, and now it seems as if I’ve lured death to our family with it.

But if my husband wants me to play, I’ll play. Let him hear my pain, feel it vibrate through his bones.

“Sure.” I toss my phone to the sofa as I walk up to the piano. “Such joyous times to make music.”

I sit.

I open the keyboard and glance at the gleaming white keys. I raise my hands, stretch my fingers, take a deep breath, trying to find my equilibrium. Composed, ready.

And then I bang down on the keys, brutalizing the Steinway so hard I could wince. But I have nothing to give except this violence and cacophony that sounds through the room with its terrible echoing acoustics, making everything ring twice as loud, twice as rebellious.

And I don’t stop. My rage has had nowhere to go for months.

Then Luca is beside me, pulling me up by the arms, twisting me around, kicking the seat away and pressing me against the piano. My hands grapple for purchase and my butt hits the keys, the crash of discordant notes vibrating through my body. He is so fast, it chills me.