Page 115 of Accidental Alliance

Then he starts to move.

Every powerful thrust rocks me against the stone wall, his hips snapping forward as he claims me with the pent-up hunger I know he’s been fighting since the night he took me just as brutally in that safehouse room.

His hand grips my hip hard enough to bruise, holding me upright for him while the other cups under my thigh. The wet sound of our bodies meeting fills the night air, mingling with my broken moans and his low, guttural growls.

“I love you,” he rasps against my ear. “I’ve always loved you, Isabella.”

I gasp, my nails digging into his shoulders as pleasure coils tighter and tighter. “Fuck, Elio… I… I love you too.”

He fucks me harder, grinding against my clit with every deep stroke until I shatter again, crying out as my walls pulse and flutter around his cock.

He follows me over the edge with a savage groan, burying himself as deep as possible and spilling inside me, pulse after pulse of heat that marks me from the inside out.

His arms wrap around me protectively, like he’s afraid I’ll push him away if he lets go. When he finally pulls back enough to look at me, his dark eyes are raw with emotion.

“Tell me again,” he murmurs, his voice hoarse.

I cup his face with both hands, heart pounding with both terror and relief. “I love you, Elio Conti.”

22

ELIO

Nearly a week has passed inside Davide Bianchi’s fortified estate. Every hour has felt like walking a razor’s edge between salvation and damnation.

I have given them everything I know, from codes to the safehouse and the routes taken for supply drop-offs to names of men who will always remain loyal to my brother and father.

Davide takes it all in, never fully trusting me, but he uses the information, anyway. Isabella stays close during the planning sessions, her brilliant mind dissecting every detail I offer, her honey-gold gaze flicking to me only when she thinks I won’t notice.

The tension between us is a living thing, thick and electric, made worse by the memory of her body pressed against the terrace wall and the confession that still burns on my tongue.

She loves me and Matteo is mine.

That knowledge does not come with pride as much as I would have expected it to. Instead, it comes with grief from seven years of missed mornings, scraped knees, school lunches, bedtime stories, birthdays, fevers.

Seven years of a boy growing into my face without knowing mine ever existed. Isabella spent years surviving alone because I gave her no reason to believe I would choose anything other than duty when it mattered.

It wouldn’t be fair of me to hate her for keeping him from me. She did not do so out of cruelty. I understand why she chose to run and hide him from the Conti name.

Matteo is never far from her side. My son watches me with quiet curiosity, asking careful questions that cut deeper than any interrogation I’ve ever faced before.

I answer what I can, trying to earn the trust I don’t deserve yet. Every small smile he gives me feels like both a gift and a punishment.

One that I readily accept without question.

However, tonight, that fragile balance breaks when my phone vibrates on the nightstand, waking me.

At first, I think it is part of a dream. Some distant buzzing beneath the surface of sleep, low and insistent like a fly trapped behind glass. My body resists it because for the first time in days, maybe years, I have managed to drift into something close to rest.

Isabella is warm against me, her back tucked to my chest, her hair spilling across my arm. For a few stolen hours, the war outside Davide’s walls has felt like a beast pacing somewhere beyond the property line instead of breathing down my neck.

Her hand rests over mine where it lies against her stomach. Even in sleep, she holds me there as if part of her body has forgotten all the reasons she should push me away.

The phone vibrates again.

Isabella stirs faintly, her fingers tightening over mine before relaxing. I go still, waiting to see if she wakes. Her breathing remains slow, her body curled into the mattress with exhaustion heavy in every line of her.

I should let it go to voicemail. I know that before I move. There are only so many people who still have this number, and none of them come with clean hands.