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I swore, then shot back up the stairs. I had some vague idea of looking for more clothing, enough to utilise the boat to escape and get help, when I passed the door to the bedroom where I’d spent the night—with Dante—and heard a low guttural moan…

‘Don’t look, Evie,’ I whispered, desperate to ignore his next agonised groan. ‘It’ll just make you feel sorry for him. And he doesn’t deserve your sympathy.’

But when another moan came, I peered inside. He still lay on the floor, still seemed to be unconscious, but he was shivering uncontrollably now, his arms folded around his midriff, his long body bowed over in pain. The sweat on his skin made the scars and tattoos glow in the watery light.

‘Leave him—you have to get out while you can…’ I commanded, but stress and indecision made my stomach hurt.

Who had he called last night, after sending that text? Surely it had to be his men. They could be on their way here—and I definitely did not want to be here when they arrived. But as a flash of lightning illuminated his prone body, I couldn’t make myself walk away.

What if whoever he’d contacted couldn’t get here in this weather? What if he died, right here on the bedroom floor, and I hadn’t even attempted to help him? Would that make me a killer, too?

A crash of thunder echoed around the dimly lit room.

It certainly wouldn’t make me a very nice person.

‘Damn!’ I couldn’t leave him. Because I couldn’t be that person, who looked after number one when someone needed my help. Even him.

I knelt beside him and manoeuvred him onto his back. Then I touched the rusty stains on the bandage. He hissed and swore in Italian.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said, noticing the reddening skin above the bandaging. The wound had become infected, which could not be good.

He whispered something.

I lowered my ear to his mouth, aware of the heat pumping off him now.

‘Che cos’è?’ I managed in my rudimentary Italian.

His eyes opened, and his feverish gaze fixed on me.

He stared, but instead of the cynical threat from last night, that dangerous ruthlessness, what I saw was surprise, shadowed with confusion. The deep cobalt blue of his irises was impossibly striking this close. The shade reminded me of Vito’s eyes, but the blue had flecks of turquoise and teal too, and a dark rim which made them even more distinctive. Plus, I’d never been this close to his brother.

He croaked again. I pressed my ear to his lips.

‘Acqua…’ he rasped.

Water… Of course, he had to be thirsty, plus he probably needed hydration to counter the effects of the fever.

I nodded, leapt up and raced to the en suite. The smell of blood and disinfectant permeated the bathroom, an empty bottle of antiseptic left open on the countertop. While taking a glass from the cabinet I spotted a box on the top shelf. I grabbed it and examined the label—the Italian words on the prescription were the same as the medicine I’d been given for an infection while visiting Mia months ago. Antibiotics. Hallelujah.

I filled the glass with water before returning to the bedroom.

Sinking to my knees, I lifted his head into my lap as gently as I could.

The tendons in his neck tensed. I had to be hurting him, but he didn’t complain. I raised the glass to his lips and he gulped down as much as he could, even though most of it ended up on the carpet or me.

‘Do you want some antibiotics?’ I asked.

He didn’t answer me, just kept staring at me with that strange expression, as if he could not understand what I was still doing there. Or why I was helping him.

I probably ought to be wondering the same thing myself.

I held up the box and rattled it. His gaze sharpened and he nodded and opened his mouth. I placed the pills on his tongue, then helped him swallow what was left of the water.

By the time we were finished, he looked exhausted. Another vicious shiver racked his body.

I should probably get him into the bed, but he was too heavy for me to lift, and I didn’t want to hurt him or disturb the wound even more. So I grabbed the quilt from the sofa and laid it over him, tucking it under his muscular frame as carefully as I could.

He held the quilt, his knuckles whitening, as he shivered. He had to be feeling absolutely wretched… And while he totally deserved it, after the way he’d behaved last night, how could I really blame him for wanting to escape from the men who had beaten him?