3

The words died instantly in my throat.

Standing in the dimly lit hallway, blocking the exit with his massive frame, was the groom. Giovanni. Before I could even draw breath to speak, he stepped into the small room, shut the heavy oak door, and turned the lock. The sharp, definitive click of the deadbolt echoed like a gunshot in the confined space.

"What are you doing?" I gasped, my voice coming out thin as my heels scraped backward against the floor until my lower back hit the cold marble edge of the sink. "This is the ladies' room. You're the groom. You need to get out."

He didn't say a word. He just devoured me with his eyes.

The silence between us was heavy, suffocating, and thick with a sudden, spiking heat. Giovanni took a slow, deliberate step forward, closing the distance between us. His presence was completely overwhelming, a towering wall of dark authority and raw, unrestrained violence.

I instinctively tried to shrink back, but I was already pinned against the counter. My heart hammered violently against my ribs, a wild, panicked rhythm.

"Thirteen years," he murmured. His voice had dropped into a low, gravelly baritone that vibrated straight through my chest, thick with a decade's worth of dark, simmering obsession. He took another step, invading my space until the heat radiating off his body washed over me, carrying the intoxicating, dangerous scent of expensive tobacco and rain. "Thirteen years of believing the fire took everything."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied, my voice cracking as I tried to hold my ground, desperately trying to keep the American mask from slipping. "My name is Rosa. I'm Adrian's friend."

A dark, dangerous phantom of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips, but his eyes remained deadly, freezing me in place. He stepped directly into my personal space, crowding me until his chest was almost brushing mine.

"Rosa," he repeated, the name sounding like a filthy lie on his tongue. He slowly lifted his hand, his long, tattooed fingers tracing through the air between us. "Adrian thinks he brought a pretty American girl to his sister's wedding. Little does he know..."

His fingertips brushed against my jawline.

A violent, electric jolt shot straight down my spine, a sudden, blinding rush of heat that made my breath shatter. My vision blurred for a fraction of a second. It was terrifying how instantly my body reacted to him, but my mind was still screaming in denial. *It can’t be him. This man is a monster.*

Horrified by the confusion, panic flared through my veins. I snapped my hand up and sharply slapped his wrist away. "Don't touch me!"

Giovanni didn't even flinch. His hand dropped slowly, but his dark eyes trapped mine, burning with a sudden, fierce possessiveness. He leaned down, his face inches from mine, his breath searing against my lips as he whispered a single word—a secret childhood name wrapped in a low, dominant purr that only two people in our shared history had ever known.

"Scolopendra."

The room didn't just spin; it shattered.

The final, stubborn wall of my doubt crashed down in an instant. The fog cleared, and the terrifying truth hit me like a physical blow. It was him. The boy from my locked-away past. The boy I thought had been lost to that horrific family fire was standing right here, alive, breathing, and wrapped in the terrifying armor of a mafia king. My soul recognized him entirely, and with that realization, every ounce of my defense dissolved. My knees went weak, melting from the inside out under the sudden, overwhelming memory of his touch.

"You can fight it, hate it, deny it all you want, love," Giovanni breathed, his voice dropping into a demanding, low register that left no room for argument. "But you’re still mine. You already know the truth. Adrian didn't just bring a guest into this house. Little does he know that he brought my own wife."

The absolute, unyielding dominance in his tone gave off a heavy 'I'm going to ruin you' vibe that left me completely paralyzed.

"This is wrong," I choked out, my palms pressing against the hard, unyielding wall of his chest, feeling the heavy, steady thud of his heartbeat beneath his charcoal suit. "You're marrying Elena tomorrow. This is insane, Giovanni. Let me leave."

I made a desperate, panicked lunge to slip past his shoulder toward the door, but his reactions were lethal. Before I could take a single step, his hand shot out, wrapping tightly around my waist and wrenching me backward. He slammed my back flush against his hard chest, trapping me in his arms, his grip bruising but completely secure.

"Let you leave?" he growled against the shell of my ear, his chest heaving against my back. "I spent thirteen years looking for your body in the wreckage of that fire. I tore this city apart looking for you. You think I'm letting you walk out of this room now that I finally have my hands on you?"

I twisted in his grip, attempting to wrench myself free again, my frustration turning into a wild, reckless fire. I turned in his arms, shoving against him with a sudden, angry strength, mirroring the fierce, toxic collision of the characters in 1001291205.jpg. I looked up at him, my eyes flashing with a lethal mix of fury, hatred, and absolute craving.

Giovanni didn't waste another syllable. He leaned down and destroyed my mouth.

The kiss was brutal, sharp, and entirely consuming. It wasn't gentle; it was a desperate, angry reclamation. My brain screamed at me to fight, to tear myself away from the man who was supposed to marry Elena tomorrow, but the sheer, volcanic chemistry between us wiped out my sanity. My hands lost their grip on his chest and clawed up into his hair, pulling him deeper into me as a soft, helpless whimper escaped my throat.

He groaned dark and low against my mouth, his hands moving with a dominant, practiced urgency. He gripped the top of my dress, his tattooed fingers digging into the fabric, and with a heavy, downward tug, he tore the zipper and pulled the cloth halfway down my shoulders, exposing my bare skin and the faint, hidden trace of my old scars to the cool air. His hands immediately followed, hot as branding irons against my naked shoulders.

A sharp, heavy knock suddenly rattled the bathroom door, vibrating through the wood and straight into my spine.

"Rosa? Are you okay in there?"

My blood turned to pure ice. It wasn't Adrian.

It was Elena.

"The caterers are hounding me about the wine pairings, and my father is already making a scene," her voice drifted through the thick wood, sounding exhausted and entirely innocent. "I could really use a sane bridesmaid to help me hide from them."

Panic, cold and sharp, flooded my veins. My eyes snapped wide open, my breath catching in my throat as I stared up at the man pinned against me. I was trapped in a private bathroom, my dress torn halfway down my shoulders, being thoroughly ruined by the very man who was supposed to stand at the altar with her tomorrow.

"Gio—" I tried to choke out his name, my hands desperately pushing against his broad shoulders to force a distance between us. "Stop. Please. She's right out—"

He didn't let me finish. He didn't care.

If anything, the sound of his fiancée’s voice right outside the door only seemed to unlock something deeply primal and predatory inside him. Giovanni let out a low, dark growl against my skin, his fingers digging bruisingly into my bare waist as he hauled my hips flush against his. He didn't slow down. He didn't even hesitate.

He attacked my mouth again, kissing me with a terrifying, starved ferocity that made my knees completely give out. He tasted like expensive whiskey and absolute ruin, his tongue tangling with mine so deeply it stole the very air from my lungs. It was an insatiable, reckless assault—he was eating me up right there against the marble sink, handling me like a man who had been dying of thirst in a desert for thirteen years and had finally found water.

A helpless, broken whimper caught in the back of my throat, muffled entirely by his lips. My body was betraying me so completely it was sickening; even as my brain screamed at me that this was a monstrous betrayal, the volcanic heat of his touch was melting me from the inside out, making my core ache with a desperate, heavy throb.

"Rosa?" Elena’s voice called out again, accompanied by the slight jiggle of the brass doorknob. "Is the door locked?"

The sound of the handle rattling made my soul leave my body. I froze, my hands trembling violently against Giovanni's chest, my eyes wide with a frantic, pleading terror as I begged him with my gaze to let me go. If she opens this door, we are dead. I am dead.