All Chapters of Bound to the Devil I Wed: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

There was enough dry honesty in the remark to make Elena believe her. Button after button came loose. At last Adriana said, "Camilla overstepped this afternoon." Elena's fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the vanity. "Your friend doesn't seem to like me." "No," Adriana said. "She doesn't." The bluntness startled a small breath from Elena. Adriana met her gaze in the mirror. "But do not mistake her dislike for importance. She is not family." The words carried weight. Elena heard the warning tucked inside them, and perhaps the faintest thread of apology too. "Was she..." Elena hesitated. "Did she hope to marry him?" Adriana's hands paused only briefly before resuming. "Camilla has hoped many foolish things over the years." That was answer enough. "And Luca?" Elena asked before she could stop herself. Adriana's expression changed. Not warmer. More guarded. "My brother doesn't notice the kinds of things people assume men notice," she said. "Not unless they interfe

She drifted further into the room, touching nothing but examining everything. Her perfume reached Elena a second before she did, expensive, floral, too sweet by half. "I wanted to see how you were settling in," Camilla said. "Why?" Camilla turned, smile still fixed. "Because you married the most dangerous man in this city, and yet everyone keeps looking at you as if you're the fragile one." Elena set the book aside and rose. There was no point pretending this was a social call. Camilla watched the movement with open appraisal. "You're very pretty in a quiet way. I can see why men underestimate the damage women like you can do." Elena's voice remained soft. "Women like me?" "The ones who look harmless." A pause. Then Elena said, "And women like you look what, exactly?" Camilla's smile thinned. "Experienced." There it was. Not quite a declaration, not quite a threat. More an attempt to draw blood without admitting she'd reached for the blade. Elena should have

The man stepped farther into the library, lowering his voice. "Pozhar. Ne sluchaynyy." [A fire. Not accidental.] Luca's expression changed with terrifying speed - not outwardly, not in the way ordinary men showed anger, but in the sudden absence of all remaining softness. His face emptied. His eyes went flat and cold as winter iron. "Poteryi?" [Losses?] "Odin mertv. Dvoye raneny." [One dead. Two injured.] Elena felt the room tighten around the words. Luca did not curse. Did not slam his glass down. He simply set it aside with quiet precision and reached for his jacket. "Kto byl tam?" [Who was there?] The man named two people Elena did not know, then added, "My nashli patrony drugogo kalibra." [We found rounds of a different caliber.] Not an accident, then. Not even just sabotage. An attack. Luca shrugged into his jacket with one swift motion. "Mashinu." [Get the car.] The man nodded and disappeared. For one suspended moment, silence settled over the library a

Luca carried Elena all the way to her rooms without once looking down at her. That, somehow, made the moment feel even more unreal. If he had glanced at her, if he had acknowledged the intimacy of it in any visible way, she might have known what to do with herself. She might have found a place to rest her hands, a way to quiet the wild, humiliating beat of her heart. But Luca moved through the corridor as if carrying a terrified wife in his arms was merely a logistical inconvenience. His expression remained hard and unreadable, his stride steady despite the blood drying on one sleeve and the weapon still holstered at his side. Elena could feel the heat of him through the thin fabric of her dress. The strength in the arm beneath her knees. The restrained power in the chest against her shoulder. It should have frightened her. Instead it did something worse. It made her feel protected. The door to her suite opened before they reached it. Marta must have been waiting jus

By the end of the first week, Elena learned the rhythm of Luca De Santis's house well enough to understand where silence ended and meaning began. The mornings were the quietest. Not peaceful. Never that. But ordered. Breakfast appeared at eight whether anyone wanted it or not. Marta supervised the staff with military efficiency. Adriana drifted in and out depending on her mood, sometimes sharp-tongued, sometimes strangely absent, as though her mind had slipped someplace beyond the walls. Luca was there only when he had not left before dawn or returned after it. When he did appear, he brought with him a cold wake of motion - guards straightening, calls being answered more quickly, men at the edges of rooms seeming to remember exactly what they were paid to fear. Afternoons belonged to business. Even if Elena was not included in it directly, she could feel the shape of it settling over the house. Cars arrived. Men in dark suits came and went through the west entrance. Doors closed.