Aria swallowed. “What did that guy Vitali mean when he said you had something that belonged to him?”
“We intercepted one of their drug deliveries. But that’s not important now.” The only thing that mattered was keeping Aria safe.
“What is important then?” she whispered.
“That I almost lost you. That I saw you get shot,” I got out, remembering that moment. I’d never felt this way, like a part of me was ripped out because of another person. “You’re lucky the bullet only hit your shoulder. The Doc says it’ll heal completely and you’ll be able to use your arm like before.”
Aria blinked slowly and the corners of her mouth twitched up briefly. The meds were dragging her down again.
I moved my face close to hers. “Don’t do that ever again,” I rasped.
She tilted her head as if she didn’t know what I meant. “What?”
“Taking a bullet for me.”
Aria squeezed my hand lightly, her eyelids dropping. “I’ll always take a bullet for you.” She fell asleep before I could say another word.
I kissed her lips lightly. “I won’t allow it. Never again.”CHAPTER 25Aria slept through most of the day, only waking a few times to talk to her siblings. I tried to visit her as often as possible, but I had to talk to my Captains and Dante on the phone. I wouldn’t go to New York for a meeting until I could take Aria with me into the city, and she was still too shaky.
Things began to calm down a bit when her family left for Chicago, and I’d ordered my Captains to wait with attacks on the Bratva until we had the perfect target. I didn’t want to lose more men with attacks in blind rage. We needed to hit them where it hurt.
After my last call, I made my way back to the master bedroom. Water was running in the bathroom so I sat down on the bed, waiting for Aria. When she finally emerged, she was fumbling with her nightgown, trying to slip the second strap on her shoulder, but with her injury it was impossible.
“Done with business?” she asked with a soft smile as I walked over to her. I led her toward the bed and gently pushed her down. Her eyes were clear and kind, not pain-filled and drug-hazed. My Aria.
“I’m fine,” Aria said firmly.
All the worry and fear I’d been feeling crashed down on me. I knelt before her and pressed my face into her stomach. “I could have lost you two days ago.”
Aria trembled. “But you didn’t.”
I met her soft gaze.
“Why did you do this? Why did you take a bullet for me?” If she’d died because of me, if I’d lost her, I’d have lost my mind. Even just thinking about it, reliving that moment when I thought she was dead, it ripped a huge black hole into my chest.
Aria’s eyes became even softer. “Do you really not know why?”
Her expression told me why. Everything seemed to stand still. I knew what I felt for the woman in front of me, had known it with absolute certainty the second I almost lost her, but even before then I’d known the nature of my feelings but had clung to my doubts. I loved Aria. And how could I not? She was lovable. She was kind and gracious and forgiving. She was pure light. She was someone who deserved to be loved.
I didn’t.
I knew what I was.
“I love you, Luca.”
I cupped her face, bringing our faces close but never close enough. I searched her eyes, trying to understand how she could love me, how she found something in me that deserved to be loved. “You love me,” I repeated. No one had ever said those words to me. No one should. “You shouldn’t love me, Aria. I’m not someone who should be loved. People fear me, they hate me, they respect me, they admire me, but they don’t love me. I’m a killer. I’m good at killing. Better probably than at anything else, and I don’t regret it. Fuck, sometimes I even enjoy it. That’s a man you want to love?”
Aria gave me that smile; the smile that burst like a ray of sunshine through my darkness, that warmed even my cold heart.
“It’s not a matter of want, Luca. It’s not like I could choose to stop loving you,” she whispered.
Few things in her life had been her choice. It was only fitting that even her feelings for me weren’t. She was as trapped in her love for me as she was trapped in this marriage. “And you hate that you love me. I remember you saying it before.”
Aria shook her head. “No. Not anymore. I know you aren’t a good man. I’ve always known it, and I don’t care. I know I should. I know I should lie awake at night hating myself for being okay with my husband being the boss of one of the most brutal and deadliest crime organizations in the States. But I don’t. What does that make me?” Aria shifted her head in my hold, glancing down at her hands in her lap with a small frown. “And I killed a man and I don’t feel sorry. Not one bit. I would do it again.” She met my gaze and her eyes were full of love. No hate, no regret, nothing but love. “What does that make me, Luca? I’m a killer like you.”