“Thankfully, only in your family circle. In my world, the mere mention of my name makes people hide in their homes and hope I pass by without stopping.”
“Can you get more light in here?” Dr. Arnold snapped.
Raimondo got to his feet. “Coming right up.” They had everything they needed. They could get lights. They had blood. Medical equipment. Surgeons on call. This was a rider family and they had the money necessary to support whatever was needed. They needed more manpower. Raimondo was going to talk to Stefano about that. He never wanted to face this situation alone again. It didn’t matter that only a few minutes had gone by; he could have lost both Brielle and Leone in those minutes. There were others in the family who could be trusted to guard the riders and they needed them.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Elie paced back and forth across the floor, never too far from the large, four-poster bed where his wife sat pretending to look at her book. The Ferraro Hotel had luxury beds, but mostly, he cared about the tight security. They were staying there, he told Brielle, while their home was being cleaned of all the blood and evidence that she’d nearly been taken from him. They were really staying there until he could remove the threat to her. He was done with anyone trying to kill his wife.
“Honey, stop.” Brielle put her book down and gave him a look that told him she was about to get up.
Elie pointed a finger at her and gave her a severe look that would have stopped an army. “Don’t even think about it.”
She sighed. “How long am I going to be confined to bed? The doctor said I was fine.”
“No, that’s not what he said, mon petit monstre. He said your other wounds were mostly superficial, but that you had to be very careful of the internal one for a while. No jarring. No running or working out. Definitely no riding the shadows. But then, we had already discussed that, hadn’t we?”
He couldn’t look at her. If he did, his chest hurt like hell. He stalked over to the window and stared down at the view of the city. Every single time he thought about that moment when he walked into their home and saw what looked like a slaughterhouse, his wife on their dining room table, a surgeon operating on her, up to his elbows in her blood, he would nearly go to his knees. Nothing had ever come close to taking him out the way that had.
Stefano had been with him, the only reason he hadn’t gone crazy and left for New York to kill every member of the Santoro family and then gone to Barcelona to go after the Toselli family. Anyone involved in the ordering of his wife’s assassination was going to die. And he was going to find every last one of them, no matter what. When he needed answers, he could be every bit as driven and ruthless as Dario or Valentino.
Elie hadn’t roared with rage. He hadn’t said a damn thing. He stood in front of Raimondo and Dario, silently demanding answers. They both gave them to him. Raimondo clearly had done his best. He had followed protocol. Asier Fredrick had been a legitimate agent, checked out thoroughly by the investigators and identified by facial recognition software, not once but twice. He was a real agent. Unfortunately, there was now no question, he’d been on the Toselli payroll.
“Elie, are we ever going to talk about this?”
Were they? He didn’t know if he could talk about it without losing his shit. How could he make her understand? She sat there looking so reasonable, sounding so reasonable, when there was absolutely no reason or understanding in the situation. She hadn’t seen what he had. She hadn’t felt what he had, but then again, she hadn’t wanted their marriage from the beginning.
“Sure, bébé, we can talk about it. You can tell me why you chose to disobey direct instructions to save your life and get your sweet little ass into the safe room for the second time. It isn’t like we haven’t discussed this, but you don’t seem to give a damn what I think. Or what I care about.”
Elie turned to face her, keeping his distance, back pressed to the wall, fingers curled into tight fists. His gaze drifted over her pale features. She looked a little shocked by his choice of words.
“Elie, of course I care what you think. I had to make a split-second decision. Leone was already down. Raimondo had no chance at all if I went into the safe room. The only way to get the door closed was for me to take out the men preventing us from doing so. It was instinct more than anything else. I just dove for the shadow.”
Brielle even put one hand in the air as if that would deter his anger. He didn’t feel anger at her. Or rage. That was reserved for those conspiring to kill her. He felt—hurt. Fear. No, terror. She was uncontrollable, just as Dario had said she was. Just as Stefano had said. Unlike Francesca, she didn’t love him enough to give him what he needed, which was to know she would be alive and well when he returned from wherever he had gone.
“Did you ever once think of me, Brielle? What would happen to me if you didn’t live?” He asked the questions in a low tone, knowing his voice shook, betraying the intensity of his emotions. She got it because she went very still. “You didn’t, did you? When I stood before the priest in that chapel, knowing I was marrying you, I meant every damn word I said. I meant those vows. For the first time in my life, I thought maybe I would have someone of my own. Someone who would love me back. My own family. The two of us. I thought I could make you happy if you just gave me the chance.”
Brielle’s eyes went wide and she shook her head. “Elie.”
“You would have left me with nothing. But then you never wanted to marry me. You made that very clear. Sex is great, isn’t it? But you’ve never really wanted me. I should have taken you at your word instead of forcing you into something you didn’t want from the beginning. Maybe if I had, you wouldn’t risk your life every time I turn around.”
He could barely talk. His throat felt raw, and the lump in his throat was so large, he was choking on it. Was she deliberately putting her life at risk in an effort to escape him? He hadn’t thought of that. He should never have insisted on their marriage. Was it too late to have Stefano let her out of it?
Brielle tossed back the covers and went up on her knees when he once again pointed at her and shook his head. She couldn’t get near him. He didn’t have control. That had deserted him the moment he saw her lying on that table covered in blood. He’d thrown out all the furniture. Every single piece of it. Had the floors sanded down. They were going to start over. He was uncertain if he could walk through the front door again. The thought of it made his stomach lurch.
“You don’t understand, Elie. It was always you. Always. From the very first time I ever saw you, when I was still a teenager. I stalked you like some creeper. I did it so much, I was ashamed of myself, but I was obsessed. Fayette knew how much I wanted to be with you. That was why she made up all those stories. It was to hurt me. I never wanted another man. I never seriously considered another man.”
Elie ran his fingers through his hair in agitation to keep from strangling her. She made no sense, but then she often didn’t. “Brielle. If it was always me, why did you go to Jean-Claude’s to say you couldn’t marry me when you were eighteen?” He didn’t believe her. He couldn’t believe her, yet there was the ring of honesty in her voice.
“My father was counting on you marrying Fayette. I was terrified you would find out I was obsessing over you. My family was so awful and I didn’t want you to think I was out for the money or prestige of marrying an Archambault. There were so many reasons. Your lovely comments on my body added to them.”
“That makes no sense. What about in the chapel?” he demanded. He’d been shocked and elated to see that his bride was the one woman he’d wanted always. There she was, his woman, already legally tied to him. He’d fantasized about her for far too long. The reality of her was far better than any fantasy, but she had rejected him.
Color crept under her skin. She hesitated. Took a breath. “I knew I already was so crazy about you that if I was around you, I’d fall so in love with you that if you never loved me back, you’d shatter me. I can’t take much more after my family’s rejection. I’ve lived alone for a long time, Elie, and I made myself all right with that, but I dreamt of you for so long. I knew if you threw me away, I wouldn’t recover.”
For a few moments her confession didn’t penetrate his closed mind. He’d been so certain she didn’t really care for him that he couldn’t conceive of her being afraid of falling in love with him. He could only stare at her, not comprehending what she was saying. When he finally did, Elie couldn’t believe her. It didn’t matter that her voice rang with truth or that her body language portrayed honesty. He just couldn’t believe her.
“If you really had the slightest feeling for me, Brielle, why would you risk leaving me alone in the world again? Why would you do that?” he challenged. Now the anger was bubbling to the surface, a slow seeping of fury escaping from under a tightly controlled lid. “I’ve never had anyone in my life until you, and you’d just throw that away over and over without a thought for me or what it would be like for me if you died.”