Page 71 of The Scars We Keep
Rafe glances once toward the hallway leading to the east wing, then back at me.His throat works as he swallows.“Can I have a word?”
The knot under my ribs cinches tight instantly, pulling everything in my chest into a fist.Rafe wouldn’t be asking for a word or standing there looking as though he wants a fucking priest to witness the conversation unless something has gone wrong.
I move without another word, crossing the foyer in long strides and leading him into the study off the main hall.I step inside.Rafe follows, closing the door behind us.
I turn on him fast, my body coiled tight.“What the fuck happened?”
Rafe’s jaw flexes, the muscle jumping beneath his skin.He doesn’t look away, but there is tension in every line of his body.
“Your brother-in-law was here,” he says.
The words land with the force of a gunshot.
“A fucking Serrano was in my house?”
“Yes.”
“Why the fuck was a Serrano in my house?”
“He arrived unannounced,” Rafe says.“Mrs.De Luca chose to see him.”
I take a step toward Rafe, closing the distance.My hands clench into fists at my sides.“Did you leave him alone with her?”
He shifts on his feet and I notice the tension in him.The expectation, the readiness for whatever comes next.He’s seen what I can do when it comes to Isabella.He was there when I beat the last man half-senseless for thinking he could stand there and eye-fuck my wife while pretending he was only doing his job.He knows what I’m capable of.But he also knows that I trust him, and that’s the only reason my fist isn’t already in his face.
“She wanted privacy,” he says.“I stayed close, posted outside the door.When voices rose, I went in.”
My eyes bore into his, searching for any sign that he failed her, but Rafe holds my gaze without wavering.
I exhale slowly through my nose.“Did he threaten her?”
“He put his hands on her.”
I turn away from Rafe and brace both palms on the edge of the desk because if I don’t put my hands on something solid, I’m going to tear through this room looking for something to break.My fingers dig into the polished wood, the grain biting into my skin.My whole body is one hard line of rage, every muscle locked, every nerve firing with the singular, consuming thought of someone’s hands on my wife.
She was right.Her father won’t fucking stop.Not until someone ends him.
I grip the desk tighter.
If Luca Serrano were standing in front of me right now, I would put a bullet through his throat and leave his body on Arturo’s marble floor, with a fucking note stapled to his chest.A message.A promise.A declaration of war.
“What did he want?”I ask, my voice low, the rage barely contained.
“Information,” Rafe says behind me.“I heard enough to know he was pressuring her for details about your movements.She denied knowing anything.”
A cruel, savage pride swells in my chest alongside the fury, twisting together until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.My wife is stronger than most of the men who circle this house, pretending to understand what power is.She was raised in a cage and still learned to bite through iron.She’s steel wrapped in silk, and she doesn’t break.
That doesn’t make the thought of Luca’s hands on her any less unbearable.
I straighten slowly, releasing my grip on the desk, and turn back to face Rafe.My breathing is controlled now.The rage is still there, simmering just beneath the surface, but I’ve pulled it back into something useful.
“Where is she now?”I ask.
“She went out into the garden.”
I stare at him.“In this storm?”
“Yes.”
