be sated. “I would never touch another woman, you’re my one and only, Winter. The one I’d seek out in every crowd in every part of the world, who I’d know in any form."
“I’m your penguin,” I breathed and he chuckled.
“Nah, baby doll. You’re no penguin. You’re a snowflake. Unique in every fucking way. I found you in a snowstorm, I’d recognise you anywhere. There will never be another like you.”
Tears pricked my eyes and my chest swam with love. "I knew you wouldn't betray me," I said, my heart lifting at knowing I'd been right. That Nicoli Romero was mine and I was his. No one or nothing could change that.
"Did you watch the video?" he asked, that darkness twisting in his eyes again and lighting up my soul with pleasure. I fisted my hand in his suit jacket, biting down on my lip as I nodded.
He smiled like a psycho and I loved that. I loved that he would kill and butcher for me. I loved that he wasn't a good man and that he would fight bloody battles and tear through the black hearts of my enemies to reach me. Always. And I would do the same for him.
“Thank you,” I breathed, longing to seal those words with a kiss.
"I'm getting you out of here, savage girl," he swore and I believed him with every fibre of my being.
I'd spent so long in the dark, countless days in pain, screaming while no one could hear. I'd once believed that I wasn't worth saving, that there was no knight in shining armour coming to save this damsel in distress. But I'd forgotten one thing. I'd never been a damsel, so a knight could never save me. I was a savage girl with a heart of steel. My saviour was a bare-chested villain who would set the world on fire to keep me in his arms. And the intensity in his eyes said he was about to strike the first match.
One thing I couldn’t curse Giuseppe Calabresi for was the classical education he’d extended to me. The elitist private school he’d enrolled me in had taught me everything from foreign languages to playing the guitar to countless sports including swordsmanship and boxing, and had even ensured that I could dance at an event like this with the ease of someone who’d been doing it for years. And as I led Winter around the ballroom in my arms, her heavy skirt swinging around her, I could at least be grateful to him for that one thing.
My gaze kept roaming over her features like I might be able to tell everything about what had been happening to her during these weeks we’d been parted just from looking at her.
As we swept around the floor again, my gaze caught on the bodyguard I’d snatched her from just as Frankie appeared beside him and I spotted the syringe in his hand a moment before he stabbed it into the man’s thigh. There was no way to be subtle with that particular attack, but Frankie had already thrown an arm around his neck, his hand slapping over the guy’s mouth when he started to shout out and a group of Romero employed girls crowded close around them for a moment as the drug took effect.
By the time the girls moved aside, Frankie had made it to a shadowy corner where he was settling the guy down in a chair and positioning him to look like he’d merely passed out from over indulging.
No one seemed to notice the exchange and I grinned down at my savage girl as I felt her eyes on my face.
“What’s your plan?” she breathed, her green eyes taking me captive and the desperate need to kiss her almost overwhelming me. But I couldn’t afford to be distracted. Her husband was still talking to the mayor, but his attention would turn this way again soon enough.
Frankie had managed to work a small miracle and with a considerable donation from Martello, he’d acquired twenty invitations for tonight’s ball which had been dished out to people he trusted for the various roles our night of scheming would require.
“Just follow our lead, baby doll,” I murmured. “We’ll get you free of him before you know it.”
She opened her lips to ask how again, but there wasn’t time for me to tell her.
As we made it to the darkened corner of the dance floor, my grip on Winter’s waist tightened briefly, wanting to keep her