Chapter 6:Mine

Giovanni’s Pov

Beep.

“Yes?” I answered calmly, swirling the whiskey in my glass.

“Two female figures just slipped past the perimeter guards,” the voice on the other end said carefully.

“I need facts.” My tone stayed even, almost bored.

“Two females—one is Nella Moretti, the other is Tallia Wane.”

I hung up without another word.

I knew it.

Pretty, dangerous little thing.

She wouldn’t fold so easily to a piece of paper and a signature.

I’d seen it in the photograph Vito showed me with the contract—those storm-gray eyes, restless, defiant, burning with her father’s fire.

So I’d positioned my men around the Vitale mansion since the burial.

Hidden cameras.

A drone overhead.

GPS trackers slipped under the cab’s chassis three streets away when it picked them up.

I watched the laptop screen with cold interest as the ambush unfolded—Lucas DeFalco’s cars boxing them in on the highway.

Something inside me snapped.

Not hot anger, not the reckless kind I usually unleashed on enemies.

This was colder. Sharper. Curiosity edged with possession.

Lucas had dared to touch what was already mine.

When my convoy rolled into his underground garage beneath the luxury car dealership, I already knew what I’d find.

The stench of oil, blood, and fear slammed into me the second the doors opened.

My men moved like shadows—rifles raised, silent, lethal. I stepped out first.

Lucas was crouched over her.

My vision narrowed to a tunnel.

Nella on her knees, wrists zip-tied, mouth taped, tears carving clean tracks through the dirt on her face.

Tallia—dead on the concrete, clothes torn, body broken.

Lucas’s hand on Nella’s cheek.

I fired without hesitation. How dare he?

The graze on his shoulder was deliberate—I wanted him alive long enough to feel fear.

He spun, cursed, and ran like the rat he was. His men fired back wildly; mine dropped them before they could reload.

I didn’t chase him.

Not yet.

I crossed the garage in long strides. My men formed a protective ring. No one would interrupt this.

I dropped to one knee in front of her.

She looked up—eyes wide, shattered, beautiful even in ruin.

I peeled the tape from her mouth slowly, my thumb brushing her lower lip.

She trembled under my touch.

I cupped her chin—firm but careful.

One question.

The only one that mattered. I had to be sure the girl lying lifeless on the hard concrete wasn’t Nella.

“What’s your name?”

“Nell—”

Her voice cracked, barely a whisper.

Then her eyes rolled back. Her body went limp.

I caught her before she hit the concrete.

Wrapped her in the blanket from the SUV.

Lifted her like she weighed nothing and carried her to the car.

My men handled cleanup—bodies, blood, evidence. Lucas’s precious dealership would be a smoking ruin by morning if I decided it.

But right now, none of that mattered.

My possession, my toy—she was in my arms.

Breathing.

Alive.

The city lights streaked past the tinted windows as we drove.

I looked down at her, face pale, lashes wet, lips slightly parted in unconsciousness.

So fragile.

So fucking mine.

I brushed a strand of ginger hair from her cheek; it smelled like hot caramel.

She had tried to escape the cage I’d built.

And yet here she was—delivered back into my hands by the very man who’d tried to take her from me.

I tightened my arm around her.

No one would touch her again.

Not Lucas.

Not anyone.

The villa waited on the outskirts of Madrid—high walls, iron gates, my fortress disguised as elegance.

I carried her inside myself, past the marble foyer, up the grand staircase, and straight to the master suite.

But first I stopped at the gallery room.

I pushed the door open with my shoulder.

The room was dark except for soft accent lights illuminating the walls.

Paintings everywhere—Picasso’s fractured faces, Goya’s black horrors, Caravaggio’s dramatic shadows, and a few modern abstracts that cost more than most men’s lives.

I had collected them over years, each one a piece of chaos I understood.

Desire.

Power.

I laid her on the velvet chaise in the center of the room—surrounded by the eyes of dead masters.

She stirred slightly, lashes fluttering.

I knelt beside her, thumb tracing the dried tear tracks on her cheek.

“I need you to check her,” I murmured into the phone after placing a call to Susan, my private nurse.

“Please don’t go…” she mumbled, soft hands suddenly grabbing my coat.

Eyes still shut, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Papa, how could you? Why would you send me to some brutal stranger as collateral?”

I almost laughed.

“Huh. I’m brutal?” I scoffed under my breath.

She didn’t hear me.

She was hallucinating—delirious from shock.

“I’d poison him and escape,” she muttered.

Silence.

The nurse arrived, frowning.

I cleared my throat roughly.

“She fainted. Shock or PTSD. Just make sure she’s stable before morning.”

Susan gave me a strange look but said nothing.

She examined Nella quietly—pulse, pupils, breathing.

Then she froze.

“Sir…” Susan’s voice was low, careful.

“She’s not just in shock.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Susan looked up at me, eyes wide.

“She’s pregnant.”

The room went still.

I stared at Nella’s sleeping face—pale, tear-streaked, fragile. She looked so innocent.

The word landed like a blade between my ribs.

Vito’s daughter.

My collateral.

My wife? Carrying a child?

And the timeline…

The contract had been signed weeks before Vito’s death.

I looked back at Susan.

“How far along?”

“Very early—maybe six or seven weeks. Blood tests will confirm.”

I nodded once.

“Get the test. Discreetly.”

Susan left the room.

I stayed kneeling beside the chaise, staring at Nella.

Pregnant.

A child that might be mine… or someone else’s.

The thought of another man having touched her before I did sent a dark, possessive rage curling through my chest.

Whoever the father was…

It didn’t matter.

She was mine now.

The child would be mine too.

And tomorrow—when she woke—I would find out the truth.

One way or another.