Savage Rites – Finale

The library at the De Luca Estate was nothing like the library at the university. There were no students huddled over laptops, no smell of cheap coffee. Here, the air smelled different.

It was midnight. The house was quiet. Matteo and Sloane had gone back to the city to “celebrate” (which I assumed meant drinking expensive scotch and shooting at empty bottles). Dante was patrolling the grounds, Bianca was asleep in the guest wing.

I walked into the study without knocking.

Nico was sitting behind the massive mahogany desk that had belonged to his father. He wasn’t wearing his jacket. His dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up to reveal the bandages on his forearms. He was reading a thick, leather-bound book.

A fire crackled in the hearth behind him, casting his shadow long and dark across the Persian rug.

He looked up when I entered. He didn’t smile, but his eyes softened
“You should be sleeping,” Nico said, closing the book. “The doctor said rest.”

“The doctor said you need rest,” I countered, walking across the room. My bare feet sank into the plush carpet. I was wearing only his silk robe, cinched tight at the waist. “I’m fine.”
I stopped in front of the desk.

“What are you reading?” I asked.

Nico placed his hand on the cover of the book.

“The Ledger,” he said.

My stomach gave a small, involuntary lurch. The Ledger. The book of debts. The reason I was here and the reason my father was gone.
Nico saw my reaction, then he picked up the book and held it out.

“Open it.”
I hesitated. “Nico…”

“Open it, Elena.”
I reached out and took the heavy book.

The page was filled with names and numbers. In the middle of the page, written in jagged, nervous handwriting, was Antonio Rossi.
And next to it: $5,000,000.

Below that was: Collateral: Elena Rossi.
I stared at my name. Written in ink. A transaction.

“Read the bottom line,” Nico said quietly.
I looked down.

There was a new entry, dated today.
Paid in Full.

I looked up at him, my breath catching in my throat.

“Paid?” I whispered. “How? My father didn’t give you the Zurich codes yet. You haven’t recovered the money.”

Nico stood up. He walked around the desk, moving stiffly but with purpose. He took the book from my hands.

“The money is irrelevant,” Nico said. “It’s just paper. The debt wasn’t paid with cash, Elena. It was paid with blood.”

He walked over to the fireplace.

“You bled for this family,” Nico said, looking into the flames. “You stood in a factory and put a bullet in a man to save me. You saved Matteo’s life in a barn. You did a lot”

He held the book over the fire.

“A De Luca pays his debts,” Nico said. “And you have paid yours.”

He dropped the book.

I gasped as the book hit fire. The dry paper caught instantly. The flames licked up the sides, curling the leather cover.

I watched my name burn. I watched my father’s name turn to ash.

“You’re free,” Nico said, turning his back on the fire to face me. “The contract is void. You aren’t a prisoner. You aren’t collateral. You can pack a bag, take the Aston Martin, and drive until you find a place where no one knows your name.”

He stood there, waiting.

It was the ultimate test. He wasn’t forcing me to stay. He wasn’t threatening me. He was giving me the one thing I had wanted since the moment he sat next to me in the lecture hall.

Freedom.

I looked at the fire consuming the ledger. Then I looked at the man standing in front of it.

I walked toward him.
“I can’t go,” I said softly.

Nico didn’t move. “Why not?”
“Because I have a new debt.”

I stopped inches from him. I reached out and touched the bandage on his chest, right over his heart.

“You took a shotgun blast for me,” I whispered. “You stayed on that dock for me.”
I looked up into his gray eyes.

“And besides,” I added, a small smile touching my lips. “I burned all my old clothes. I have nothing to wear but yours.”

Nico let out a breath he had been holding. The tension left his shoulders. He reached out and wrapped his arms around me, burying his face in my hair.

“You stay,” he growled against my ear. “You stay, and you never leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He pulled back, just enough to look at me. His expression was serious.

“If you stay,” Nico said, “you need to understand what that means. You aren’t just my girlfriend, Elena. You aren’t just a partner.”
He reached into his pocket.

“The Ledger is gone,” he said. “But we need a new contract.”

He pulled out a ring.

It wasn’t a delicate diamond. It was a thick band of black gold, set with a raw, uncut black diamond in the center. It looked ancient. It looked like something forged in a volcano.

“This is the Consort’s Ring,” Nico said. “My mother wore it. My grandmother wore it.”
He took my left hand.

“It binds you to the family,” he said, sliding the ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly. It felt heavy, grounding. “It means your enemies are my enemies. Your blood is my blood. Till death.”
He looked at me, his eyes burning.

“Do you accept the rites?”
I looked at the black ring on my finger. Savage Rites.

I looked at him.
“I accept,” I whispered.

Nico kissed me.

“Good,” Nico murmured against my lips. “Because the Senator called an hour ago.”
I pulled back slightly. “What does he want?”

“He wants to secure the alliance,” Nico said, a wicked glint in his eye. “He invited us to Washington next month. To the Winter Ball.”

“Washington,” I mused. “That’s a big stage.”

“It is,” Nico agreed. “But we need to expand. New York is ours. Blackwood is ours. It’s time to see what else we can conquer.”

He picked me up, ignoring the pain in his ribs, and carried me toward the leather sofa near the fire.

“But first,” Nico said, laying me down and hovering over me, the firelight casting him in gold and shadow. “I have some catching up to do. The doctor said no strenuous activity…”
He smirked, his hand sliding the silk robe off my shoulder.

“…but I think I can make an exception for the Queen.”

***

The first snow of the winter began to fall over Blackwood University late on a Tuesday night. It wasn’t a blizzard; just large, lazy flakes drifting down.

I stood on the balcony of the East Wing penthouse, wrapped in a thick cashmere blanket.

The rumors had turned into legends, and the legends into myths. To the students down there, Nico and I were terrifying gods who walked the halls, untouchable and inseparable.

But up here, in the quiet, we were just us.
The glass door slid open behind me. I didn’t turn around. I knew the rhythm of his footsteps by heart now.

Nico stepped out into the cold air. He was wearing gray sweatpants and a long-sleeved thermal shirt that clung to his healing chest.

He didn’t say a word. He stepped up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me back against his warmth. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his stubble grazing my skin, his breath hot against the chill.

“You’ll catch a cold,” he murmured, his voice thick with affection.

“I have you to keep me warm,” I whispered, leaning my head back against his shoulder.
Nico tightened his hold, his hands splayed across my stomach. He kissed the sensitive spot just below my ear, then trailed soft, lingering kisses down the line of my neck to my shoulder.

“I missed you,” he said.

I smiled, turning in his arms to face him. “Nico, you were in the shower for twenty minutes. I’ve been out here for five.”

“Too long,” Nico said seriously. He reached up and tucked a strand of windblown hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my cheek.

“Every minute I’m not touching you feels like a waste of time.”

He looked at me with an intensity that used to terrify me. Now, it just made my heart ache.

“You’ve gone soft, De Luca,” I teased, tracing the fading bruise under his eye.

“Only for you,” he admitted without hesitation. “For everyone else, I am the monster. But for you…”

He took my hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the knuckles, then the palm, then the wrist.

“For you, I am just a man who got lucky.”
He pulled me closer, eliminating the space between us. He rested his forehead against mine, his eyes closing as he just breathed me in.

“Do you remember the first day?” Nico asked softly. “In the lecture hall?”

“I remember you terrified me,” I said. “You told me I was living on borrowed time.”

Nico let out a low, self-deprecating laugh. “I was an idiot. I was so angry back then, Elena. I was hollow. I thought power was the only thing that mattered. I looked at you and I saw a pawn. I saw a way to hurt your father.”

He opened his eyes, searching mine.
“But even then… I couldn’t stop looking at you. I told myself it was strategy. But it was obsession. And then it became… this.”

“This?”

“Love,” Nico said.

The word hung in the cold night air, heavier and more real than the snow. He said it simply.

“I love you, Elena,” Nico whispered. “I love your rage. I love your mercy. I love the way you look at me like you see the man underneath the crown.”

My chest tightened. I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“I love you too,” I said. “Even the monster parts.”

Nico smiled, a genuine, beautiful expression that lit up his face. He leaned down and kissed me. It wasn’t a hungry, desperate kiss like the ones in the heat of battle. It was slow and deep.

He lifted me up effortlessly, my legs wrapping around his waist instinctively. The blanket fell to the balcony floor.

“Let’s go inside,” Nico murmured against my lips. “I want to show you exactly how much I love you.”

He carried me back into the warmth of the penthouse.

He didn’t take me to the bed. He sat on the large leather sofa and settled me on his lap, facing him.

He spent the next hour just worshipping me.
His hands roamed over my body, not to take, but to cherish. He kissed the scar on my arm where the mercenary’s knife had hit the mesh. He kissed my fingertips. He kissed my eyelids.

“You are my life,” Nico whispered, running his hands through my hair. “You understand that? If the world burns tomorrow, as long as I have you, I have everything.”

“The world isn’t going to burn,” I promised, resting my head on his chest, listening to his strong, steady heartbeat. “We won.”

“We did,” Nico agreed. He rested his chin on the top of my head, looking out at the snow falling past the windows.

He squeezed me tight.

“The victory was this. You and me. Standing in the wreckage.”

I closed my eyes, feeling safe, feeling loved, feeling powerful.

The dark rites of Blackwood University were over. The savage games had ended.

I was no longer the pawn.

I was the Queen. And I was holding the King’s heart in the palm of my hand.

End of Book One

THE END.

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