Red Card to Your Heart: You Don't Deserve My Love Extra Time novel Chapter 25

That night, Salvatore abandoned Carina at her doorstep and dragged me back to the villa.

The moment we entered, he gripped my arm with bruising force, pulling me up the marble staircase toward the master suite. Neither of us spoke. The silence between us crackled with dangerous electricity.

He pushed me into the bathroom, slammed the door, and turned the shower to its hottest setting. Steam quickly filled the space as he seized my chin between his fingers, forcing my face up to his.

"You think you can leave me?" he growled before claiming my mouth in a punishing kiss.

I bit his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. He pulled back, a dark smile spreading across his face as he tasted the copper on his tongue.

"There she is," he murmured. "My little wildcat."

One by one, he stripped away my lake-soaked clothes, each garment hitting the marble floor with a wet slap. His movements were deliberate—part punishment, part possession. When I was naked before him, he paused, his eyes traveling over me with predatory intensity.

I slapped him hard across the face. "Fuck you."

Instead of rage, his eyes lit with something like appreciation. He caught my wrist mid-air when I tried again, twisting my arm behind my back as he pushed me against the steamed glass of the shower.

"You done?" he asked, his voice dangerously soft against my ear.

I fought like a cornered animal, scratching, twisting against his grip. He responded by pressing his body harder against mine, his expensive suit soaking through from the shower spray and my still-damp skin.

"I hate you," I spat, even as my body betrayed me with its response to his touch.

He laughed, low and knowing. "Convince me."

What followed was a battle for dominance neither of us was willing to lose. His kisses were brutal, demanding, a blend of discipline and desire. For once, I refused to yield to him, matching his force with resistance of my own.

When we finally made it to the bed, tangled in half-torn clothes and leaving trails of water across Italian marble, the anger had transformed into something else—raw hunger neither of us could contain.

His hands left marks I would find the next morning—fingerprints on my hips, bruises blooming on my thighs. I repaid him with scratches down his back, deep enough to scar.

When my stubbornness wouldn't break, when I refused to beg as I normally would, Salvatore finally laughed—a sound of genuine surprise against my skin.

At the peak of our violent reunion, he gripped my face between his hands, forcing me to look at him. "Listen carefully, Isabella," he growled, his rhythm never faltering. "No one will take me from you. Not even Carina."

Our release came simultaneously, the force of it leaving us both trembling and spent.

Afterward, as we lay amid ruined sheets, he traced the outline of my lips with his thumb. "I merely pity her," he said quietly. "Nothing more."

It seemed, impossibly, that Salvatore Ricci had truly fallen in love with me.

After that night, his attitude toward Carina cooled dramatically. He returned home at predictable hours, dined with me, talked about his business in ways he never had before. Sometimes we walked through the villa's gardens at dusk, his hand possessively at the small of my back.

We became almost like an ordinary couple—if ordinary couples discussed territory disputes and protection rackets over breakfast.

The capos whispered that Don Ricci had never shown such devotion to any woman. The respect I received from the family grew with each day he chose me over her.

Then, just days before our wedding, Carina orchestrated her final performance.

With theatrical precision, she pulled up her sleeve to reveal fresh cuts across her delicate wrist.

"I've been diagnosed with severe depression," she sobbed. "The doctor says if things continue this way, if you don't—" She broke off, shaking her head. "But I know you don't care about my pain anymore."

With perfect timing, thunder cracked outside as she turned to leave.

Salvatore hesitated—just a heartbeat too long—before following her into the storm.

Heavy rain pounded against the windows as I stood watching them through the glass. Carina collapsed dramatically in his arms in the courtyard. Their silhouettes merged as the rain poured down, until they disappeared from view.

A sudden panic seized my chest, constricting my breathing. This wasn't part of my plan.

If Salvatore left with Carina now, everything I had carefully constructed over three years would crumble. Our wedding would never happen. The life I had plotted and schemed for would slip through my fingers like water.

Was it fear of losing him that drove the knife of anxiety deeper into my chest? Or fear of losing my chance at what I truly wanted?

I couldn't distinguish between the two anymore. Perhaps they had become the same thing.

All I knew with absolute certainty was that I couldn't let him go. Not tonight. Not with her. There was too much at stake—plans set in motion long before I ever wore his ring, secrets I kept buried beneath my carefully constructed devotion.

I had to get Salvatore back.

Whatever the cost.