It looked fucking perfect.
The second photo next to him is of Alessandro—his father.
Older.Colder.Meaner.
That man doesn’t just look dangerous; he is.His presence seeps through the photo like poison.The slow, steady kind that drips into your veins until you don’t even realize you’re dying.
His eyes are hollow, like dark pits where empathy should reside.The lines on his face seem shaped by authority, not age.His suit is sharp and there’s a tilt to his mouth that tries to look like a smile but never truly succeeds.
That man has sat at my father’s table more times than I can count.
Always the same ritual.Low voices.Tight expressions.Smiles that never touch their eyes.Like two wolves circling the same carcass, deciding who’ll make the first move.
And below the two men, there’s a third photo.A woman.
She’s not facing the camera directly.Her head is tilted slightly, with a strand of dark hair caught on the curve of her jaw, highlighting her sharp and striking profile.She’s beautiful in that natural, effortless way that doesn’t need to try.Full lips parted mid-laugh.Cheekbones touched by sunlight.
A small laminated tag is located under the photo.EMERY.
Everyone knows who Emery is.She’s the reason Matteo De Luca burned his own kingdom to the fucking ground.The girl who made the strongest man in our world choose love over legacy, and disappeared with her into the smoke.
My eyes lift back up the wall to the notes in the margins.
Lorenzo isn’t just looking for them.He’s hunting.Tracing their movements.Mapping out towns.Collecting dates.He’s chasing shadows and memories.And judging by how this wall looks, with obsession bleeding through every mark, he won’t stop until he finds them.
I turn away but stop, my gaze settling on the photo on a nearby shelf.
Inside the frame are four people.
A woman, with raven hair and breathtaking beauty.She appears happy.Complete.
Beside her stands a man made of steel and silence.His eyes are sharp and cold, with an ugly scar running down his temple.He has the stance of someone who would tear the world apart to protect his family.But the world didn’t listen anyway.
There are two children between them.The girl is younger, probably five or six, full of light and brightness.Her grin is wide and fearless.But it’s the boy who captures my attention.
He stands up straight for his age.He has his arm around a girl, maybe his sister, and there’s a soft smile on his face.His face is rounder than the man I know now, cheeks still holding onto boyhood, but I recognize those eyes.
It’s him.
Lorenzo
Before the crown and the blood.
Before the world decided it would rather fear him than love him.
I run my fingers along the glass.There’s something about it that makes my chest hurt because he looks almost gentle, still untouched by the things that would come later.
I’ve heard the rumors.Everyone has.That his family were slaughtered.A family wiped out in a single night, and he was the only survivor.
I set the frame back where it belongs, my fingers lingering a second longer than they should.A quiet apology weighs heavy in my chest for looking too long, for seeing something that was never mine to find.
And yet, I breathed it in and touched the pieces he buried.
This is his past.His private world.Something I was never supposed to see.
I move toward the door, then slip out before Lorenzo finds out I’ve been breathing in all the things he’s spent a lifetime burying.
Chapter Six
