My gaze stayed locked on Matteo as he hammered the heavy bag with raw, unfiltered fury. The kid was improving fast, faster than I’d expected. His footwork had sharpened, his strikes carried real weight now, that stubborn Ventura fire turning into something precise and lethal under my guidance.
But even as I watched him train, my mind kept circling back to her. Always back to her.
Aurora. My little troublemaker.
The woman who had walked into After Dark wearing white heels and wide-eyed innocence like armor, only to leave with my obsession carved so deep into her soul that neither of us could escape it.
The same woman who now looked at me like I was both her salvation and her cage. Like the filthy promises I’d snarled against her throat while I bred her had finally sunk in.
She’d found the unused condom wrapper. She knew I’d lied. She knew every dark word had been truth wrapped in lust. And now she was scared. I fucking hated it.
“Elbows in,” I barked as Matteo threw a sloppy hook that left his side exposed.
My voice echoed off the concrete walls. “You telegraph that shit and someone puts a bullet between your ribs before you finish the swing. Again.”
Matteo adjusted, the bag rattling violently under the corrected combination.
Jab. Cross. Hook. Low kick.
Sweat flew from his brow. He was breathing hard, but his eyes burned with that same determination I’d seen in Aurora’s the night she chased me down in the club.
“Better?” he asked, wiping his face with the hem of his shirt.
“Marginal,” I grunted, stepping onto the mat. I circled him slowly, my own muscles coiled tight with restless energy. “Full combination. Don’t half-ass it. Pretend the bag owes you money and fucked up your sister.”
He attacked like the bag had personally orchestrated the attack in the rose garden three days ago. The chain screamed. The impacts landed heavier, cleaner. I let him burn through it, my mind drifting again despite myself.
The memory of that morning after hit me hard. Aurora waking up to the discarded condom wrapper I’d left deliberately visible. The way her face had gone pale, then flushed with fury. The way she’d dressed in yesterday’s clothes with shaking fingers and fled the room like I was the monster she’d always accused me of being.
I’d pushed too hard. Too fast. I knew that.
But the thought of her carrying my child… Her body changing, swelling, marked from the inside by me… It had consumed me that night. Still did.
I wanted her tied to me in every way possible. Blood. Seed. Legacy. After losing Angelo, the idea of creating something permanent with her was the only thing that quieted the emptiness.
Matteo finished the set and stepped back, chest heaving. We drank water in heavy silence. He glanced toward the door again, like he kept expecting Aurora to storm in with one of her sharp-tongued remarks or that fiery glare that always made my cock twitch.
“She’s still pissed at you, huh?” he asked carefully, not quite meeting my eyes.
I didn’t answer right away. My jaw tightened until it ached. Angelo’s watch, now my watch, felt heavier than usual against my wrist, the silver band cool against my heated skin. A constant reminder of everything I’d lost and everything I refused to lose again.
“She’s scared,” I said finally, my voice low and rough like gravel under boots. “Of what I want from her. Of what this is becoming. Of forever. Of me making it real.”
Matteo nodded slowly, understanding flickering across his face. He was only sixteen but he carried the weight of our world already.
“She’s always been like that. Runs when things get too real. Too permanent. After our mama… she used to talk about disappearing. A motorcycle. A tiny apartment somewhere no one knew our name.”
A dark smirk tugged at my lips, but there was no humor in it. “She ran straight into a trap last time. Nearly got taken because she needed to prove she still had control. Because I pushed too hard about the future I see for us.”
The memory ignited fresh rage in my blood. That fallen tree. The black SUV tailing her. The way she’d looked so small and fierce on my bike when I finally reached her. Two minutes later and I might have lost her forever.
Matteo studied me for a long moment. “You really love her, don’t you?”
Love.
The word felt too soft, too clean for the violent storm raging inside my chest.
What I felt for Aurora Ventura wasn’t gentle romance or sweet devotion. It was obsession carved into my bones. Possession wrapped around my black soul like barbed wire. The only light I’d allowed into the darkness since Angelo was ripped away from me.
