The mention of my twin made something inside me snap. Knowing my father had eyes on what was happening was a pure threat.
“Don’t you fucking say his name.” My voice dropped to a lethal whisper. “I am no longer your son.”
Silence stretched for a beat.
Then my father laughed. Low. Amused. Completely unbothered.
“You’re disowning me now, are you?” he asked, clearly entertained. “Going to declare yourself free of the Moretti name because of some whore you knocked up?”
I didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.” The word came out like a death sentence. “Consider this my formal resignation from whatever fucked-up legacy you think you’re building. I want nothing from you. No territory. No money. No name. You come near Aurora again, you send another man into my home, and I will end you myself. Slowly. I’ll make what happened to Angelo look like mercy.”
Another laugh rolled through the phone, richer this time, almost proud.
“There he is,” Edoardo said softly. “My real son. Finally.”
The line went dead.
I stood there in the dark study, chest heaving, the phone still clenched in my fist. The whiskey glass shattered against the far wall before I even realized I’d thrown it. Glass rained down like crystal shrapnel.
He thought this was a game. A lesson.
He had no idea I’d already chosen her over everything.
And if he forced my hand again, I would paint the streets of this city red to keep her safe.
Chapter Twenty: AURORA
Thegardensmelledlikerain, roses, and regret.
I sat on the cold stone bench where Matteo had tackled a killer just yesterday, the same place where blood had soaked into white roses and turned them crimson. The book in my lap was one of those old romance novels I used to devour in secret, pretending they were thrillers. Pages full of grand gestures and heroic men who didn’t shoot your fiancé at the altar. I hadn’t turned a single page in twenty minutes.
My fingers kept drifting to my lower belly again, pressing lightly against the fabric of my sweater. I could still feel the ghost of Santino’s hand there, the way he’d rubbed slow circles while buried deep inside me, whispering filthy, obsessive promises about filling me until I swelled with his child. The memory sent heat rushing through me even now, shame and desire twisting together until I couldn’t tell which was stronger.
I yanked my hand away like I’d been burned.
Santino watched me constantly, those dark eyes tracking every movement like I might disappear. At night he pulled me into his bed without asking, wrapping his powerful body around mine,one large hand possessively cupping between my thighs as if to remind me who I belonged to even in sleep. I pretended to be asleep when he kissed my shoulder or whispered my name like a prayer. I pretended I wasn’t melting under his touch. I pretended the lie I was living didn’t feel more real than anything that came before.
Because I wanted him. God help me, I wanted the devil who had stolen me. I wanted the brutal way he fucked me, the terrifying tenderness that slipped through when he thought I wasn’t looking, the way he’d given Angelo’s watch to Matteo like it was the most natural thing in the world. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw that bloodstained altar. I saw Sergio crumpling to the marble floor. I saw the life I was supposed to have burning to ash because of one stolen kiss with a man in a devil mask.
A folded note had appeared under my bedroom door this morning while I was in the shower. The handwriting was jagged, almost unrecognizable, like someone had written it with a trembling, untrustworthy hand.
Cathedral crypt. Noon. Come alone if you still have a soul left. -Sergio
My stomach plummeted. He was supposed to be dead. I had watched Santino shoot him point-blank in front of the entire cathedral. I had felt his blood splatter across my wedding dress like warm rain. I had screamed as his body hit the floor.
But the note felt real. The tremor in those letters felt painfully, horribly real.
I told myself I wouldn’t go. I told myself Santino would lose his mind, lock me in the bedroom, chain me to the bed, never let me out of his sight again. I told myself I owed that man nothing. Hehad been part of the arrangement that would have trapped me in a loveless, blood-soaked marriage. He wasn’t innocent.
Yet at 11:40 a.m., I was slipping out of the estate on the motorcycle anyway, heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. The coastal wind whipped my hair as I drove, cold and sharp, carrying the scent of salt and pine. I kept checking the mirrors. For the past few days I’d felt eyes on me, an SUV tailing at a distance, always disappearing when I looked closer. I’d convinced myself it was Santino’s men watching over me. Maybe sent by the man who sent that hitman.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
The old cathedral loomed ahead, half-ruined and swallowed by shadows. I killed the engine a block away and approached on foot, small knife clutched in my sweating palm. Every creak of the old wooden doors made my skin crawl. The crypt stairs descended into darkness that smelled of mildew, old candle wax, and something coppery underneath.
A single flickering bulb buzzed overhead like a dying insect.
