Tone stood rigid near the wreckage of the desk, her chin high even now, hurt.Raze stood between us like a guard dog.
I looked at him.“You can’t decide her life for her.”
His expression turned murderous again.“Fucking watch me.”
24
Tone
Archie stopped at the doorway.
Blood marked his mouth.His chest rose and fell, every breath painful.But it wasn’t the injuries that made him look wrecked.
It was me.
He turned back and looked straight at me like the rest of the room didn’t exist.Not my brother standing between us.Not the aftermath of what they’d done to each other.Just me.
“Come with me.”
His voice was more a plea than a command.
Raze shifted beside me, like he was about to step in, shut it down, end it before the possibility even had a chance to breathe—but Archie didn’t look at him.He didn’t even acknowledge him, effectively telling my brother that this had nothing to do with him.
“Now,” Archie added, quieter this time.Rougher.“Come with me, Antonella.”
My heart stuttered.For one reckless, impossible second, I saw the possibility just enough to feel it take shape.
Leaving.
Walking out of this house, this life, this blood-soaked legacy I’d been born into.Following him into something unknown.Something unstable.Something that didn’t come with rules or protection or guarantees.
Just him.Just us.
My throat tightened.Because it wasn’t just fear that rose up.
It was desire.Dangerous, consuming want.
And that terrified me more than anything.
Because I didn’tknowhim.
I knew the version of him that sat across from my family, that played ally when it suited him.I knew the man who played with violence like it was second nature to him.But I didn’t know what came after.
Behind me, Raze let out a low, disbelieving sound.“You’ve got some nerve?—”
“Stay out of it,” Archie said, not even looking at him.
My pulse spiked.Because he wasn’t asking.
He was offering me something irreversible.A choice.And suddenly, the room felt too small to hold it.
“Tone,” he said again, and this time my name sounded different in his mouth.A plea that cracked straight through me.
I swallowed hard, my ribs aching with the motion, grounding me just enough to think.To remember.
This house.My family.Everything I’d built here, survived here, fought for.
The life I knew.
