Page 115

“You can’t admit you still love him, can you?” Chiara whispers sadly.

The words hang between us, sad and heavy.

“Don’t,” I hold back a choked sob.

“You love him, Aria. And he loves you. You’re so twisted in your pride, you’d sooner turn the world to ash than speak the truth that’s killing you.”

“Just…stop!” I hiss, stepping back. My head hurts enough already.

“What if there’s another way?” Chiara steps forward.

“What way?” The question explodes out of me, raw with months of suppressed longing. “What magical fix do you see that I don’t? Marco won’t turn on his father. Salvatore won’t stop hunting us.”

“Maybe if you went to Marco, he’d step in. Give you what you want. But he doesn’t even know what you want, Aria. Because you refuse to speak to him! Because you refuse to be honest with yourself!”

The accusation cuts deep because it rings true. Because some small, secret part of me has been hoping Marco would find a way to stop this. Would prove that love can conquer the sins of the past.

But he hasn’t. Won’t. Can’t.

And I can’t keep waiting for miracles.

“Make sure this is what you want, Aria,” Chiara says quietly.

I look around the warehouse again. Fifty men preparing for war. Weapons designed to kill. Plans drawn in blood and vengeance.

So I close my eyes and imagine the alternative—going back to Marco. Asking him to choose us over the man who made him.

Hoping Salvatore’s mercy extends to his son’s pregnant wife. Raising my child in the shadow of the man who ordered my parents’ execution.

Teaching my son or daughter to curtsy to the family that destroyed ours.

Never.

When I open my eyes, something has hardened inside me. Crystallized into diamond certainty.

“There’s nothing left between Marco and me,” I say, and for the first time, I almost believe it. “And I’ll be damned if I let his father remain strong.”

Chiara’s shoulders slump in defeat.

“Then God help us all,” she whispers.

I turn away from her, back toward the men who will end this tomorrow night. My army. My choice. My war.

In forty-eight hours, everything changes.

The Bianchi empire burns.

Even if some part of me still hopes he’ll come through the smoke for us. Even if I want him to.

Some prices are worth paying. Even if they break your heart.

36

MARCO

The whiskey burns going down, but not enough. Not enough to cauterize the ache. Not enough to erase her.

Three shots. Four. Five.