Page 57

“Marco!” she gushes. “Are you serious?”

My security team hovers at the edges of the foyer, weapons still drawn. With a sharp jerk of my head, I dismiss them.

“Leave us. All of you.”

They hesitate, but ultimately back away. The last one pulls the double doors closed behind him with a soft click.

The moment we’re alone, I move. Aria yelps as I push past her and pin her precious sister to the wall by her throat. My fingers press into the soft skin beneath her jaw—not enough to cut off air, but enough that she knows I could.

“How dare you?” I spit, leaning in close enough to see the flecks of fear in her eyes. They’re hazel like Aria’s, but without warmth. “You abandon your sister to an unknown fate. You leave her to marry a stranger, to pay off your debts. You run with the money, never even telling her the price you sold her for—and then you have the fucking audacity to sneak into my home?”

Chiara’s hands claw at my wrist, but I don’t move.

“Do you have any idea what could have happened to her if I had been someone else?” I continue, my voice dropping to awhisper that carries more threat than a warning. “If I were half the monster they say I am, she’d be broken by now. Is that what you wanted for your twin?”

Chiara tries to speak, but only manages to sputter. I grip tighter, furious at how she dared to put my wife in danger, furious at how she’s fucked with so many lives without giving a second thought to anyone but herself.

“Let. Her. Go.”

The command slices through the red haze of my anger. I turn to see Aria standing straighter than ever, fists clenched at her sides. The hesitant bride I brought home a week ago is gone. In her place stands a woman I barely recognize—steel beneath the softness.

“Now, Marco,” she continues, and there’s something in her voice I’ve never heard before. Authority. Command. “Or I swear to God, I’ll walk out that door, and you’ll never see me again. And I’ll make you pay if you so much as leave a scratch on my sister.”

My fingers loosen from Chiara’s throat before I even make the conscious decision to release her. Something in Aria’s voice would have me doing anything she asks, and the realization is as terrifying as it is exhilarating. The woman who trembled in my bed now threatens me, and God help me, I respect her for it.

Perhaps, I find myself maddened by this side of her. This loyal, protective lioness.

“You don’t deserve a sister like Aria,” I hiss into Chiara’s face in parting rage before finally releasing her wholly. “She’s too fucking good for you. She worked to pay your debts, and you’ve only ever brought trouble to her door.”

Chiara slumps against the wall, coughing and massaging her throat. A thin red line marks where my thumb pressed too hard.

“I never meant for Aria to be harmed,” Chiara rasps, her eyes darting between me and her sister. “I’d never do that to her.”

I bark out a laugh that contains no humor. “Liar. You left her to the wolves. You took the money—my money—and ran, leaving her to pay your debt with her freedom.”

“Maybe I did—and I’m not proud of it. But I had to go. I found something—something that puts us both at risk.”

Aria steps closer to her sister, and their mirrored image sends an uncomfortable chill down my spine. They move the same way, like dancers performing the same routine from memory.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Aria asks.

Chiara takes a steadying breath. “I came back because I love you, Aria. I’d never truly abandon you.” She turns to face her sister fully now, ignoring me as if I don’t exist. “I’ve learned who we are. Who we really are.”

Something cold slithers down my spine. I already know where this is going, and every instinct screams at me to silence her.

“We’re not nobodies,” Chiara continues, her voice steady. “We’re the DeLuca princesses—hidden away after the massacre, left in the dark about who killed our parents. You remember what I’m talking about, don’t you? Those nights we spent glued to unsolved crime stories, curling up on the couch, fascinated by those twisted murder shows? The DeLucas were a powerful mafia family, wiped out in cold blood. Rumors spread that the children died, too—but no bodies were ever found.”

I watch the color drain from Aria’s face. My worst fears materialize in the widening of her eyes, in the slight parting of her lips. If she learns that my father orchestrated the DeLuca massacre—if she discovers that Bianchi blood spilled DeLuca blood—she’ll hate me. She’ll even try to exact revenge.

I might lose her.

The thought sends panic surging through my veins, sharp and acrid as battery acid. I can’t let that happen. Not now. Notwhen she’s started to look at me with something other than fear. Not when I’ve started feeling something I never expected for her.

“That’s enough,” I cut in, stepping between them. “Whatever information you think you’ve uncovered, Chiara, could be false. Family trees in our world are often rewritten to serve agendas. How come you never knew this before she married me, joined a mafia family? Someone’s fooling you.”

“I have proof,” she says, reaching for a worn satchel I hadn’t noticed. “Documents, photos?—”

I place my hand on hers, stopping her. “Even if it’s true, what good does it do you now? The DeLuca empire fell decades ago. All digging into the past will do is alert their enemies, your enemies, that the heirs still live.”