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Is this another layer of her betrayal? Another twist in whatever game she's playing? Or something else entirely?
Her eyes meet mine. Brief. Intense.
Something flickers there. Something that doesn't match her cold words. A depth. A warning. A message.
The Fiori brothers are watching, waiting. Their anticipation is thick in the air like smoke.
But all I can see is Ava.
Not the woman planning to kill me.
The woman who might, just might, be trying to save me.
But…how?
Her eyes.
That's what breaks through my confusion. That's what makes me realize something deeper is happening.
I catch the glint. It’s just a millisecond of pure, raw emotion. Something beneath the cold performance, a vulnerability, a desperation that speaks volumes. The microscopic tremor in her hand after the slap. The way her breath catches for just a moment.
She's trying to save me.
Save us all.
She has a plan.
Trust me.
So, I do something completely counterintuitive.
I play along.
My broken body goes limp. My eyes, swollen nearly shut, become vacant. I become exactly what they want me to be: a defeated man about to be executed.
A subtle shift in my breathing tells Ava I'm with her. That I understand.
Whatever comes next, we're in this together.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
Ava
Stefano looks so broken.
His face is barely recognizable beneath the bruises and dried blood, one eye swollen completely shut, his lip split in multiple places.
Every time he breathes, I can see the pain ripple across his features—broken ribs, probably. Maybe worse. The sight of him like this—bound, beaten, yet somehow still defiant—makes my heart feel like it's being torn in two.
I did this to him.
My decisions. My lies. My desperate attempt to outrun a life I never chose.
And now I'm his only hope.
The Fiori brothers watch me with predatory eyes. Guards with dead eyes and bulges beneath their jackets hover at strategic points around the room. All waiting to see the great Stefano Rega brought low by the woman carrying his child.
By me.