Page 20

I pace the room, each step echoing against the cold marble. My blood boils under my skin, pulse pounding. Cassian stands to the side, phone to his ear, muttering into the receiver. My hands clench and unclench as I stare at the door.

Three hours.

I start toward the door, my jaw tight, my vision narrowing, but Cassian blocks my path, stepping in front of me.

“Serevin.”

“Get out of my face before I snap your neck.”

His palm lifts slightly, trying to calm me. His voice remains level, but I hear the tension under it. “Your aunt says she has it under wraps. We saw Gustavo drive off with her. Your aunt has your men searching. She wasn’t kidnapped. She will be back.”

I glare at him. “It’s been three hours.”

“We’ve got our men scanning every major highway out of Melbourne. She’s not leaving the city. She probably went for drinks with Gustavo. The new her is quite…lively.”

His attempt at humor scrapes against my nerves. I open my mouth, but the door swings open behind him.

Emilia stumbles in first. Her hair is a mess, her eyes wide, her breathing shaky.

She’s disheveled—even more than usual. Behind her, Fioretta follows.

She’s limping slightly, her gait uneven.

The oversized T-shirt hangs just above her bare legs, and she’s in unfamiliar shorts.

A bandage wraps around her head. My chest tightens at the sight of her.

Cassian’s head turns sharply, silent. My gaze locks on Fioretta, scanning her from head to toe. My fists curl again.

They stop a few feet from me. Emilia bows her head, her hands twisting. Fioretta barely glances at me. She looks exhausted, but that sharp fire still flickers in her eyes.

“Do you both care to explain?” My voice is low, cold.

Fioretta exhales slowly, lifting her gaze to mine with steady defiance. “No, I don’t,” she says, her voice flat. “I’m tired.”

She moves past me, and I catch her wrist before she slips away. She spins to face me, her jaw tight, her eyes fierce. “Let me go before I kill you.”

We stare at each other. The room stretches thin around us. Her pulse races beneath my grip. She isn’t afraid—not of me, not anymore.

I release her.

She pulls her hand back and walks upstairs without looking back.

The silence wraps around us as I turn my eyes to Emilia. She trembles, her skin pale and damp. I take a slow step toward her. She flinches.

“What happened.” My voice cuts sharper this time.

Her lips part, and words tumble out, rapid, shaky. “I—I met her on the road. She was walking—alone. I—I was driving back. I saw her there, and I picked her up. I brought her home, safe. That’s all.”

I stare. Her breathing quickens under my gaze, her hands wringing together like she’s trying to squeeze the lie out of her own skin.

Cassian watches from behind, silent, waiting.

I step even closer, lowering my head so my words hit her trembling mouth directly. “Tell me the truth now, Emilia, and I will spare your life.”

Her eyes pool with tears as she stares at me, her body locked in place, unable to move.

I sit behind my desk, the weight of the room pressing in, heavy with her sobs.

Emilia stands before me, crumbling. Her hands shake as she wrings her fingers together, her shoulders hunched forward.

Her tears drip freely, staining her already blotchy face.

She struggles to speak, words tumbling out between gasps.

“It wasn’t—it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t plan it,” she breathes out, wiping her face roughly with her palm. “Monte—Monte planned it. Gustavo too. They took her, they were going to—” She hiccups. “They poured wine on her, threw food on her—humiliated her.”

My jaw tightens. My hands ball into fists on the desk, nails biting into my palm.

Her voice cracks. “They stripped her. Left her in her underwear.” She pauses, like reliving it drains the breath from her lungs. “They slapped her. Monte hit her with—something heavy. I—I don’t even know what it was.”

I don’t speak. The rage builds, creeping like acid through my veins. My pulse throbs against my temples.

“I—I panicked.” Her voice grows smaller. “They said they were going to give her pills—memory pills—to wipe her mind. Monte had them ready.”

I watch her closely. My breathing is calm, too calm, because if I let it rise, I will lose control.

She continues, her voice trembling. “I—I switched the bottles. I—I put vitamins instead.” Her lip quivers. “I saved her. I did.”

Tears fall again, and she gasps for air between each sentence, as though she’s suffocating under her own guilt.

“When it was done, I got her dressed. I found some thrift clothes at a small shop nearby. She was—half-naked. I couldn’t bring her back like that.”

I close my eyes briefly, jaw twitching as I try to contain the fury clawing its way up.

“The doctor says she’s fine. She—she’s fine,” Emilia whispers, like saying it aloud will lessen the weight of what she allowed to happen.

Silence stretches thick between us. She stands there, heaving, wiping her face, waiting for me to speak.

When I finally do, my voice is low, cold. “You will leave this house.”

Her head jerks up. “What?”

“You will pack your things. I will provide you with a residence. You will not stay under this roof again.”

Her lip trembles, and her knees buckle slightly. “No—Serevin—please. Please, I—I protected her. I saved her—”

I cut her off with a sharp glance. She freezes.

“You allowed her to be taken.” My voice never rises, but each word strikes like steel. “You stood by while they humiliated her.”

She takes a step closer, pleading. “I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” I growl.

She lets out a broken sob. “Please. I love you.”

The words fall from her lips, desperate and pathetic. I don't even blink.

“Leave, Emilia.”

Her body shakes. A fresh wave of tears streams down her face as she turns, stumbling toward the door, shoulders quivering. She pulls the door open, pausing briefly, as if hoping I’ll stop her.

I don’t.

She slips out, her sobs fading down the hallway.

The office falls silent, the only sound is my shallow, controlled breathing.

Cassian shifts near the door behind me. “Don…you were a bit too harsh.”

I don’t even turn to him. “Get out, Cassian.”

I sit alone in the heavy silence of my study. The air tastes bitter.

I rise from my chair, moving toward the wall behind my desk, where a narrow door blends into the paneling—unseen by most who enter here. My fingers brush against the hidden latch. The door creaks open.

The room beyond is dim, lit only by the flickering flame of a single candle I left burning from the night before. I step inside. This room is my sanctuary. Or my graveyard.

The air here always feels heavier—dense with memory.

Paintings of her hang on every wall. Dozens of them.

My mother. The woman no one but me remembers.

She stares back at me from every canvas—soft brown eyes, pale skin, dark hair always pulled behind her ears the way she liked.

She always said her hair got in the way while cleaning. She was beautiful even in simplicity.

At the far end of the room sits the small altar. A single glass box rests in the center. Her ashes. I stare at them, feeling the familiar sting creep into my chest.

I lower myself to my knees before her.

“You see everything, don't you?” I whisper, my voice cracking.

The weight of memory crashes down again. Like it always does.

She had been a maid.

A poor, nameless maid, working in my adoptive father’s mansion. She had no titles, no protection, only her beauty—and that beauty became her curse. My father—Gaspare Accardi’s brother, the man who took me as his heir—became obsessed with her. Possessed her. Controlled her.

But it wasn't he who fathered me. It was his second-in-command. His most trusted right hand. His shadow.

My true father.

Their affair had been brief, desperate—a rebellion that was never meant to be discovered. But it was. My adoptive father found out. And in his rage, his jealousy, he killed my real father with his own hands and forced my mother to carry me to term. She gave birth in chains. I was born into chains.

She raised me in the shadows of that house, in whispered lullabies and stolen moments of tenderness when no one was watching. But there were never many of those.

He tortured her.

For years.

He broke her bones when no one was looking.

Starved her. Kept her isolated, weak, degraded.

And made me watch. I was a child when I first saw him beat her for breathing too loudly.

I was a child when I first saw blood run from her mouth like a quiet stream.

And still she smiled at me. Still, she whispered: “You will not become him, Serevin. You will be better.”

She only made it ten years.

When she died, he handed me this glass box of her ashes as if it were a gift. His words ring in my head, still razor sharp even after all these years: “You’re a man now. You belong to me.”

I stare into the dim light, watching the flame flicker against the glass, reflecting her face back at me from the paintings that surround me.

And I see Fioretta there too. The way she looked at me tonight when I grabbed her hand.

The fire behind her eyes, the strength in her voice, the fury in her bones.

I lean closer to the ashes, resting my forehead against the glass like I’ve done so many nights before.

“I’ll kill them for hurting her.” My voice shakes.

The words are not a threat. They’re a vow.

I close my eyes, feeling the rage boiling under my skin, seeping into my blood. Monte. Gustavo. My aunt. Each one of them touched what was mine. And I will bury them for it.

Night blankets the house as I step out of the shrine room, leaving my mother’s silent presence behind me. The door shuts softly behind me, but her memory follows, humming in my skull like distant thunder.

The hallway stretches ahead. Dim lights cast long, thin shadows along the marble. Each step feels heavier than the last. The rage I keep locked beneath my ribs vibrates, simmering, but I keep it down—for now.

I reach her door. Her wing.

I don’t knock. The handle turns easily under my palm, and I push the door open. The soft creak of the hinges fills the silence as I step inside. The light from the hallway spills across her, illuminating the delicate shape of her body tangled beneath the sheets.

She’s asleep.

Her face is softer like this—her lips slightly parted, brows relaxed, arms tucked in near her chest. She looks young.

Innocent. Like none of the world’s ugliness has ever touched her.

It almost makes me sick, knowing the lies that hover beneath that face.

Or maybe it makes me weak. I sit beside her on the edge of the bed, careful not to wake her too fast.

But her lashes flutter open.

Her voice is raw, tired, but sharp enough to stab. “Is there no privacy in this house?”

I allow a breath to escape before answering. “How do you feel?”

Her expression tightens. “What do you care?”

“I can call the doctor.”

“You don’t need to. I’m fine. You’re making me worse by staying here.”

She shifts up, leaning back into the pillows, frustration tightening her jaw. The way she looks at me—like I’m the intruder here—makes my teeth grind. Her skin is pale. There are scratches across her cheek. The faint outline of bruises darkens along her collarbone. My stomach coils.

She notices my stare and huffs impatiently. “I said I’m fine.”

I stand, my fists curling at my sides. “Alright then. I’ll talk to you after you rest.”

But before I reach the door, she calls my name softly.

“Serevin.”

I pause. Turn halfway toward her.

“It was a misadventure, nothing more,” she says. Her voice is steady, but her eyes don’t meet mine. “Emilia met me on the way.”

A weak cover. She’s lying. I feel it. But I let her keep her story—for now.

I smile thinly. “Of course. Rest up.”

She turns her back on me without another word, curling into herself as she lies back down. I watch her for a few seconds longer, then step into the hallway and shut the door behind me.

The rage is clawing at my ribs again.

Down the corridor, Cassian lounges against the wall like a man without a care in the world, a half-eaten slice of pizza hanging between his fingers. The smell of cheap cheese and garlic assaults my senses.

“You’re enjoying yourself,” I mutter.

He grins, licking sauce off his thumb. “A man has to eat.”

I don’t stop walking as I speak. “Get me Monte and Gustavo. Now.”

Cassian straightens, still chewing as he nods. “Your wish is my command.”

He licks his fingers again, but his tone shifts as I reach the stairs.

“But…Vittoria isn’t going to like this.”

I turn my head just slightly, giving him a look that silences anything else he might say. “I don’t care what Vittoria likes.”