Page 218 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

Because that was the real reason Antonio had kept him alive.

Donatello had been too gentle for this life, too academic. He’d been horrified by the violence and the sadistic pleasure Antonio took in it.

So Antonio had not only killed him, he’d stolen his son’s soul, too.

Simply because he could.

And that was only a little glimpse into the horrors that Antonio D’Amato had visited upon the world.

That was only what Jovi’s uncle had done tohim. It barely scratched the surface of the things Antonio was capable of. It would hardly register on the laundry list of offenses the police likely attributed to him.

“Do you remember my sister Alessia?” he asked his uncle.

“Have you lost your mind?” Antonio asked with that laugh of his, his eyes cold. “You want to get into ancient history?”

“Either one of my sisters, actually. Alessia or Isabella.” Jovi watched his uncle’s face. “I can barely remember them myself. They were so little. But then, I don’t really remember my mother, either.”

Though he did, now. He remembered her voice that night, defying Antonio’s orders and calling him exactly what he was. A daring act that had cost her dearly, but she’d done it.

“Your mother was a whore,” Antonio told him, with obvious relish. “Does that clear it up? Can we get back to business now?”

What Jovi knew about his mother was that she’d been from Rome. Educated and artistic, she’d never really fit in with the family.Uppity, his aunt had sneered. Jovi remembered her art. Her dancing in a pretty dress.

Maybe he was protecting himself from all the other things he couldn’t bear to remember.

But one thing he was sure of was that his mother was no whore.

So what Jovi did in the face of such slander was smile.

And he saw that when he did, he managed to disconcert his uncle more than any flash of temper might have. Antonio understood temper. He banked on it. He liked to force others into violent displays because it made it easier to then take what he wanted.

He’d never known what to do with the monster he’d made, a creature of ice instead of fury.

It was time, Jovi thought, that he found out.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ISTAYED CROUCHEDdown behind that bush for a long time. I stayed while my legs cramped and my knees ached—

But convent girls were bred to endure. We’d been taught how to suffer, and we’d practiced it in prayer day and night in wildly uncomfortable old buildings that had never known any creature comforts.

I had literally spent my life preparing for this moment.

I stayed in place, tucked up under bush that had managed to grow into something thick with thorns, providing me with something like a cocoon. I pulled my dress around me and pretended it was a blanket. I curled up and hunkered down, determined to wait it out.

And absolutely certain that Jovi would make it back to me, because I could accept no other outcome.

But eventually, it began to get colder. Darker. The night was wearing on and I’d heard nothing to suggest that there was anyone on this property but me.

Despite the fact that Jovi had told me to stay put, I crept out of my little burrow. I stopped again and again, scouring the dark for any sign of life. In my experience, guards and other such people had a lot of nervous energy. They paced. They smoked cigarettes and flicked them. They were very concerned with perimeters and constantly went to recheck them.

I melted my way through the overgrowth, careful to keep my steps silent, and when I got to Jovi’s tree, I stopped and waited some more. But all I could hear was the wind, and every now and then, the faintest sound of the city far below.

If there was someone here, I reasoned, he would have to be even more still and watchful than Jovi.

This being impossible to imagine, I used the darkness to my advantage. I snuck around the side of the house to make sure there were no other cars in the drive. I checked all the balconies from the shadows below.

Then I went inside. I padded up to Jovi’s bedroom, where I’d stayed ever since that first day. I opened up the wardrobe and breathed in the faint scent of him on his clothes, then pulled on a pair of denim so soft it was like a whisper and a sweater, because I’d started shivering. He had showed me the stack of clothes he kept in what looked like a gym bag early on—maybe the second morning I’d been here—and told me they were all mine.