Page 107 of The Temptation

He’s gone as far as putting his men in Italy on standby, just in case they somehow slip through our fingers and manage to get out of the country with Lucia.

He’s playing it smart, covering every angle. I’m grateful he’s keeping a level head, because I sure as hell can’t.

All I can think about is my wife.

Where is she?

How is she?

That fucking note, Salvatori left in Dante’s letterbox when he first arrived in Australia, still haunts me. Right now it’s playing on repeat in my head.

I’m going to fuck every crevice of that bitch when I get my hands on her, then I’ll share her with my men for the disrespect she’s shown me. When I’m done, I’ll slit her fucking throat.

A chill runs down my spine as I rest my arms on the steering wheel, leaning my forehead against them as I struggle to keep it together.

He came to this country carrying a grudge the size of a goddamn continent, and I can only assume it’s festered over the past few months. I doubt he expected it to take this long to get his hands on her. If he had, he probably would’ve stayed in whatever hole he crawled out of. But to men like him, pride is everything. And she wounded his. Deeply and publicly. And now he’s going to make her pay.

My throat tightens, and my hands start to tremble as images of Lucia flash through my mind. They’re uninvited and relentless. That lip-syncing routine she put on for Lil’Peach a few nights ago, with all the drama and flair, as if she was headlining a sold-out show.

Lucia’s smile was so bright it could gut you. Her scowl? Sharp enough to draw blood. And those absurd little shimmies she used to do every morning, to chase away her blues—blues that I contributed to—stopped the day we got married.

It’s baffling how a man with all my hang-ups can make a woman as incredible as her happy.

Lucia’s daily theatrics and laughter brought life into every room. And through it all, and despite my walls … despite my flaws, she loved me. Fiercely. Quietly. In a hundred little ways that I should’ve appreciated more.

Her actions always spoke louder than her words, but I was too busy fighting my feelings … fightingher, to recognise them for what they were. Love. Unconditional fucking love. Something I’ve never had.

She saw all the skeletons in my closet, but none of that scared her away. If anything, it just made her love me more.

I should’ve told her that I loved her too.

I should’ve shown her how much she means to me.

There’s a long list of things I should’ve done.

Things I may never get the chance to do now.

One thing is for sure, I should never have left her in the car. She would’ve at least had a fighting chance if I’d kept her with me.

Jesus fucking Christ.

The knot in my throat grows larger, and tears sting my goddamn eyes. I haven’t cried since I was a little kid. I gave up on my emotions a long time ago, when I realised they never fixed anything.

Letting it out didn’t make the pain go away; it only lingered louder. So I buried it … every ache, every disappointment, every heartbreak, and I learned to live numb.

But now, as I sit here in the wreckage of everything I once had—of her—it’s all coming crashing back like a damn fucking tsunami.

No warning. No mercy. Just wave after wave of everything I tried to bury. The memories and the mistakes are pulling me under. There’s no dam strong enough to hold back this kind of grief. No numbness thick enough to drown the weight of regret.

No matter the outcome of tonight, I’ll never forgive myself for letting her down.

Never.

She hasn’t had a great life either. Her father was a monster, and she grew up under his iron fist. But unlike me, she never let it harden her heart. She loved openly and freely, even when the world gave her every reason not to.

I’ve always watched her with a kind of awe. The way she smiled at strangers, the way she forgave people who didn’t deserve it, the way she held on to hope like it was something she could pass around if you needed it more than she did.

Logically, she should’ve broken a hundred times over, but somehow, she didn’t. Instead, she became the kind of person I never thought could exist. Someone who turned pain into gentleness, who met cruelty with kindness, not out of weakness, but because she believed love was the only fight worth choosing.