Page 19 of Twisted Addiction

“Will you ever truly forgive me?” he asked, his voice raw, eyes pleading.

I met his gaze without a flicker of pity.

He’d failed to protect the one person who mattered most—my Penelope. She’d been taken right under his watch, forced to endure horrors he could only imagine.

Forgiveness? It wasn’t in my vocabulary for such betrayal. “Forgive you?”

He swallowed hard, his limp more pronounced as he tried to close the distance between us.

“I failed, I know,” he rasped. “But I fought Antonio with my life, boss. I swear on my mother’s grave, I did everything to put him down—but he came prepared.”

His voice trembled with a mixture of fury and shame. “He had six men with him. Armed. I took down three before the fourth shot me in the leg. Still, I crawled. Kept firing until the barrel overheated. You think I didn’t fight? I cracked one’s skull open with the butt of my gun. Another—I slit his throat.” His breath hitched, chest heaving. “But they used gas, boss. Knocked me out cold.”

I stared at him in silence, my expression unreadable. The smell of gunpowder and blood clung to the memory he was describing, and for a moment, I almost believed the torment in his voice. Almost.

Then my tone dropped, calm and merciless.

“And yet,” I said, “she was taken. Your fight means nothing if the result is failure.”

His jaw tightened, eyes glinting with regret and humiliation. “I know. But I’d do it again. Even if it killed me.”

I took a slow step toward him, my gaze cold as the steel I carried.

“It should have,” I said. “Maybe then I wouldn’t have to look at the man who let her be taken.”

He swallowed hard, sadness deepening the grooves in his face.

The silence between us stretched thin—dangerous, suffocating. He stood there, shaking, his breath ragged from pain and shame.

Then, as if to shift the blade away from his own neck, Giovanni bowed his head and nodded—acceptance carved into the slump of his shoulders.

“I’ve seen the reports.” He said quietly. “Her womb’s malformed. She won’t carry to term. If she can’t give you an heir, everything you built is on the line.”

The sentence landed like a thrown knife. My jaw clenched until my muscles sang.

“And you think I need you to remind me?” I snapped, irritation flaring.

“I’m not reminding,” he said carefully, watching me like a man gauging a trigger. “I’m asking—how do you plan to fix it? Because there’s only one way I can see—”

“Finish that sentence,” I warned, my voice sinking to a dangerous calm.

He hesitated, sweat gathering at his temple. “A mistress,” he breathed. “Someone who can carry your blood.”

A humorless smile twisted my mouth. “You’re advising me to betray my wife now?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Never that. I just—want to know the plan before the world starts asking questions.”

“You think I don’t have a plan?” I stepped toward him, my shadow swallowing his. “You think I’d let something as small as biology ruin what I built?”

He flinched as I brushed past him. “I’ll decide what happens next,” I said, reaching for the door.

Then, like a fool with a death wish, he whispered, “Seraphina...”

I froze, my grip tightening until the brass bit into my palm.

Slowly, I turned back, my eyes narrowing to slits.

“What did you just say?” My voice was soft—but it carried the weight of a gun being cocked.