Page 15 of Unleashed (Dark Sovereign #11)

ISAIA

The mausoleum is silent, but it isn’t empty. It never is. The dead linger here—not just the ones buried under marble, but the ones I carry in my chest.

I sit on the steps with my back to the stone, a half-dead bottle of bourbon sweating between my knees.

The cold seeps up through the marble, threading into my veins until it feels like ice is settling where blood should be.

No matter how much I drink, I can’t get warm.

Maybe because she’s not here. Maybe because without her, I don’t know if I’ll ever be warm again.

Everly. Her name cuts me open every time.

A blade against the inside of my ribs, twisting deeper with each beat of my heart.

I thought killing Ryan would dull it, give me even a moment’s peace.

It should’ve. But all it did was ruin a perfect pair of shoes and leave blood caked under my nails, dried and black, like filth I can’t scrub off.

Violence doesn’t work anymore. Not against the silence she left behind.

I close my eyes and all I can see is her—her mismatched eyes, her smile, her mouth forming the words I’ll never stop chasing. My wife. My goddamn soul. My curse.

Footsteps crunch over gravel behind me. Steady, cocky, a rhythm too alive for this graveyard.

“Jesus Christ, little brother.” Nicoli’s voice slides out of the dark like smoke. “Couldn’t pick a bar like a functional human? Had to drink with corpses?”

I don’t bother looking at him. “The company’s better here.”

He steps into view, hands shoved in his pockets, that perpetual swagger in his shoulders like he’s got music in his head no one else can hear. He glances at the bottle, then the stone door. “Bourbon with bones. You’ve really hit rock bottom, huh?”

I finally turn my head, glaring heavily. “What the fuck do you want?”

He shrugs, takes the bottle when I offer it, tips it back like he’s trying to prove something, then grimaces. “Tastes like penance.”

I don’t respond.

“Heard you showed Ryan a real good time tonight.”

I scoff. “Maximo tattling again?”

“You know the math. If Maximo knows, Alexius knows.” He lifts a shoulder. “And now I do.”

“What are you doing here?”

He takes another large gulp of bourbon, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes roaming the mausoleum. His jaw tightens, the joke fading from his face. “This Micah copycat bullshit is crawling under my skin.”

“So you came here to scratch it?”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “I was scared out of my mind the day he had Mira in there. I thought that was the worst I’d ever feel until—” His voice hollows. Poor bastard.

He looks away, drinks again, then hands me the bottle.

“I have to say, brother,” I look up at him, “our family has some of the strongest women I know.”

“Truth.” He lights a cigarette, the amber burning bright orange as he drags it in. “You doing okay?”

“Sure.” A scoff that tastes like rust.

“It’s okay to give a soppy answer. Caelian’s not here.”

I snort. “How is it Caelian and his big mouth never got the shit beaten out of him by one of us, but I did?”

“Caelian wasn’t caught sleeping with Alexius’ wife in his arms.”

“Right.” I shoot back bourbon. “Totally deserved getting my liver chopped up and served to me.”

He smirks. “I’m surprised he let you live.”

“You and me both.” Our half-laugh bounces thin across stone.

Nicoli drops beside me, legs bent, wrists hooked over his knees. “Truth is, I come here more than I should. Especially on nights like these.”

“Like these?” My voice is rough—half bourbon, half exposed nerve.

“Nights I can’t sleep.” He tips his head back, stares at the slice of sky.

“She still gets nightmares.” No swagger.

No smirk. Just weight. “Sometimes I make love to her, fuck her hard if that’s what she needs,” he says flatly.

“Other times I’ll hold her, talk her through it until my tongue’s numb.

Sometimes, none of it matters. She still wakes up screaming.

And for that split second, before she knows it’s me, she looks at me like I’m the dark that had her locked up, like I’m the hands that kept her down.

And I can’t—” bone clicks in his jaw “—I can’t stop it.

Can’t take it from her. All I can do is watch her relive it, knowing she’s branded for life. ”

Silence hums between us. Mira’s abduction, her torture, the shit she went through, it’s a layer of black paint we’ll never be able to peel off.

“That’s what it means to love someone in this life.

” His eyes cut to me, sharp, stripped bare.

“It means knowing your choices will fuck them long after you’re done bleeding.

I’d burn every enemy we’ve ever had if it would erase them, but it doesn’t matter.

She still wakes up with her hands shaking.

She still looks at me like she’s afraid I’ll vanish.

” He laughs once, bitter, shaking his head.

“No matter how many times she tells me it’s not my fault, I know it fucking is. ”

“It’s not like you kept her captive, Nicoli.”

“Yeah. But maybe if I hadn’t spent years trying not to love her, fighting what I felt, none of it would’ve happened. If I’d made her mine sooner, maybe her path shifts by an inch and she never ends up there.”

“Don’t,” I say, sharper than I mean to. “Don’t put that on yourself.”

“Then where the fuck does it go, little brother? Because it’s sure as hell not gone. I see it on nights her nightmares haunt her. I hear it every time she cries in her sleep. Somebody’s gotta carry it.” His words hang between us, heavy as stone.

A thousand things claw at my throat. A million I could say that won’t lift an ounce of that weight. Del Rossa men take our penance like pills and call it breakfast.

Leaning my head back against the cold stone, I light a cigarette.

The flame flares, a small, fragile thing against the dark, before smoke curls upward and disappears into the night like it was never there.

I take a drag, feel it burn deep, but it doesn’t ease the weight crushing my chest. “I fucked up.”

“We’re all well aware of that.”

“She’s never going to forgive me for lying to her.”

“Probably not.” He doesn’t even hesitate.

I cut him a glare. “You’re a shitty brother, you know that?”

Nicoli shrugs, smirking around the rim of the bourbon before he tips it back. “Maybe. But I’m the only one who tells you the truth.”

I rip the bottle from him. “Some truths don’t need spelling out,” I say and drown another hit.

“Bullshit. You live for being the martyr. If she hates you forever, you’ll convince yourself it’s what you deserve. That it proves something about the depth of your love.” He takes the bottle again, eyes glittering. “That’s your problem, Isaia. You confuse bleeding for devotion.”

I’m shaping a snarl, ready to tell him he doesn’t know a goddamn thing about me when my phone vibrates against the stone.

The number flashing on the screen makes my gut seize. My tail. My man on her. I snatch it up. “Talk.”

“She’s at the hospital,” he says, steady and clipped, the way I trained him to be. Usually, that tone anchors me. Not now. Not when the words slam straight into my chest like a bullet. “ER first. Now upstairs.”

Every muscle locks. Ice crawls my spine; fire follows. “What the fuck happened?”

“She had a medical emergency. Paladino had her rushed to the hospital.”

My heart stops. The world slips sideways, and I lurch to my feet, bottle still in my fist. “Is she okay?”

The pause is long enough to kill.

Then, “She’s pregnant, sir.”

For a second, I swear I misheard. My knees nearly give. “Say that again.”

“She’s pregnant. According to my source, she started bleeding, which is why Paladino took her to the ER.”

The bottle explodes when it hits the marble, bourbon bleeding like amber blood over my boots.

Pregnant.

I can’t process it. Can’t fucking breathe around it.

My body forgets how. My chest seizes so tight I clutch at it, fingers digging into muscle and bone, desperate for air that won’t come.

My vision narrows to nothing but her—Everly’s body, Everly’s tears, Everly’s hand pressed to her stomach. My baby. Our baby. Mine.

The world blurs. My skin goes cold, then fever-hot, adrenaline snapping through my veins until I’m shaking. My chest crushes inward, ribs caging a heart that can’t slow down. I can’t catch a breath, like the air itself refuses to stay in my lungs.

“Tell me she’s okay.”

“She’s fine, sir.”

“And the…” I choke on the word. “The baby?”

There’s a long pause. Too long. “The baby’s fine. For now. They’re keeping her overnight for observation.”

“Jesus Christ.” I crouch, roughing a hand through my hair, my thoughts a complete mess. “And he’s there with her?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fuck!” The thought knifes through me so hard I choke on it. My stomach twists, bile scorching my throat. I picture her in a hospital bed, pale, broken, crying out for me—and I’m not there. Paladino is. That motherfucker is there taking up space meant for me.

Fear floods me, so sharp it burns. Fear, like when I was a boy locked out in the dark, pounding on a door that never opened.

Fear, like every time a gun shook in my hands, and my father told me I wasn’t enough.

Except this time, it isn’t about me. It’s her.

It’s the baby. It’s everything I can’t lose.

“Stay put. I’m on my way.” I hang up and start running, faintly hearing Nicoli calling after me, but I don’t stop. I can’t. I need to get to her. I need to fucking be there. Fuck trying to be a better man. Fuck trying to give her space. She needs me, and by God, I’ll be there.

“Isaia! Wait!”

My feet hit the gravel, and I don’t slow. The Ferrari gleams under the weak moonlight, low and sleek, waiting for me like the weapon it is. I yank the door open, the dash lights blink like a pulse I can’t catch, when Nicoli’s hand slams the frame.

“Isaia! For fuck’s sake, stop.”

“Get your hand off my car.” My voice is pure menace, scraped raw.

“You’re not thinking—”

“The fuck I’m not.” I whip on him, chest heaving, vision blurred with rage and panic. “She’s in a hospital bed with my baby inside her. She fucking needs me. I’ve never thought clearer in my goddamn life.”

He doesn’t move, his stare nailed into mine. “You walk in there, you put her at risk.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Just think, Isaia.” He taps his temple. “We don’t know what we’re up against with whoever is crawling out of Micah’s grave.”

“What?” I narrow my eyes, and I swear to God I’m two seconds away from punching him.

“My wife is in a hospital, and you’re thinking of some motherfucking ghost?

Un-fucking-believable.” I’m about to get into the driver’s seat when Nicoli grabs my jacket collar, swings me, and slams my back against the car.

“Stop!” he shouts. “Just stop and listen to me.”

I swipe at his arms. “Get your fucking hands off me.”

“You walk into that hospital, and you put a goddamn target on her back. And right now, you have a chance the rest of us don’t have.”

“And what’s that?”

“To make sure the woman you love doesn’t get caught in the crosshairs.”

I still, and Nicoli grabs my shirt, pulling me closer, his eyes flint and fire. “Out of all of us, you have the best chance to protect your wife by staying…away.”

“No. Not a—”

“Take it from someone who has to live with the guilt,” Nicoli bites out, his jaw tight, his voice shaking with fury and something darker.

“With the pain of knowing I couldn’t keep the love of my life safe.

Take it from someone who would do anything, fucking anything—stay away from her, stay away from my daughter, give up my entire damn life—if it meant I could’ve spared Mira what she went through. ”

The words hit like point-blank fire. Holes and blood everywhere. “Don’t—” I choke. “Don’t ask this of me.”

He presses his forehead against mine, his hand squeezing the back of my neck. “Forgive me, brother. But I have to.”

“I have to be with her, Nicoli.”

“I know you do.”

“I can’t breathe without her,” I whisper. It’s not drama. It’s anatomy.

“I know you can’t.”

Hot tears burn like acid. “She…needs me.”

“She needs you smart. She needs you to protect her, and right now, you do that by staying in the shadows and making damn sure nothing touches her.”

I fist his collar, eyes squeezed shut, breath jagged, hands shaking. “She’s carrying my child. How the fuck am I supposed to stay away?”

“By keeping your shit together. And whenever you feel like you can’t anymore, you think of that baby. You hear me? You think of that life growing inside your wife, and you push harder, further, and you do not fucking stop until they are safe.”

Every instinct screams at me to get in the car, carve the city open, lay myself down at her side and dare the world to try me. But his words carve back—Mira’s screams, my brother’s guilt, the fragile beat inside Everly, my love turned into a weapon if I wield it wrong.

“I’ll lose her,” I rasp, voice torn from the rawest part of me. “If I don’t go to her, I’ll lose her. She already hates me. She already thinks I’m the monster.”

His grip tightens, voice dropping to a blade. “Better she hates you and lives than you hold her hand while some sick fuck lines up the shot. You want to risk that, Isaia? You want to gamble her life—your child’s life?”

Air vacates my lungs like he cut me open. Rage and grief and need crash like waves, battering against ribs that can’t hold. “I can’t—”

“Yes. You. Can.” He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t soften.

“And you will, goddammit. If you love her, you don’t get to be selfish.

You don’t feed your fucking needs while she bleeds for it.

You put her first. You put that baby first. You stand in the dark, and you choke on it.

Okay? You let it kill you if it means your family is safe. ”

I squeeze my eyes shut, jaw clenched so tight I taste blood, tears scalding as they spill. My fists tighten in his collar, then release like I’ve lost all strength. My body shakes, trembling with the war between what I want and what I know I can’t have.

Nicoli cups the back of my head and pulls me in, my forehead to his shoulder like we’re boys stealing breath in a world that never gave any. “Breathe,” he orders, low and guttural. “You’ll see her again. You’ll hold her again. But not tonight. Not like this.”

And it kills me. It fucking kills me.

Because for the first time in my life, I understand what it means to love someone so much that the only way to save them is to stay…the fuck…away.