Page 103

It’s nearly dawn, I can hear the bird chirping away outside, but I’m wide awake. Sleep is a luxury right now, one neither I nor Ares have.

I lie in his bed, naked, still wrapped in the warmth he left behind, eyes fixed on the ceiling as shadows stretch across the room like long, clawed fingers.

The scent of him clings to the sheets, smoke, earth, something darker I’ve never been able to name.

And now, it feels like it’s slipping through my fingers with every breath I take. With every second that ticks past.

Ares said he’d come back, and I trust him.

Because he always does. But this time…I can’t shake this unsettling sense that it feels a lot like goodbye.

I’m doing everything I can to reassure myself that we will survive this war.

but deep down, I can't shake off the sense that something awful is looming just ahead.

My chest is tight, brittle and aching, as that thought presses in harder.

God, what if he doesn’t come back? What if last night was the last time I’ll ever feel his arms around me? The last time he kissed me like I was everything he’d ever need… and whispered that he loved me like it was a vow?

My fingers twist into the sheet, grasping for something, anything, that feels real. But the room feels hollow now. The silence isn’t just silence. It’s dread. Thick and stifling. Like the world is holding its breath, waiting for the moment it all falls apart.

Because he is going to war.

And he’s doing it for me .

I saw it in his eyes. The calm before the storm. The credence of choices already made. He kissed me like a man already walking into fire. There was a goodbye buried in his touch, and I was too afraid to name it...until now .

What am I supposed to do? Sit tight in a house off the grid someplace I don’t know, all alone, likely too far away. Safe but sheltered. Just... waiting. Day in, day out...no communication...just waiting to hear if he’s alive or been killed.

I can’t. I can’t do it. I’ll lose my damn mind.

He’s going to kill. He’s going to bleed. And he’s not going to stop until he burns down everything that threatens me.

Me. Not him, not his family or his legacy. Me .

If I hadn’t come here...If I had just listened to him and hadn’t tangled myself into his world, into his heart...he wouldn’t be out there painting targets on his back.

Fuck. I don’t want to admit to myself, but Luciano was right. If I stay… I will be the reason he dies.

Despite him telling me he’s okay with not surviving this war as long as I’m breathing, I’m not okay with it. I’m not. Without me he’d have a future. He would have power. He wouldn’t be sacrificing everything for a girl he was never meant to love.

A new thought slides in, quiet, cruel.

They’re all right. Maybe Giana is the better choice.

She’s the perfect weapon. The safe play. The deal that keeps him breathing. And me? I’m the opposite. Messy. Risky. The girl with no connections, no legacy. Just a body to bury when the war gets too loud.

He told me I was his peace, but peace doesn’t win wars.

Luciano’s words slam through me like a blade; You’ll be the reason he dies.

My throat tightens. I sit up, legs pulled against my chest, and stare at the nightstand like it might have the answers I’m too afraid to say out loud. Slowly, I reach for the drawer.

The envelope Bianca gave me is still inside.

Cash. IDs. A new life.

My fingers shake as I pull it out, gripping it like it might burn through my skin. My heart is hammering. Every part of me is screaming not to do this. But I can’t stop.

And then my eyes fall on something else hiding under the envelope. My hand closes around it. A plastic stick. The one I shoved in there days ago and tried not to think about.

I stare down at the faint word on the tiny screen: Pregnant.

The world blurs around the edges.

I don’t breathe. I don’t move.

I just… stare.

Because now it’s not just about Ares.

It’s about the tiny flicker of life he doesn’t even know exists. A consequence. A miracle. A secret that changes everything. I’m not the only one who needs protecting. I need to protect our child. I need to protect him .

Tears fall silently, slipping down my cheeks as I press my hand over my mouth, trying to hold in the sound of something inside me shattering.

The test slips from my fingers and lands silently on the bed. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I need air. Something, anything, that doesn’t feel like this crushing weight bearing down on my chest.

I move on instinct, legs shaky as I step toward the open balcony doors. The night air rushes over my skin, warm and suffocating all at once. The grounds are cloaked in darkness, but voices drift up from below.

Familiar. Close.

I press myself to the shadows near the stone rail, heart stuttering.

Ares.

His voice carries like gravel, low, lethal, shaking something deep in my chest.

“You may be my brother, Enzo. But if you stand with him, you stand against me. It’s as simple as that.”

A long silence.

Then Enzo’s reply, sharp with fear. “This war’s going to kill you, Ares. And it’s going to kill her too, if you keep pulling her deeper into it.”

A beat.

And then his voice, Ares’s, cracks something open inside me.

“I’m already dead without her.”

I slap a hand over my mouth, swallowing the sob that claws its way up my throat.

Enzo starts again. “She’s a ki?—”

“She’s not just some wide-eyed girl who stumbled into my life,” Ares snaps. “She’s stronger and has more heart than you’ll ever know. And while you and Luciano were busy playing kingmakers, she was the one who made me want to live for the first time in my fucking life.”

The words hit like a punch to the ribs.

“I’m not sacrificing her,” he says, lower now. “I’d rather burn this entire fucking empire to the ground than watch her become another casualty in a game I never asked to play.”

Enzo’s reply is barely audible. “I don’t want to lose you, Ares.”

“You already did,” Ares says. “The second you backed the marriage to Giana, you chose their world over mine.”

Silence.

Then more, words I wasn’t ready to hear, but ones I needed to.

“I’d rather die for her than live with a woman I don’t fucking want.”

Enzo scoffs, but Ares cuts him off with the kind of fury I can feel in my bones.

“You think I don’t know how this ends? That I haven’t run every fucking scenario in my head? I’m not stupid, Enzo, I just don’t see the point in surviving a world without her in it.”

Another pause. “And don’t talk to me about Giana like she’s a solution. She’s a cage dressed in silk and Luciano’s signature on the bars. You want to survive this war? Fine. But I’m not crawling through it just to sit on a throne built on someone else’s blood, holding someone else’s fucking hand.”

Then his voice drops, rough with devotion. “She’s my endgame,” he breathes. “Not a deal. Not a strategy. Her. I’ll protect her with my last fucking breath,” he continues. “Even if that means becoming the very monster I’ve spent my whole life trying to outrun.”

Tears stream freely, hot and silent, my hand still clamped over my mouth to muffle the sound. I fold forward slightly, forehead pressed to the stone, heart split open.

Because he loves me like that. And I… I’m about to leave him. Because if I don’t, if I stay, he’ll die for me. And now it’s not just about Ares. It’s about the tiny secret growing inside me that could change everything, or destroy us both.

Ares has to marry Giana Mancini.

My fingers tighten around the balcony rail. I don’t want to leave him. God, I don’t. But what choice do I have? If staying means this, means him becoming this ruthless, brutal version of himself just to keep me breathing, how do I live with that?

Especially now…I press a hand to my stomach. To the tiny secret I haven’t even told him.

And suddenly, I know what I have to do.

Even if it kills me.

Even if it breaks him. Even if he believes that I abandoned him after vowing I would stay by his side.

I have to disappear, before he loses himself trying to save me.

I close my eyes, chest tight, the wind catching my breath like it’s trying to carry it to him. “I’m not going to let you die for me,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “Not when I’d trade every breath in my body just to keep you alive.”

The decision solidifies like stone in my chest, heavy and cold, but unyielding.

I stay out on the balcony, just breathing, staring up at the moon, trying to calm the internal battle between my heart and mind. One is telling me to stay, to trust him. The other is screaming at me to run; run before he comes back to me in a box in pieces.

The glass door slides open behind me, soft but not unnoticed. I don’t turn.

I feel him before I hear him. Ares walks up behind me, slow and quiet, like he already knows I’m slipping. His arms wrap around my waist, firm and grounding. He draws me back against the solid wall of his chest, pressing a kiss to my temple.

For a moment, I let myself melt into it, into him. Into the way he always smells like heat and leather and something darker I’ve never been able to name. But it only makes the war inside me worse. Makes it harder to breathe.

“What are you doing out here, bambina?” he murmurs, “You should be sleeping.”

I close my eyes, swallowing the ache rising in my throat. “How can I sleep knowing tonight might be the last night I have with you?”

His arms stiffen just slightly around me, a pause in the rhythm of his breath like my words hit a fault line inside him. “Don’t say that,” he mutters against my hair, the edge in his voice barely contained. “Don’t fucking say that.”

I turn to face him and tilt my head back just enough to look up at him. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

His chest rises once, sharp and deep. That familiar storm gathering in his dark eyes. “No. The truth is, I’m going to end this. I’m going to make sure you’re safe, that none of them ever get near you again.”