Page 39

She’s gone, and I stand frozen in the living room, staring at the space where she stood like a fucking ghost is going to fill it.

The stale air tastes metallic, thick regret. My legs tremble, but I can’t move, every tick of the old grandfather clock booms in my skull like a death knell.

I can hear her footsteps fade down the corridor, the hollow slam of the door thundering through these walls… and then nothing but silence. A suffocating hush that presses against my eardrums.

I force a quivering breath through clenched teeth, drag one shaking hand down my face. My skin is damp, maybe from sweat, maybe from tears I refuse to let fall. “Fuck,” I whisper to the emptiness.

What the hell did I just do?

My fists curl at my sides, nails gouging half-moons into my palms as the truth settles like lead in my chest: the venom I spat, the cruel dismissal. I taste salt on my tongue as the weight of my own words pins me to the floor.

“It was just a kiss. The only thing special about it was that it was your first.”

Liar.

The kiss wasn’t boring. It wasn’t meaningless. It lit something inside me I thought had burned out a long time ago. Something dangerous . Something alive . A flame so fierce it threatened to raze every wall I’ve built around my heart.

I remember tasting her breath, warm, sweet like honey melting on my tongue, and feeling her pulse flutter under my palm, delicate yet insistent. I saw her whole world shift in that breathless moment, every tremor of her fingers, every rapid drum of her heart pressed against mine.

And now?

Now she’s gone. I gave her the moment she’s been waiting and dreaming about, and then I shit all over it. I fucking hurt her. I killed a man for devastating her, and I just did the same thing.

I forced her to walk away with her chin high and her eyes blazing like embers, because I couldn’t bear to see the look on her face if she knew the truth.

That I kissed her like she was oxygen in a world where I’ve been choking for years.

Anger roils in my chest. I pivot and stride toward the bar to grab a drink. Blinding rage explodes inside me, and with a guttural roar, I hurl the bottle across the room. It explodes against the wall in a shower of glass and whiskey.

“Cazzo!” I bellow, the word tearing from my throat like it’s carved out of my ribs.

My breathing’s ragged and my vision blurs. But nothing dulls the ache.

Not the blinding rage. Not the deafening silence...fuck, not even the lies I told her.

None of it.

Because I didn’t protect her. I punished her.

I kissed her like she was something holy and then sent her away like she was nothing.

My throat tightens as I brace my hands on the edge of the bar, knuckles bloodied, my head bowed.

And for a moment, I just breathe.

Goddamn, she looked at me like I was more than the monster they made me, and I almost believed it. And then I did what I do, I made sure she’d never look at me that way again.

So, I close my eyes, jaw clenched, voice raw with something I’ll never say aloud to anyone else.

Only to her.

Only now, when she’s not here to hear it.

“Perdonami, bambina…” Forgive me, bambina.

It’s almost five in the morning. The villa is enveloped in silence, a weighty, almost tangible presence.

Only the rhythmic tick of the old clock on the mantle and the occasional groan of the house as it settles break the quiet.

Yet, all I can truly hear is the haunting echo of Jordyn’s voice, reverberating through my mind, mingling with the bitter memory of my own words.

She’s gone, but her presence, her scent still clings to the air.

I would be lying if her final words to me, the adorable little threat she made, didn’t catch and hold my attention in a chokehold. “Mark my words, Ares Russo, I’m going to make you swallow every single one of those words and watch in satisfaction while you choke on it.”

My elbows rest heavily on my knees, a cigarette burning between my fingers.

The smoke spirals upwards, a thin, ghostly thread winding its way to the ceiling, resembling a silent prayer that I’ll never say.

In my other hand, I clutch a small, soft, seemingly insignificant object, a hair tie.

Jordyn’s hair tie. I found it in my bed.

She must’ve dropped it that night she took that drug.

The night I carried her limp body through this house like she weighed nothing and everything at the same time.

I never returned it to her. I don’t know why.

Maybe I needed to hold on to it as a reminder of how close she came to dying that night. My thumb traces the loop of faded fabric as if it were a relic of some holy significance. But it is not. It's just cotton, worn and frayed at the edges.

Yet, it still carries her scent, vanilla, something sweetly innocent, a fragrance that feels out of place in the chaos of a man like me.

It’s been hours since she stormed out of here, the sun is inching its way up the sky, painting the room with streaks of gold that seep across the floorboards like liquid warmth, a stark contrast to the cold inside me. The light feels mocking, bright and indifferent.

I flick the cigarette into the glass ashtray with a resigned finality, then retrieve my phone from my pocket. My thumb hesitates, lingering for a brief moment over Dante’s name before I press it.

The line rings once, twice.

“Boss?” comes the voice on the other end.

I fix my gaze on the hair tie cradled in my hand, then murmur softly but with unyielding resolve, “Brucialo.” A silence follows, but understanding passes without need for further words. Then, with my voice as hard as granite, I command, “Make sure he’s inside.”

“Understood,” Dante replies.

I end the call and remain seated, unmoving. The room is filled with the acrid scent of smoke and the weight of regret. Clutching the hair tie, I hold on to the last remnant of softness I will ever touch.

Thick cigar smoke coils heavy in my low-lit office at Oscura, each grey spiral rising toward the chandelier overhead as if it knows exactly where to linger.

The glass prisms catch the haze, casting fractured light across the polished mahogany table where Enzo leans forward, one gold-cuffed wrist drumming out his words about freight routes through Palermo and tightening their stranglehold on the docks.

I keep my hands folded at the edge of the table, fingertips pressing into the glossy wood, but my thoughts are pinned somewhere else.

Not on the brewing war with the Moretti’s. Not on these men, sleeves perfectly creased, eyes flicking with polite interest beneath heavy brows.

On her .

I feel the smooth elastic hair tie sitting around my wrist like a lifeline. I remember the soft tremor in her voice that she fought so hard to hide the moment she walked away.

A stillness falls as the door to my office opens.

A waiter slides in, silent as smoke, drops a couple of fresh glasses of scotch and retreats without a glance.

Enzo keeps talking; Luciano lifts his tumbler of amber whiskey and watches me, expression as still and dark as onyx.

Then, slam. The office door opening cracks the air itself.

The door bursts open, crashing against the wall with enough force to echo off the stone.

I go still, but my eyes slowly lift.

The room shifts. Every man stiffens, muscles coiled. All eyes snap to the doorway, to the five-foot-six blonde with blue eyes who somehow has the fucking nerve to storm into my office without so much as a knock.

She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t stutter. Doesn’t realise, or doesn’t care, that men have died for less.

But Jordyn Windslow walks in like she’s not afraid of anything. Not even me.

Enzo’s halfway out of his chair already. “Jordyn, this is a private meeting?—”

She cuts straight past him like he isn’t there. Her eyes don’t even flick toward him.

They’re on me. Locked, loaded, burning.

Footsteps storm across the marble floor, each step a drumbeat of fury. Her cheeks are tinted red, strands of blonde hair loose against her temples, eyes blazing cerulean fire. She reaches the table in two angry strides, chest heaving, breath sharp as glass.

What the fuck does she think she’s doing?

“Are you fucking kidding me, Ares?” Jordyn’s voice cracks through the haze of cigar smoke and silence, fierce and raw. I stare at her, unblinking, caught in the collision of her storm and my own annoyance.

She stands like a live wire, trembling with rage and something deeper,

betrayal, perhaps? Her fists sit curled at her sides, knuckles white and trembling slightly.

Then, from the far end of the table, Luciano’s voice cuts through the silence.

“Figlio?” Luciano pipes up, his tone clipped and ice-cold. It’s not curiosity. It’s contempt.

One word.

Calm, low and loaded.

He doesn’t need to say more. The look he gives me says it all. What is she doing here? She’s making a fool of you. Handle it now .

I don’t say a word.

I just stare at her, long enough to make the men around the table shift in their seats. Long enough for the storm in her eyes to rise and meet mine like a goddamn challenge.

Then I stand.

Slow. Deliberate.

“Ci scusate.” My voice is low, stony.

Without waiting for a response, I take her by the arm, not roughly, but firm enough to make it clear she doesn’t get to walk into my world and hijack it.

She stiffens. “Let go of me, Ares.”

I don’t.

I pull her out of the room and into one of the private VIP alcoves, kick the door shut behind us, and turn to face her.

“First of all,” I growl, stepping into her space, “don’t you ever storm into my office like that again.”

She rips her arm out of my grip, eyes blazing.

“Oh really ?” she snaps. “You didn’t really leave me much choice, did you?”

I narrow my eyes. “And you think barging into my office while I was in an important meeting was a smart move, bambina?”