Page 56

She says nothing at first, and that silence? Fuck, it stings more than any blade I’ve taken to the gut.

Finally, her voice cuts through the space between us.

“Does it help?” I freeze.

It’s not because I don’t know what she means. Because I do.

I let the bag go, letting it sway while I slowly turn to face her.

Jordyn’s standing by the door, arms crossed over her chest, eyes unreadable. Not angry, not broken, just... bracing.

“Sometimes,” I answer honestly. My voice like gravel. “Not today.”

Her eyes flick to my shoulder, where the bandage is damp and curling at the edge.

“You’re bleeding again.”

I sigh. “I’m always bleeding, bambina.”

She steps closer, slow and cautious. Like she’s not sure if I’ll let her get near, like she doesn’t know I’d let her close even if it killed me.

The bag sways behind me, forgotten. The sound of the chain rocking hangs in the air.

Her arms are still folded across her chest, but her voice? It’s steady, unwavering.

I watch as she floats closer until she’s standing directly in front of me. Her blue crashing with my brown. “Tell me who you really are, Ares.”

It’s not a demand, but a plea wrapped in steel. As if she’s already standing at the edge of something deep, halfway in, but needing to know if it’s going to swallow her whole.

My eyes drag over her, slow and deliberate, as though I’m trying to build armour out of the sight of her, but it’s no use, because she’s already under my skin. So far fucking deep, it’s impossible to claw her out.

Eyes too wide, holding more hurt than she’s letting show. Lip raw from being chewed on. That flicker of defiance in her stance, even now, even after everything. And fuck me, I’ve never wanted to lie more in my life.

But for some bizarre reason, I can’t, not to her.

I stare at her and for a moment, I say nothing. Because I don’t even fucking know how to answer that. Not in a way that won’t make her run. Not in a way that won’t make her hate me.

The silence stretches too long, and she chews on her lip. I see the flicker of hurt flash behind her eyes, and it punches straight through my ribs.

But before she can speak again, I find my voice.

Rough. Low and brutally honest.

“You want to know who I am?”

I take a step closer, not to intimidate. Just enough to let her feel it. The weight of me. The storm I’ve tried to keep at bay every second she’s been in my life.

“I’m what happens when a boy is raised to be a blade instead of a son.”

My eyes drop for a second. Then rise again, locked on hers. “When every good part of him is carved out and replaced with silence, orders, and blood.”

Her lips part, but I don’t let her speak, not yet. “I’ve hurt people, Jordyn. I’ve killed people. Not from a distance. Not clean. I’ve looked them in the eyes and made it slow because that’s what was asked of me. Because that’s what I was fucking made for.”

My voice tightens. “I’m not safe. I’m not kind. And I sure as hell am not the man you think you’ve seen. There is a lot of darkness in me, Jordyn.”

Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t back away. She doesn’t move .

That’s what shatters me most.

“You know what people call me? Il Mietitore. The Reaper . Because I'm the last thing they see before their sins catch up to them.”

She’s still staring at me with an intensity that feels like it could slice through steel. Her breathing is heavy, each exhale a fraught whisper, while her hands are clenched tightly, as if she’s physically restraining the turmoil roiling within her.

Then her voice pierces the tension-filled air once more, lower now, frayed at the edges like an old tapestry unravelling.

“Are your family in the Mafia?”

I freeze. Stone fucking still.

Because that’s not just a question. That’s the question.

The one that could bring everything crashing down.

I don’t answer. I can’t form the fucking words to confirm nor deny.

Her breath catches, and she steps closer, the distance between us shrinking with each hesitant step.

Her hands rise and press firmly against my chest, not with softness, but with a trembling determination.

They’re unsteady, quivering with emotion, yet the impact is powerful enough to feel like a physical blow.

“Don’t even think about lying to me or brushing it off, Ares.” Her voice quivers, teetering on the brink of breaking. “I need to hear you say it. I need to hear it from you .”

I part my lips, but words fail me, leaving only silence in their wake.

Because the truth isn’t simple, and it sure as hell isn’t clean.

But she doesn’t wait. Her hands curl into fists, and she shoves me hard.

“Say it! Tell me the truth!” Her voice breaks now, vibrating with a mix of rage and grief, raw and overwhelming. “Are you part of the mafia? Did my parents die because of your family?”

I wince visibly when my heart twists violently in my chest, a painful contortion that mirrors the turmoil in my mind.

How am I supposed to look her in the eyes and say yes? How do I tell her that my family is the reason she and her sister are now orphans, when I know saying it out loud will only break her.

Her fists slam against my chest again, but she doesn’t pull away.

She’s crying now. Silent tears cutting clean lines down her face, lips trembling as she looks up at me like I’m both the question and the answer to everything that’s killing her.

“Tell me the truth, damn it!”

The words echo and hang in the air between us like thick smoke that won’t clear.

I want to lie. God, I want to lie so desperately. But I can’t, I will not.

Not when she’s standing in front of me like this. Fragile, fierce and so fucking real.

So I breathe. Once...twice, and then I speak.

“Yes.”

She draws in a sharp breath, like I’ve just struck her straight in the chest.

I see it, the crack, the second her world caves in on itself. And I do nothing to stop it, because I can’t.

“They weren’t the target,” I rasp. “It was Matteo.” My voice feels like gravel scraping my throat. “Someone put out a hit on him.”

I pause, barely holding myself together. “When Matteo noticed the car and deflected… they missed.” She blinks at me, but her eyes don’t see me anymore.

“The car that was supposed to be hit was meant to be his, not the one with your parents in it.”

Jordyn stumbles back a step, blue eyes shining with tears she refuses to let fall.

I follow, helpless to do anything but give her the truth she came for, even if it wrecks her. “If they’d succeeded, you and Matteo would’ve been the ones dead that day.” Her palm flies to her mouth, but I’m not finished.

“You need to understand something, if I had known , if there had been any way to stop it?—”

“But there wasn’t,” she chokes out. “Because you were all too busy playing mafia while my parents were being blown off the road!”

The words tear through me like shrapnel. Her pain, the way her voice cracks, the way her body trembles just to hold it all in, is worse than anything I’ve felt.

Worse than the bullet that ripped through my shoulder. Worse than the knife I once pulled out of my side with my bare hands.

I stand there, bleeding in a way I’m not used to, while she breaks piece by piece in front of me.

And I know, with a cold, brutal certainty, I’ve lost her before I’ve ever truly had her.

“Who did it?” She asks, her voice jagged and frantic.

I open my mouth, and for a beat, nothing comes out. “Jordyn?—”

“Who, Ares?!” She screams now, her hands fisting at her sides. “I want to know the name of the person who killed my parents. Your family owes us that much.”

I take a breath, one that feels like swallowing razors.

Then I shake my head slowly, quietly. My voice is hoarse. “Bambina… it doesn’t matter who.” I pause. “The ones responsible are no longer breathing.”

Her lips part. Her eyes widen, and I watch the horror set in. Because now she knows that I didn’t just let it happen. I avenged it.

Even though it won’t bring them back, and that’s what kills her.

That’s what kills me .

She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t move, she just stands there, chest rising and falling too fast, like her lungs can’t keep up with the weight of what I’ve said.

And then, barely louder than the sound of her breathing, she whispers, “You killed them?”

The way she says it isn’t filled with horror. It’s disbelief. Like a part of her always knew this man standing in front of her was capable of it, but never thought I’d do it for them .

I don’t deny it. What’s the point? I let her stare at me and find the truth in the silence I offer her, because it’s all I have left. Her lips part again, but this time her voice is stronger. Shaking, but steady enough to land its blow.

“Tell me their names.” I blink as she steps closer. “The ones who did it. Who pulled the trigger? Who ordered it? I want their fucking names, Ares.”

I swallow hard, throat burning, the names sitting like lead on my tongue. She deserves to know, and yet... saying them aloud feels like letting them live again. Still, I speak. Slowly and carefully.

“Alessandro Romano’s the one who put out the hit.

” My voice is flat, devoid of the heat bubbling just beneath the surface.

“There’s been a longstanding feud between our families, Russos and Romanos.

Power, territory, blood. It always comes down to who controls what.

” I pause. “Aldo Romano, Alessandro’s older brother, thought he had the balls to force his way into Russo territory, so I broke his back and put him in a wheelchair for life. ”

Jordyn flinches, but I keep going. She asked for the truth. I’m not sparing her from it.

“Romano wanted payback. But he didn’t come at me.

They rarely ever do. He went for Matteo, knowing he was the softer target.

The more visible one. Put out the hit thinking it’d be clean.

” My eyes lock with hers, hard. “But Matteo’s been trained for such things.

He saw it coming. Swerved at the last second.

” I exhale through my nose, every breath laced with bitterness.

“They missed him, and...” And the cost of that miss was her entire world.

I pause for a breath. “The other was Sergio Bianchi, the man who was hired to do the job. The one behind the wheel.”

Her face twists, but she doesn’t stop. Her voice cuts again, this time laced with something close to rage. “And how did you do it?”

That stops me.

She’s shaking now, but it’s not fear. It’s fury. The kind that spawns from too many sleepless nights, from too many pieces that never fit until now. She wants to know how I killed them. Wants to feel it, like maybe that will make the ache ease, just a little.

So, I tell her.

“Sergio didn’t get a quick death,” I say, each word like ash. “I sliced his throat and watched him bleed out, made sure he felt every second. Then I hung him by the heel like a fucking dog on Romano’s doorstep. So they can all see what happens when they cross me.”

I expect her to cry, but she doesn’t. She just stares at me like she’s seeing a ghost wearing the face of a man she once trusted.

“Alessandro Romano,” she whispers, like saying the name out loud makes it more real. “I saw him on the news. He was… he was hung in the middle of the city centre. By his intestines…”

I don’t speak. There’s nothing I can say that won’t make it worse. So, I only nod once.

“You did that.”

Another nod. Slower this time.

Her hand flies to her mouth, her fingers trembling against her lips as she shakes her head like she’s trying to scrub the image from her mind. Like maybe if she denies it hard enough, she can undo what she’s just heard. But I see the truth sinking in behind her eyes.

She knows exactly what kind of man stands in front of her now.

And I expect her to run. To turn and bolt, like every rational instinct in her body should be screaming at her to do right now.

But she doesn’t.

She stays.

Frozen.

Staring at me like she’s trying to reconcile the man who touched her like she was made of glass with the one who gutted a man in a city square and left him for the world to see.

Panic coils low in my gut, a tight, simmering dread that thickens the longer she says nothing. Because her silence is worse than her anger. Worse than if she screamed, or cursed, or clawed at me with shaking hands.

At least then I’d know where we stand. But right now, all I have is the echo of what I did, and her eyes on mine like she’s still deciding whether to break or believe.

And fuck, I don’t know which would destroy me more.