Page 93

I haven’t moved in hours. The blanket clings to my skin, damp from the cold sweat that won’t dry. My eyes are open, fixed on the ceiling, but I’m not really seeing it.

Because I keep seeing him. Over and over again.

Ladro.

The image is burned behind my eyes like someone branded it there. I blink and it’s back. The soft white sheets soaked in red. His tiny body curled, too still. Too wrong.

I didn’t hear Ares behind me. Didn’t hear anything, really. Just the white noise ringing in my ears and the broken sound that clawed out of my throat when I saw him, our kitten, laid out like an offering.

My knees gave out. I remember that much. I remember the rug scratching my skin as I fell.

The way my hands trembled so badly I couldn’t even cover my mouth.

The shaking hasn’t stopped. Not then. Not now.

My body wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t let me breathe, wouldn’t let me move, wouldn’t let me look away from what’s left of the tiny, fearless creature who used to sleep curled under Ares’s arm like nothing in the world could hurt him.

Like he was safe.

And then the wall.

The message. One pet down. One lover to go.

Those words didn’t scream at me. They whispered. Cold. Deliberate. Already dry by the time I saw them, like whoever wrote them wasn’t rushed.

Like they took their time.

Like they stood in our room, killed our cat, and used his blood to carve a promise.

I feel it again, the nausea, rising sharp and sudden. The kind that doesn’t stop at your throat, the kind that crawls under your skin and rots everything warm.

I remember the moment Ares dropped beside me.

The way his arms locked around me like iron, pulling me in, trying to hold me together when all I could do was fall apart.

“Don’t look at it.” He whispered. But it was too late. I already did.

And I couldn’t look away.

I buried my face in his chest, and the sound that tore out of me wasn’t even human. It was grief. Real, raw, ragged grief.

Ladro was just a kitten.

Just ours.

And now he’s gone, slaughtered because someone wanted me to be afraid.

To know they could get to me. To us . And they did.

No locks can keep them out. No name can protect us. Not even Ares.

They wanted fear. And they got it. Because I’m not afraid of what they might do. I’m afraid of what they’re already planning.

I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here in the guest room.

The room is too quiet, too clean, too still. Like nothing in it knows what just happened. Like the sheets haven’t soaked in the scent of fear or the way I clung to Ares like I was about to unravel.

But I am unravelling. Being taken, watching Ares kill that man, then finding Ladro, it’s all pressing down on my chest, crushing me slowly.

I can’t stop shaking. Even now, curled beneath a blanket that isn’t mine in a bed that doesn’t feel safe anymore. I should be grateful they didn’t hurt me, at least not physically. But that’s not how this works, is it?

It wasn’t about hurting me.

It was about showing me or Ares they could. That they could get close enough that I feel their breath on the back of my neck.

Nicolai took me…he left that message… he wanted to break something inside me without touching a single bone. And he did. Piece by piece. Thought by thought.

The walls feel like they’re closing in. I try to breathe through it. Try to ground myself in the feel of the sheets, the weight of the blanket, the press of the mattress beneath me. But none of it feels real. I don’t feel real.

He could’ve killed me. He didn’t.

He let me go. Why?

Ares.

The thought slams into me like a lifeline and a warning all at once. I push up, wiping at my face with the sleeve of the sweatshirt I’m still wearing. It’s his. It smells like him. I need more of that. I need him.

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, force my feet to carry me forward even as my body protests. I move through the halls like a ghost. Every shadow feels like a threat. Every corner makes my pulse spike.

I follow the low murmur of voices until I find them, Ares and a handful of his men gathered in a room I’ve never seen before. Maps are spread across the table, weapons laid out like a warning.

But it’s him I can’t look away from.

He’s standing at the head of the table, broad and still, eyes like obsidian as they track every word coming from Dante’s mouth. He isn’t shouting. He doesn’t have to. His silence is the loudest thing in the room.

I know that version of him. I’ve seen him in the shadows before battle. In the tightness of his jaw. In the way his thumb rubs that black hair tie around his wrist like a prayer.

And I know, he’s already planning how to end this. Blood will be spilled for what happened today. And I keep hearing Luciano’s warning in my head.

“You weren’t raised for this life, Jordyn. You weren’t trained for it. And you’re not ready for what loving a man like him will cost you. Or what it will cost him.”

I linger in the doorway, unnoticed at first. Or maybe not unnoticed, just unacknowledged. No one dares interrupt Ares when he’s like this. Eyes cold. Shoulders rigid. He looks like he’s made of steel and shadow and a quiet kind of violence that doesn’t need to be loud to be lethal.

“Security footage shows no forced entry,” Dante says. “We’re combing the footage frame by frame, but someone either let them in or disabled the feed before the breach.”

Ares speaks before anyone else can.

I see the muscle in Ares’s cheek tighten. A slow breath drags through his nose. “I want eyes on every Moretti property,” he says finally. His voice is soft. Too soft. “Warehouses, clubs, safehouses. I don’t give a shit if it’s a fucking bakery, if they’ve set foot in it, I want it watched.”

Dante nods, already reaching for his phone.

“Dante, question everyone on our payroll. Everyone. From the guards at the gate to the ones who scrub the fucking toilets. Someone let them in, or someone knew how to let them in.” The room goes still.

“And when we find them…” he glances at Dante, voice quiet.

.. “I want their body on my floor before sunset.”

He pauses and exhales slowly. “I’ll carve the truth from their bones if I have to.”

No one dares speak. Then he steps back from the table, eyes still locked on the map. “No more messages. I’m done playing his fucking games. Bring me Luca.”

The words crawl down my spine, icy and deliberate and that’s when his gaze lifts, and finds me.

For a second, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just stares like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he does. Then he dismisses the others with a single nod.

Dante glances at me once as he passes. It’s not pity in his eyes, but something close. Something protective. And then it’s just me and Ares.

The silence stretches until it nearly breaks. “I couldn’t stay in that room any longer,” I whisper. “I keep seeing it.”

Ares crosses the space in two strides. His hands cradle my face before I can even take another breath. Not rough. Not desperate. Just… there.

“Mi dispiace, ciccina,” he breathes, voice hoarse, scraped raw from the inside. “I failed you.”

His thumb brushes under my eye, catching the tear before it falls.

“I should’ve seen it coming. I let my guard down when I never fucking should have. This is on me.”

“You didn’t know something like this would happen,” I whisper.

But he shakes his head, fury thrumming beneath the surface.

“I should’ve,” he growls. “I’m always two steps ahead. Always. But that son of a bitch distracted me by taking you.”

A pause. His voice drops lower. Tighter. “He breached my security system, walked past my men, and stepped into my home like he owned it.”

He steps closer until there’s no space between us, just the hard press of his body, the sharp scent of leather and gunmetal wrapping around me like smoke. His forehead presses to mine, and the world shrinks down to the heat of his skin and the thundering beat beneath it.

“I keep replaying it,” I whisper. “Walking in and seeing him like that. The message. The blood. I— My voice cracks. “He was just a baby, Ares.”

His jaw locks, but he doesn’t look away. “I know, and I’m going to make him pay for what he did to him, for thinking he can just walk in and take you from me.”

I nod, but my lip trembles, and I hate that I can’t stop it.

“He said I’d choose him.”

Ares goes still.

His brows knit together, a shadow slicing across his expression.

“What?” His voice is low. Dangerous.

I swallow hard, throat burning. “It’s not just here.” My voice drops to a whisper. “He’s been inside the manor too, Ares.” His eyes blacken. “In my bedroom.”

The silence that follows is stifling. The kind that comes before a storm rips the world apart. “Yesterday morning,” I add. “I don’t know when he left it. It could’ve been while I was with you. Or… while I was speaking to Luciano.”

Ares stiffens like a gun just cocked.

“Wait. Hold on.” His voice cuts through the air, sharp and sudden.

“What do you mean you spoke to Luciano?”

I blink. “He...called me into his office. He said he wanted to talk.”

His eyes narrow, and I can see the muscle ticking furiously in his cheek. “About what?”

I hesitate. Part of me wants to lie. Wants to protect Ares from the part of his family still trying to control his fate. But it’s too late for that now. Too much has happened, and I don’t think it was just a coincidence.

“He told me your future isn’t mine. That if I really care about you, I’ll let you go and let you live out our legacy.

” I pause, the ache behind my ribs growing sharper.

“He said your marriage to Giana is inevitable and that you were always meant for something bigger. He said I’m nothing more than a distraction, something that makes you soft and that holding onto you might end up killing you. ”

Ares exhales hard through his nose, turning away like he can’t trust himself to look at me without breaking something. “Of course he did,” he mutters. “Of fucking course he did.”