Page 35 of Watch Me Burn

CATERINA

T he ballroom’s heat clings to my skin as I leave, pulse still thrumming with Aaron’s touch—his restraint, the way his hand slipped beneath the slit of my dress and made me forget where we were.

Who we were.

I need to clear my head. Air. Distance from all of this.

I slip past champagne and conversation, past the orchestra playing too perfectly for a room full of killers. Every smile here hides a knife. I know that better than most.

But there’s one smile I can’t read anymore.

My father’s.

He hasn’t greeted me. Neither has Lorenzo. Not even a nod across the room. That’s not like them, not when appearances matter this much.

Which means something’s wrong.

Or…he doesn’t want me near him tonight.

Not sure if that’s worse.

Either way, I’m going to find him.

I move through the west corridor, where the security thins and the party noise fades to a hum.

Past antique portraits and gilded frames, through halls too old and too quiet.

I know this wing better than I should. My father once told me the Doyle estate was built like a fortress—layered with secrets, designed to protect an empire by burying what needed to stay hidden.

Let’s see what the walls whisper when they think no one’s listening.

I hear a voice—deep, clipped. My father’s.

And another, lower. Patrick Doyle.

Two men. Just beyond a half-open door in the drawing room.

I stay in the shadowed archway, breath stilling. The air is heavy with cigar smoke, expensive cologne, and the faint metallic tang of a recently cleaned gun.

“You’ve made promises before, Mortelle,” the Irish man says. “But this is different. Your partners, stakeholders, major players are disappearing. What the fuck is going on?”

Patrick Doyle isn’t the type to show fear but there’s something frayed in his voice tonight.

“We’re handling it,” Lorenzo cuts in. Didn’t know he was in there too.

The sound of his voice makes my stomach turn. It used to be a comfort. Now it’s a warning. Ever since I saw his name scrawled across Delgado’s ledgers, all I hear is betrayal.

“Handling it?”

Glass slams against wood.

“It’s your daughter and you know it. That little bloodthirsty princess you raised like a pet viper. Are you too weak to make the call, Mortelle? Or are you just pretending you don’t know what she’s been doing?”

I press closer to the wall. My heartbeat hammers against bone. The marble beneath my palm is cool, grounding—but not enough.

My world is starting to fracture.

“We’ll take care of her,” Lorenzo’s voice is smooth, unbothered.

The same voice he used when teaching me how to lie without blinking. How to kill without a thought. How to bury emotion so deep it couldn’t be used against me.

“And her husband?” Patrick presses.

“He’ll need to go too.”

“We need the drive first,” my father replies, like he’s discussing a missed shipment. Not the execution of his only daughter.

“Then get it. And kill them both before we lose any more. Or you’ll be staring down a war from every side. The Irish aren’t your only problem.”

“The deal still stands,” my father says.

A chair scrapes against the floor. Leather on wood. No urgency. No regret.

“Caterina won’t be a problem much longer.”

“She’s your daughter, Mortelle. Not mine. Handle it.”

A pause. Then the quiet pour of whiskey. Ice cracking in crystal.

“She’s a tool, that’s all. Sharp, yes. But all blades dull eventually. And this one’s becoming unpredictable.” My father.

“Tools that malfunction get discarded before they cut the wrong hands,” Patrick responds.

Then my father laughs.

A sound I’ve heard at the holiday table, Sunday dinners, birthdays he managed to show up for.

The same laugh that followed praise and warning in equal measure.

You’re perfect, Caterina , he told me once. Sharper than any son I could’ve raised.

How about now, Father?

I wait for him to stop it. To protest. To defend me.

To say something that separates me from a weapon gone faulty.

But his silence roars louder than any bullet he’s put aside for me.

At some point, I leave.

I don’t remember when.

The room bleeds into blur. The sound of my heels, the throb behind my eyes, the shatter I don’t let reach the surface.

I’m back in the corridor. Moving without direction.

My body walks. But my mind is still there, locked in a room with men who once swore they’d die for me.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise.

This is the mafia.

Loyalty is conditional.

Love is disposable.

And blood only matters until it stains the wrong side of the chessboard.

One wrong move.

One exposed truth.

And it’s all over.

Even if you’re the daughter of a king.

I was always a tool.

A well-cut blade here to serve him.

The elegant daughter. The weapon with a smile. The killer who never questioned why or for whom. But now I know. Now I see it.

He wasn’t different from the monsters I’ve been erasing.

He is one of them.

My father was never in this for legacy. Not for survival. Not even for power.

He chose rot. Chose poison.

Chose to build his empire with the very men I’ve hunted:

Traffickers. Pushers. Predators.

The Doyles. Delgado. All of them. With Lorenzo beside him, signing the checks.

The cold truth sinks into my bones like a second spine.

He didn’t fall into darkness. He made a home there and now, he’ll drown in it.

How did I miss it?

The columns tilt like dominoes, marble cold beneath my palm as I anchor myself to reality. My throat burns. Not from grief.

From betrayal.

I reach for the Mortelle pendant at my neck—It was hers once. My mother’s. The only part of her he ever let me keep.

And still, he turned it into a fucking collar.

With one sharp tug, the chain snaps. I stare at the silver crest in my palm. For the first time, I see it clearly.

Not a badge of honor.

A brand.

Proof of ownership.

I let it fall to the floor.

You trained me to be ruthless, father. You should’ve known I’d turn that ruthlessness on you.

I’m done pretending.

Tonight, I become the nightmare you tried to shape—the one you’ll never see coming.

Footsteps echo down the corridor.

I wipe my tears in one motion and turn, bracing for a guard. A servant. Maybe even him.

But it’s Aaron.

His gaze snaps to mine the second he sees me.

And he knows.

Whatever’s written on my face tells him everything, that the Caterina who entered this estate an hour ago is gone.

“I found something,” he says, voice low.

“So did I.”

He steps closer, brow furrowed. “What happened?”

The words won’t come. My throat tightens around them like a fist.

This isn’t just about me anymore. This is the collapse of everything—the family, the foundation, the very ground I’ve built my identity upon.

“Caterina.” He reaches for me.

I step back instinctively. “Don’t.”

“Are you okay?”

“Don’t ask me that,” I snap, the words more razor than language.

His hand falls away, but he doesn’t retreat. “Talk to me.”

“My father,” I whisper, and then it rushes out in a flood. “He’s coming for us. Lorenzo too. They’re working with the Doyles—with everyone. The traffickers, the dealers, the men I thought I was fighting.”

I choke on the words. “They know it’s me. They know I’m the one killing them. And now, they’re going to come for us.”

Aaron’s expression hardens as his eyes drop to the pendant lying on the floor.

“We hit back first,” he says without an ounce of hesitation.

The man standing in front of me isn’t the one who once tried to outrun my world. He’s not the reluctant husband. Not the outsider dragged into the fire.

He’s steady. Unflinching. Anchoring.

A man who knows exactly what this is, what it will cost, and still doesn’t back away.

Or maybe I’m just desperate enough to believe he’s changed.

“You can still walk,” I say, the voice in my head clawing its way out. “No one would blame you. This isn’t your fight.”

“It became my fight the moment I chose you over everything else. And I’d make the same choice again.”

Something breaks inside me, not in weakness, but in clarity. It’s the last thread tying me to the Mortelle name, to the legacy of lies.

I don’t break. I bend.

And for the first time since I was a child, I let someone see the quake beneath the steel. Just for a breath. A tremor in my hands. A flicker in my eyes.

And he doesn’t look away.

Then I straighten, shoulders back, chin up. The cold focus I’ve been trained for all my life crystalizes once more—but this time with purpose that is entirely my own.

“We need to move quickly. If they’re planning to eliminate us, they’ll have people watching already. Waiting for us.”

“I found Lorenzo’s ledger,” Aaron says, eyes never leaving mine. “Names, dates, deals—everything that connects your father to the Doyles, to the Miller Street warehouse. To all of it. To everything you’ve been looking for.”

I blink at him, dumbfounded. “Where?”

“Hidden in Doyle’s study. I slipped away during dinner prep. Lorenzo must’ve left it behind after a meeting.”

“Of course he did,” I snap. “Fucking idiot leaves a kill order and receipts folder in the same fucking house.”

Aaron doesn’t flinch. “It’s not just a paper trail, Caterina. It’s a weapon. We leak the ledger to the press, pin Lorenzo as the architect, fracture their alliances from the inside.”

That’s brilliant. I’m a little upset I didn’t think of that.

“The question is, are you ready to do this?” Aaron says.

I think of my father, the man who raised me on discipline and silence, who praised loyalty while crafting his empire from rot.

I think of Lorenzo, who taught me to fight, to shoot, to kill. Who once tucked a gun into my trembling hands and told me I was ready. Who watched me become the monster they needed, only to want to end me for it now.

I think of the pendant I discarded.

A symbol of blood, of name, of obedience.

The Mortelle name.

The legacy I can never escape.

But I don’t just want to survive this.

I want to end it.

I want to salt the earth my father built his empire on.

I want them to watch everything they own bleed out on their precious floors and burn behind iron gates.

I want them to know that the blade they forged has turned, and it’s coming for their throats.

Not because I lost control but because I finally found it.

I meet Aaron’s gaze and let the words strike like a match. “It’s not about surviving this anymore. It’s about burning it all to the fucking ground. The empire. The family. Every brick they built on blood.”

This is the moment I stop running from myself.

“Now it’s war,” I whisper, the words heavy with promise. “And when they fall, they’ll fall together.”

I reach for Aaron’s hand. Not out of strategy. Not for appearances. But because the room is spinning, and I need something real to hold on to.

His fingers lace through mine, his grip tightens as he pulls me in. A silent vow more binding than any wedding ceremony.

Together, we’ll reduce it all to ash. And from the smoke, we’ll build something new?—

something brutal,

something breathtaking,

something that’s ours.