Chapter 45 Gianni
Gianni
Mikayla was a vision of beautiful chaos.
Barefoot on the couch, hair piled into a messy knot that kept sliding loose, one hand braced against the armrest and the other resting on the beautiful curve of her stomach.
She looked like she was about to burst—not just with the baby, but with life.
With warmth. With everything she’d been denied for so long.
I paused in the doorway and just watched her for a second.
This. This was the life I never thought I’d have.
I crossed the room and leaned over her, bracing my hands on either side of her as I kissed her slow and deep. She felt like… home. She made a soft sound against my mouth, fingers curling into the front of my shirt like she was anchoring herself to me.
When I pulled back, I pressed my palm to her stomach and felt the faint, stubborn roll of our child inside her.
“Marcello called,” I murmured, brushing my thumb over her skin. “I need to go check on something.”
Her face fell instantly.
“Gianni,” she whined, shifting carefully, one hand going to her lower back. “Can’t someone else go? I’m huge. I’m miserable. And what if my water breaks while you’re gone?”
I smiled, because even her sulking was adorable now. “You’re beautiful, baby.”
She sulked some more.
“I’m just in Fontebranda,” I promised, lowering my forehead to hers. “I won’t be long. I need to check on Atlas. That’s all.”
She eyed me like she didn’t believe a word of it. Then she launched into protective sister mode.
“Is Atlas okay?”
“I’m not sure,” I said gently. “Apparently he flew into Siena alone and Marcello’s worried about him.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Atlas is a big boy,” I reminded her. “Marcello would do well to remember that. But I’d feel better if I checked in anyway.”
That seemed to calm her a little.
“Go, go,” she said, shooing me away. If Mikayla was good at one thing, it was the fierce loyalty she had towards my family. I’d grown up as an only child, but my Cavalho cousins were as close as I came to having siblings, and she adored them.
“I won’t be long, baby. I promise.”
As I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door, something warm and steady settled in my chest.
I had a woman who loved me.
A child on the way.
Mikayla had given me something no empire ever could.
Purpose.
Siena rolled past in a blur of golden light and winding roads. My thoughts stayed on her the whole drive—on the way she smiled when she forgot to be afraid, on the way she rested her head against my chest at night, knowing she was finally safe.
By the time I pulled up to Atlas’s place, I was already halfway home in my mind.
Home always finds you, eventually.
And when I finished checking on my cousin Atlas, I was going home to Mikayla. To our child. To our future.
To the life we were building together, one fragile, beautiful day at a time. And that—that was everything.
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Chapter 1 - NEVE
There was a man sitting on my chest.
With a gun pressed to my forehead.
And the worst part?
I recognised his eyes.
Grey. Empty. The eyes of someone who had ended lives and wouldn’t hesitate to end one more.
The barrel ground into my skin, hard enough to pinch. It would bruise. It might even break skin if he pushed. I didn’t move. I barely breathed. My lungs fluttered uselessly, like they’d forgotten what air was for.
His knee crushed into my ribs. My back screamed against the tile. Something stabbed into my shoulder—glass, maybe. It could even have been one of my own bones knocked out of place.
His hand didn’t shake.
Mine wouldn’t stop.
He leaned down, close enough that I smelled smoke soaked into his clothes.
“Don’t look at me,” he muttered.
But I couldn’t look away. He was the kind of man my father had warned me about—a man who stepped into a room and owned everything in it.
My vision blurred. My throat felt too tight. I didn’t bother pretending I was brave. I was terrified, and he could see every bit of it.
The gun pressed harder.
My ears rang. My chest ached under his weight. Sweat slid down my neck. My arms were pinned. My legs trapped beneath him. I was small, and he knew it. He used that to his advantage.
He shifted the gun, lining up a clean kill.
A broken sound clawed out of my throat. It wasn’t a scream, but just a thin, strangled breath that felt like a goodbye.
“Please…”
I didn’t know if the word left my mouth or stayed locked in my head.
Something flickered in his eyes. It didn’t look like mercy. It was just a crack—like a thought he hadn’t expected hit him too fast, and he didn’t have time to hide it.
Footsteps thundered down the hallway. A voice shouted.
His jaw clenched.
He looked at me again. He took in my blood-stained nightgown. The blood on my hands that wasn’t mine. I was trembling.
He hesitated.
The gun stayed on my forehead, but the pressure shifted. It wasn’t lighter—just uncertain. His breathing changed, too. It slowed, as though regaining control.
“Clear in here!” someone yelled from the next room.
He should have finished it. I could see the resolve in his face. He wanted to. But something stopped him.
Something he hated the moment it existed.
The gun pulled back an inch. Just enough for oxygen to burn my throat on the way in.
“Stay down,” he whispered.
He rose slowly, like he was testing the decision, as though considering if he were making a mistake. My body curled inward the second his weight lifted, instinct dragging me toward the shadows.
The footsteps grew louder.
“This room’s empty,” a man called.
Grey Eyes turned his head toward the voice, then he looked back at me. His jaw ticked hard, the muscle jumping. He was already regretting this.
I didn’t move or make a sound. I was too afraid to even breathe.
A heartbeat passed. Then another.
There was one second of hesitation. One second that told me he knew he’d made a mistake. One second that told me he knew exactly what kind of mistake it was.
I closed my eyes and stayed perfectly quiet while the last pieces of my life were torn apart around me, my hands pressed against a floor that was already slick with the blood of those I had known and loved.