Chapter Thirty-one
Lorenzo
I was in a meeting with Luciano and Dante when Serena’s name lit up my phone.
For two months, every waking minute has been spent engineering the quietest possible way to remove Luciano without sparking a war that would eat half the coast alive.
One more month. That’s all we needed. One more month of feeding Paolo enough weapons and intel to make him believe he’s stepping into power on his own terms, while I tug every string behind the curtain.
Paolo has no idea that the “leaked files” accusing Luciano of laundering money through his casinos came from my desk. Not enough to trigger panic, just enough to keep him loyal and afraid.
Aurora sat in the corner of the room. Silent. Pale. She hasn’t been the same since handing over every off-record file she’d collected on her father. She didn’t ask what I planned to do with them, and I didn’t explain. Some things are kinder left unspoken.
I promised her protection, money, a safehouse, and a bought loyalty from one of Luciano’s guards who shadows her when she leaves her building. It’s the only guarantee I can offer without painting a bigger target on her back.
My job, at least on paper, is handled.
The only thing I fail at is Serena.
Ever since she decided she needed space, I’ve been living back at my own house. If you can call pacing the walls and staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m. living.
I see her, yes, doctor’s appointments, the occasional lunch when she allows it, but I don’t touch her. I don’t reach for her hand. I don’t kiss her forehead. I don’t even brush against her shoulder when I walk past. And for fuck’s sake, that isn’t the difficult part.
The difficult part is watching her smile at the doctor and knowing I’m not allowed to tuck her hair behind her ear. Listening to her friends make her laugh while I stand there like a stranger. Watching her belly grow, knowing my children are inside her, but all I’m allowed to do is look.
She thinks the space is fixing her.
Maybe it is.
Maybe it’s destroying me.
But I don’t blame her, not for a single second.
Serena does what she thinks she needs to survive. She reads herself more clearly than anyone else ever could. If she believes I make her world smaller, she pushes me away so she can breathe.
And I love her for it.
I love everything she is, even the parts that leave me bleeding.
She is always going to be my top priority.
But she shouldn’t make me hers.
Not until she chooses it freely.
I don’t deserve to be first on her list, not after the world I dragged into her life, not after the blood that stains my hands. If she never makes me her priority again, I’ll live with it.
As long as she stays breathing, safe, and unharmed,
I’ll crawl on glass before I let anything touch her.
After the meeting ended, I headed toward the Bugatti already planning my next move. The Cursed would be my first stop, Lev was the only one left in New York worth drinking with.
Andres had been off-grid in Colombia for two weeks. Do I know what the hell he’s doing there? Of course not. And I’m not sure I want to.
I had just reached the car when my phone lit up.
Serena.
For a second, everything in me went still. She never calls. Not since she asked for space. Not since I forced myself to respect that space, even when it felt like carving out pieces of my own fucking body.
By the time I swiped to answer, my pulse was already a hammer in my throat.
I didn’t need her voice to know something was wrong.
And then she spoke, broken, breathless, asking if the reason I killed Thomas was because he sold her.
I had to choke down every instinct screaming to rip apart the world until I found who fed her that truth.
I made myself keep my voice steady, but inside, I was a second away from madness.
She should never have had to say those words out loud.
I never planned to keep her in the dark forever.
But the day she begged me not to tell her, I realized something important, some truths don’t just bruise, they annihilate. Whatever she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. Not the way this would.
Because Thomas didn’t just betray her.
He condemned her.
He traded her life for influence, power, protection, like she was a commodity, not his daughter.
That was the reason he died with a bullet in his skull.
When she whispered am I safe, my heart fucking cracked.
She shouldn’t trust me blindly.
God knows I’ve done more than enough to destroy that right.
While I’ve been playing chess with Luciano and his cowards, I’ve kept her locked inside rings of security, guards watching day and night, surveillance, contingencies she’ll never have to see.
Andres and I have spent months trying to track the Organization, the ghosts behind the deal that sold her future. They leave nothing, no paper trail, no digital trace, not even whispers that hold long enough to follow.
But Serena is safe. As safe as anyone can be when monsters like that are still breathing.
Besides me, Andres, Lev, and Serena, no one knew the truth except the two men who are now dead.
And Serena’s mother apparently.
The bitch who vanished the second Thomas hit the ground, leaving her daughter bleeding in grief and confusion.
Now she reappears out of nowhere?
I don’t believe in coincidences. Not in my world.
She arrived in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve, the exact night eight men stormed Serena’s property, and just happens to dump the truth Serena never should have carried, triggering her labor?
I knew that bitch spilled everything the second I saw her at the hospital. I tried to pretend she wasn’t there, tried to ignore the urge to drag her down a hallway and make sure she never used her mouth again, but Serena needed every ounce of me.
Then the doctor said emergency C-section and my world just. . . stopped. I’ve walked into gunfire with a steadier pulse. I’ve watched men bleed out without blinking. But seeing Serena on that table, afraid and hurting, made me feel like some useless bystander in my own life.
If I could’ve taken the knife myself, I would’ve. Without hesitation.
And when the babies finally came, small, breathing, crying, I broke. Ten years since my father died, ten years without a tear, and there I was, falling apart like someone who had never learned how to hold his own bones together.
Not from weakness. From her.
From the way she makes everything I thought I understood feel small and irrelevant. She gave me two tiny miracles, and in that moment, every rule I lived by realigned around them.
And when she said she loved me? I turned into some kid with no armor left. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think.
How do you tell a woman like Serena that you’re hers in every way that matters?
That she’s the axis your whole life now rotates on?
Now she’s with the doctor. They need to make sure she’s stable after the surgery, and the nurses are checking the babies too.
And then I see Lauren.
Standing in the hallway like some grieving widow, or a mother with her heart in her throat. Pretending she belongs here. Pretending she cares.
I start walking straight for her when my phone vibrates.
A text.
UNKNOWN: Careful.
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Is that a threat or an warning?
Andres traced the earlier messages, VPNs routing through half of Europe, as if whoever’s behind it wants to look clever. But I don’t buy it. Europe is a smokescreen. The person sending these is closer than I want to admit. Close enough to smell my blood pressure rising.
I pocket the phone.
Whatever game they think they’re playing, I’ll flip the board when I’m ready.
Right now, I have a pest to deal with.
I walk straight toward Lauren.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I bite out at Lauren.
She flinches at my tone, eyes wide, like she expected a polite handshake and a hug. I guess that’s how a son-in-law is supposed to greet his mother-in-law.
“Lorenzo,” she whispers, glancing around. “I’m not sure this is the right place to talk.”
“Drop the performance, Lauren.” My jaw locks so tight it hurts. “Why are you back? And why did you tell her the truth?”
“Because she deserves it,” she fires back, too calm for her own good. “She deserves to know what that monster of a father did.”
I laugh under my breath. “You’re no saint. Don’t stand here pretending your hands are clean.” I step closer. “Tell me you didn’t know. Go on. Lie to my face.”
Her mouth tightens. “I’m not proud of what happened. But I never agreed with Thomas’s choices. There was nothing I could do. It was beyond me.”
“Right,” I drawl. “Or maybe you were just terrified you’d be next on my list.”
That lands. Her eyes tremble, spine stiffens. Fear looks good on her. Necessary. Earned.
“This is bigger than you think,” she whispers, voice trembling again. “Bigger than me. Bigger than you, Lorenzo.”
Of course she tries worried mother now. Oscar-worthy. Serena always finds the good in people. Shame there’s nothing good left in this one.
“She’s in real danger,” she insists. “I didn’t leave because I wanted to. I left because I was hiding.”
“So your brilliant plan was to win Mother of the Year by abandoning your grieving daughter while she was in danger?” I lift an eyebrow.
“I knew she’d be safer with you than with me.”
I drop into a chair, cross my arms, settle back like she just said something amusing. “Fine. Let’s pretend I believe this garbage for a second. How exactly is she in danger?”
Lauren sits too, but she positions herself where she can look through the glass door toward Serena. Always performing for an imaginary audience.
“Ian is coming for her,” she says. “The deal between Thomas and John was sanctioned by the Organization. Their contracts hold, even after death. Which means a Beaumont still owes a bride to an Archibald.”
“You’re a Beaumont,” I say flatly.
Her entire face tightens, offended I said it out loud. “Exactly. That’s why I hid. So they wouldn’t find me and hand me over, or force me to offer Serena.”