42. Jayson
JAYSON
T he meeting ends without a word. No handshakes or pleasantries. Just the scrape of chairs and the quiet shift of men already thinking about what comes next.
I move to follow Mason out when a voice cuts behind me. Low. Precise.
“Jayson.”
I stop. It’s Scar. He’s still seated, boots planted wide, elbow resting casually on the arm of his chair, his gaze sharp.
The others filter out—Kanyan with a grunt, Lucky murmuring into his phone, Mason already halfway to the garage. But Scar doesn’t move. And I know that look. It’s the one he wears when he’s about to break you without ever touching you.
I stay by the doorway. Say nothing.
He leans forward, forearms on his thighs, tone even. Too even. “You going to tell me what the fuck this is?”
I arch a brow, tired. “This what?”
He cocks his head, amused. “Don’t play dense, Caluna. You’re not built for it.”
I say nothing, jaw tight .
His smile fades.
“You’re in love with her.”
It’s not a question. It’s a quiet accusation. One that shoulders the kind of weight that’s too heavy to carry.
My shoulders lock. “Don’t.”
“Oh, we’re already here,” he says, standing now, slow and unhurried, as if the weight of what he’s just said hasn’t landed like a grenade between us.
“You know why I married her.”
“The reason you married her means nothing to me. These things happen. I know this as well as the next person.”
And suddenly I remember—Scar didn’t choose love the way most men do.
He didn’t chase it. He didn’t fall into it.
He dragged it to the altar kicking and screaming.
His marriage to Allegra Marone wasn’t built on romance.
It was born from blood. A thirty-year-old oath between two mafia dynasties.
Signed in secrets, sealed in violence. Their fathers had made the deal long before Scar and Allegra even knew what love was—hell, before they even understood hate.
When the time came, he didn’t ask her.
He summoned her.
Forced her into a silk gown, into a role, into his bed—and she fought him every inch of the way. Not with screams, but with silence. With cold stares and calculated distance. She didn’t cry. She didn’t beg. She just looked at him like she’d rather burn in her wedding dress than ever belong to him.
And Scar? Scar didn’t flinch. He wasn’t gentle, yet he wasn’t cruel. He was something worse—honest.
He told her the truth:
“This marriage wasn’t your choice. It wasn’t mine either. But I will honor it. And I will survive it, even if you don’t.”
What he didn’t expect—what no one expected—was that somewhere between control and capitulation, something shifted.
Months passed. And something in Allegra—sharp, proud, venomous—stuck in him.
Like a blade lodged between his ribs. He started noticing the way her mouth twitched before she snapped.
The way she sat like a queen in a room full of killers.
The way she didn’t try to charm him, didn’t try to change him—just saw right through him. And that? That wrecked him.
Scar Gatti, the coldest son of a cursed legacy, started craving his wife. And Allegra? She made him work for it.
Theirs isn’t a fairytale. It’s fire and steel and long nights spent either fighting or fucking.
But make no mistake—Scar would level cities for her now.
He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t need to. It’s there in the way he watches her from across a room, in the way he speaks her name like it’s already half a threat.
Their love story? It didn’t start with flowers. It started with a cage. And turned into one of the hottest, most ruthless things I’ve ever witnessed.
I meet his eyes. “She almost died,” I remind him. “I almost killed her.”
“She will die,” he counters, stepping closer, voice low and hard. “If you’re not thinking clearly. If you start treating her like something sacred instead of what she is—a ticking fucking time bomb wanted by one of the most powerful men in the city.
My throat tightens. I feel it then—the edge of the truth I’ve been pushing down.
Scar narrows his eyes. “You need to decide if she’s leverage or lifeline. Because right now? You’re looking at her like she’s both. And that’s a hell of a way to get yourself killed.”
The silence that follows is ugly. Tight. Unforgiving.
I nod once. “Message received.”
Scar studies me a beat longer, then sighs through his nose. “ Just make sure you’re not the one putting her in the ground when this is over.”
Then he walks off, and I’m left alone, but the adrenaline doesn’t quiet the memory: Keira kneeling in the moss, whispering Don’t give me to them like a condemned angel. There’s only one cure for that sound, and it’s Maddox’s last breath.
It’s after midnight when I ease the bedroom door open.
Keira’s there—cross-legged on the bed, bathed in the dim amber spill of a single lamp. Her journal rests open in her lap, the pages crisscrossed in highlighter, her fingers smudged with ink and grief. Her eyes lift as soon as I enter.
And something in her lets go.
Relief softens the tight pull in her shoulders. Like maybe—for the first time all night—she doesn’t feel hunted.
I shut the door behind me, slow and soundless. Shrug off the suit jacket, let it fall to the floor like the weight it is. My tie’s already loosened. My ribs ache from holding too much inside.
She marks her place in the journal with a trembling finger, throat bobbing as she swallows whatever she’s been carrying alone.
“You were gone a long time,” she says, voice raw.
I cross the room, sit at the edge of the bed, and pull her straight into my lap. Her knees tuck in beside my hips, her arms wrapping around me like second nature.
“Recalibrating,” I murmur into her hair. “How was your day?”
Her breath stutters—part exhale, part sob.
“Lonely.”
I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “We found out who Richard Maddox is,” I tell her. “Even if you don’t remember him, we know who he is and you’re safe.”
She lets out a quiet laugh, but it’s frayed at the edges. Her eyes shimmer, and one tear slips free, tracing the curve of her cheek.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “Don’t thank me yet. Not until you sleep through a night without ghosts clawing at your throat.”
She places a hand on my chest, right over an old scar. Her fingers press gently into the memory of pain, of survival, of the line I crossed and never came back from.
“Then stay,” she says. “Be the reason the ghosts get bored and leave.”
And fuck, if that doesn’t nearly break me.
I could say a thousand things. I could tell her she’s the only thing that makes this nightmare worth crawling through.
That I’d burn the world for her and light a cigarette in its wake.
That if anyone ever comes for her again, I’ll leave them scattered in more pieces than there are stars in the sky.
But none of that feels big enough. So I kiss her. Slow. Deep. Like a promise made in blood and regret and the quiet belief that maybe—just maybe—we get to survive this.
When we part, her forehead rests against mine. Her breathing steadies. And then she curls into me, head on my chest, journal still clutched in her hands like a lifeline.
Outside, wind rattles the windows. But inside? The storm finally settles.
And for the first time since I watched my sister die screaming in my arms, the future doesn’t taste like iron and rage.
It tastes like pine. Clean and crisp. Like warmth. Like the salt of a woman who won’t break, no matter how many men have tried.
I wrap both arms around her, pulling her in tight, fitting her body to mine like we’ve done this a thousand times in another life—one where there were no guns, no ghosts, no graves between us.
Her weight is delicate but solid, grounding me in a way nothing else ever has. Not revenge. Not power. Not even blood.
Just her.
And something deep inside me—the part that never healed right, the part that still bleeds in silence—starts to knit itself back together. Not cleanly. Not perfectly. But enough.
Her cheek rests against my chest, her breath warming the skin just above my heart. I press my lips to her temple, letting them linger, feeling her pulse flutter beneath fragile bone.
She’s here. She’s alive. And she’s mine, even if she doesn’t know what that means yet.
My hand slides up her back, tracing the subtle ridge of her spine beneath the thin cotton of her shirt. She shivers, but doesn’t pull away. Instead, she shifts closer, one leg sliding between mine, like she wants to crawl inside my ribcage and stay there. Like I’m the only safe place left.
“Are you cold?” I murmur.
“No,” she whispers. “Just… empty.”
I tighten my hold, press another kiss to her hair. “Then take what you need.”
She lifts her face, slow and hesitant, eyes searching mine like she’s terrified I’ll vanish if she blinks.
Her fingers come up to brush my jaw, tracing the line of stubble there, the scar near my mouth.
She studies me like I’m some rare, dangerous thing she hasn’t quite decided to keep yet—but can’t let go of either.
“I’m here. With you. And it doesn’t feel real.”
I cup the side of her face, let my thumb drag gently across her bottom lip. “It is.”
“But for how long?” she asks.
My throat tightens. I don’t lie to her .
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I’ll fight for every minute.”
She leans in then, slow and aching, and our mouths meet in the softest kiss we’ve ever shared. There’s no heat behind it. No urgency. Just need. Just truth. Just the quiet collision of two people who’ve been scraped raw and are still choosing each other anyway.
When she pulls back, her eyes glisten. She curls back into my chest, one hand resting over my heart like she’s trying to memorize the rhythm of it. Her breathing evens out, lashes lowering. The journal slips from her grip and I catch it before it falls. I set it aside gently.
Outside, the wind howls. Somewhere far off, a siren cries into the dark.
But in here? In here, the storm is quiet.
And for the first time in years, I let my guard fall. I let someone in. I let the good hurt settle deep in my bones and root itself there.
Tomorrow, we burn what’s left of Maddox. But tonight? Tonight, I hold her like she’s the only prayer this blood-soaked world has left. And maybe—just maybe—I believe in it.