Chapter 48
Alina
My heart drops into my stomach as I watch Raffaele’s face morph into a mask of something dark and lethal that makes my skin prickle with foreboding.
His fingers tighten around mine, not painfully but with enough pressure to anchor me to this moment. Whatever he’s about to say, it’s bad. Bad enough to bring that haunted look to his eyes. I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly dry as desert sand.
“Alina.” The way he says my name—like he’s preparing me for a blow—makes my pulse quicken. “Colin and I found something. Something you need to know about.”
I shift on the bed, suddenly aware of how vulnerable I am in my thin clothes, with my cast and healing head. The movement of the yacht feels more pronounced now, as if the ocean itself is responding to my rising anxiety.
“What is it?” I ask again, my voice barely above a whisper.
Raffaele reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phone I don’t recognize. “This was my dad’s.”
My fingers instinctively move to my throat where I can still sometimes feel the phantom pressure of his hands crushing my windpipe. I thought that chapter was closed. Andrea’s dead, his threat eliminated. Why is Raffaele bringing him up now?
“We went through it,” he continues, turning the device over in his large hands. “Looking for any reason why he would show up at the island. During our honeymoon.” His jaw tightens, a muscle flexing beneath the stubble. “And we found something.”
I wait, fear building in my chest like pressure behind a dam. Whatever this is, Raffaele’s reaction tells me it’s devastating.
“Your sister,” he says finally, the words falling between us like stones. “Sabrina was in contact with my dad.”
The words don’t make sense at first. They float in the air between us, disconnected and impossible. Sabrina and Andrea? How would they even know each other?
“That’s… that can’t be right,” I stammer, pulling my hand from his to rub at my temple where a dull ache is beginning to form. “Sabrina doesn’t know any of your family. She’s never met—”
“She met him online,” Raffaele interrupts, his voice gentle but unyielding. “Through social media.”
My breathing speeds up as I try to process this. “But why? Why would they even talk to each other?”
Raffaele’s eyes never leave mine, watching each flicker of emotion that must be racing across my face. “He reached out to her and introduced himself when he commented on one of her posts.”
“W-what?” I ask, still confused.
He informs me he received a box of cigars as a wedding present from his dad the night before our wedding. But that Andrea shouldn’t have known the date. I feel like I know what he’s trying to tell me, yet I’m still as confused as when he started.
“Raffaele,” I snip. “Just give it to me straight.” I don’t mean to snap at him, truly, I don’t. But my head is throbbing, and I’m starting to feel stupid for clearly not understanding where the breadcrumbs he’s putting down are leading.
“They began messaging and talking. A lot. Mostly about you,” Raffaele growls.
The implications start to crystallize, sharp and cutting. “And Sabrina just… talked to him? Just like that?”
“More than talked.” Raffaele’s voice drops lower, dangerous. “They met. Several times. According to his messages, she told him everything he wanted to know about you. About us. About the wedding date.”
The betrayal cuts so deep I can barely breathe. My own sister. The only family I had left. The only person who shared memories of Mom with me.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “Why would she do that?”
Instead of answering, Raffaele unlocks the phone and scrolls through it for a moment before holding it out to me. “See for yourself.”
My hand trembles as I take it from him. The screen shows a text conversation between Andrea and Sabrina. I force myself to focus on the words.
Andrea: As discussed, I’ll take care of your problem permanently. My son’s infatuation with your sister has gone far enough.
Sabrina: Just make sure she doesn’t come back. She’s the reason my dad’s dead. I want fucking revenge!!
Andrea: You’re certain you want this? Once it’s done, there’s no going back.
Sabrina: I told you what I want. I want Alina gone. Dead. I don’t care how you do it.
The phone slips from my fingers, landing on the bed between us. My entire body goes cold, then hot, then numb as the words burn into my brain. Dead. My sister wanted me dead.
“No,” I say, the word slipping out unbidden. “No, that can’t be right. She wouldn’t… Sabrina wouldn’t…”
But the evidence is right there in black and white. My sister conspired with Andrea Russo to kill me. My only living blood relative signed my death warrant.
A sob tears from my throat, raw and painful. “But why? What did I ever do to make her hate me this much?”
The tears come then, hot and unstoppable. They pour down my face as my body shakes with the force of my grief. This betrayal cuts deeper than any knife, burns hotter than any wound. My sister wants me erased from existence.
Raffaele moves closer, his arms encircling me with exquisite care, mindful of my injuries. He pulls me against his chest, one hand cradling the back of my head while the other strokes down my spine.
I cry against him, my tears soaking into his shirt while he murmurs soft Italian phrases against my hair.
“I don’t understand,” I repeat between sobs, my words muffled against him. “I don’t understand why she hates me so much.”
His hold tightens fractionally, his heartbeat steady beneath my ear. “Some people are broken. Their damage runs so deep they can only destroy what’s good around them.”
But Sabrina is my sister. My blood. The one who was supposed to be there when everyone else was gone.
“I feel so stupid,” I whisper, pulling back to look at him through swollen eyes. “So blind. I should have known—”
“No,” Raffaele cuts me off, his voice firm as he cups my face between his hands. “This is not your fault. Never think that. You saw the best in her because that’s who you are. Because you’re good, Alina. Genuinely good in a way few people are.”
I shake my head, unable to accept his words even as I desperately want to believe them. The yacht rocks beneath us, a reminder that we’re floating in the middle of nowhere while my world collapses around me.
My sister wants me dead. And now I have to live with that knowledge for the rest of my life.
For the next few hours, I cling to Raffaele while sobbing and screaming out my heartache. Once I have no more tears left to shed, I feel cold. Not chilly. No, this is the kind of cold that seeps beneath skin, sinew, and even muscle, to settle in your very marrow.
Sitting up, I wipe at my dried tears with the back of my hand, trying to gather the shattered pieces of myself. Each breath feels like drawing air through broken glass.
Sabrina, my own sister, conspired to have me killed.
The knowledge sits like poison in my veins, corroding everything I thought I knew. Reaching for the phone, Raffaele wordlessly hands it to me. I scroll through the messages until I find the one my mind keeps playing on a loop.
Sabrina: Just make sure she doesn’t come back. She’s the reason my dad’s dead. I want fucking revenge!!
She’s said this before… ‘my dad.’
When… when… oh. It was at Mr. Clark’s office, wasn’t it? Why does it feel more significant now?
“Alina.” Raffaele’s voice tears me from my thoughts.
“Yes?”
Looking at him, there’s something in his eyes—a cold finality that tells me there’s more to this conversation. More decisions to be made. More pain to endure.
“There’s something else you need to know,” Raffaele says, his thumb brushing across my lips. His touch is gentle, but his eyes have hardened into emerald stone. “Sabrina will be waiting for us when we return to Cleveland.”
My head snaps up, confusion cutting through the fog of betrayal. “What do you mean, waiting for us?”
“I spoke with Matteo while you were sleeping.” Raffaele’s voice is matter-of-fact, as if discussing dinner plans. “My family is bringing her in. Keeping her secure until we arrive.”
A cold dread spreads through my chest. The way he says secure makes it clear this isn’t a friendly family reunion he’s arranging. “So she’ll be okay?” I ask, my voice trembling traitorously. Even after everything I’ve just learned, I can’t stop the instinctive concern.
Raffaele’s lips curve into something too sharp to be a smile. “My family won’t hurt her… much.”
The pause between those last two words hangs in the air like a guillotine blade.
“But,” he continues, meeting my gaze directly. “After we speak with her, I won’t let her live.”
The words hit me like physical blows. Each one distinct and brutal in its clarity. Won’t. Let. Her. Live.
“You’re going to kill my sister.” It’s not a question. My voice sounds foreign to my own ears, hollow and distant.
“Yes.” No hesitation. No softening. Just cold, immovable certainty.
I push away from him, needing space, needing air. The movement sends pain shooting through my healing skull, but I welcome it. The physical discomfort is easier to process than the emotional maelstrom tearing me apart.
“Alina.” Raffaele doesn’t reach for me, respecting the distance I’ve created. “I will never—never—allow anyone who threatens you to live. That’s who I am. That’s what it means to be mine.”
“She’s my sister,” I whisper, the words catching in my throat. “My only family.”
“Family doesn’t try to have you murdered.” His voice remains steady, reasonable. “Family doesn’t conspire with strangers to end your life. What she did—what she wanted to happen to you—that’s unforgivable.”
I know he’s right. The evidence is undeniable. Yet something in me recoils at the finality of Raffaele’s solution. At the ease with which he pronounces this death sentence.
“I can’t…” I struggle to find words for the conflict raging inside me. “I can’t agree to this, Raffaele.”