Chapter 42
Princess
I ’ve been pacing for hours.
Back and forth, down the long hallway lined with picture frames and antique furniture, the same stretch of polished marble that creaks beneath my bare feet even though it shouldn’t.
It’s almost like the house is groaning with me. With the weight of my thoughts. With the pressure of everything that’s unravelling inside me.
Outside, the sky hangs low and gray, like it’s waiting to drop the next disaster from its clouds. The lake in the distance is still, motionless like glass, like death. The air in here is thick and too quiet. Suffocating.
Lucio’s been gone for three days. And I’m losing my fucking mind.
I wrap my arms around myself tighter, even though it’s not cold. My skin prickles anyway, like something is watching me. Like the ghosts of this house—or maybe just the memories I’ve created here in the dark—are crawling up my spine, whispering truths I’m not ready to hear.
He hasn’t called. He hasn’t texted. He hasn’t come back. Nothing.
I don’t know if he’s still alive. I don’t know if I’m still his.
I pass the grand piano for the tenth time and pause, staring at the closed lid. It’s so pristine, so untouched, and it doesn’t belong in this house.
Nothing does. Nothing belongs here except silence and secrets.
My hand drifts down to the keys, and I press one. A low, hollow note echoes through the room. It sounds exactly like I feel.
I sit slowly, like I’m afraid the bench will disappear beneath me, and place both hands on the keys. I don’t know how to play. Not really. But I tap out a few soft notes, letting them fill the empty air.
They don’t sound like music. They sound like a scream muffled by distance. A cry no one hears.
God, I can’t breathe in here.
I stand again and stalk into the kitchen, opening cabinets even though I already know what’s inside. Bottled water. Crackers. Fancy cookies in tins. Nothing real. Nothing warm.
Just like this house.
I’ve never felt more hollow.
The only room that doesn’t feel like a tomb is the one Lucio told me to sleep in. It’s the only place I haven’t torn apart trying to find answers. I move there now, my feet dragging, my shoulders tight. I stare at the bed like it’s the last thing connecting me to sanity.
The sheets are rumpled. They still smell like him. Like his cologne. Like sex. Like betrayal.
I sit on the edge and let my head fall into my hands.
What does love mean if it destroys someone? Is it still love if it leaves you bleeding?
I close my eyes, pressing my palms against my forehead like I can hold myself together with sheer force.
I thought I understood what I was doing. I thought I could outsmart them all. I thought I could keep Lucio safe.
But I was wrong. I was so fucking wrong.
I gave them the door. I left it open. I let the wolves in. And Lucio’s mother paid the price.
I can still remember her voice. The way she said his name. The way her eyes softened when she smiled. I’d only ever seen her at social events, but she had such a gravitational pull over everyone around her that it was impossible not to notice her.
I curl into myself on the bed, my knees pulled to my chest, my fingernails biting into my skin. I want to scream. I want to tear the sheets off this bed and set them on fire. I want to find every mirror in this goddamn house and smash them until there’s nothing left but glass and blood.
Instead, I stare at the wall and whisper to no one, “I’m sorry.”
The words taste like ashes. And I don’t know if they’ll ever be enough.
I wander into the hallway again, my feet dragging across the cold marble. My reflection stares back at me from a glass cabinet: my hair is a mess, my eyes are bloodshot, and my skin looks pale and sickly.
I look like a ghost. I touch my face, startled by how cold I am. How numb.
This house is killing me slowly. The silence. The isolation. The absence of him.
Lucio.
I wonder if he’s thinking about me. I wonder if he hates me. If he’s planning to come back…
Or if he’s planning to hand me over. To Emiliano. To Romiro. To Dominico. To the Camorra. To whoever wants revenge. Because I know they want it. And I know I deserve it.
I close my eyes and picture his face. That moment in the apartment when he found out. The way he looked at me like I’d ripped his fucking heart out.
I did. I ruined the only man who ever saw me for more than just my last name. The only man who touched me like I was precious and dangerous all at once. The only man that made me feel as if I mattered.
And now I’m sitting in his hideaway, waiting like a prisoner for my sentence.
The silence stretches again. Minutes blur into hours. I check the time and don’t even register what it says. Just numbers. Numbers that mean nothing in this vacuum.
I go back to the piano.
Another key. Another note. A low, hollow sound that vibrates in my bones.
And then the tears come. Slow at first, like raindrops. Then faster. Harder. Until I’m sobbing against the keys, my shoulders shaking, my whole body folding in on itself like I can hide from the weight of what I’ve done.
I try to catch my breath. Try to convince myself that he’ll come back. That he still loves me. That I’m not completely alone in this fucking nightmare.
But the truth is? I don’t know anything anymore.
Except this: I’m sorry.
I’m so fucking sorry. And I’d do anything to take it all back.
The house is too quiet. Not the peaceful kind. Not the kind that makes you feel safe, like you can breathe again after the chaos.
No, this kind of silence is wrong . It presses against the walls like it’s trying to squeeze the truth out of the shadows. It wraps itself around my throat like a wire—tight and cold.
I sit on the edge of the bed in the guest room Lucio told me not to leave. My eyes dart to the crack in the door, then to the knife in my lap. My fingers curl tighter around the handle.
I haven’t slept since he left. That was…what? Two days ago? Three? I’ve stopped counting after the fourth day.
He said he needed to “handle something,” but he didn’t say what. Or when he’d be back. If he would.
And now, every time I close my eyes, I see the blood. His. Mine. His mother’s.
I should have left already. I meant to. I told myself I would. But every time I get near the door, I freeze. Like walking out would make it all real. Like it would mean I’ve chosen survival over him.
A creak sounds down the hallway.
I stop breathing.
It’s light. Careful. Not the wind. Not the house settling. A step.
I stand quickly, silent on bare feet, and grip the knife tighter. My heart jackhammers against my ribs. I take a breath, another, and move to the far corner of the room where the armoire sits. I slip behind it into the small nook between the furniture and the wall, hidden by its heavy oak bulk.
The footsteps stop. Then another step. Closer.
They’re inside the house.
I crouch low, silent. I’ve done this before. Hidden like this when my mother sent her minions to check on me. When I needed to pretend to be the quiet little daughter, not the girl with blood under her nails and secrets under the floorboards.
I hear them now: two voices. Male. Low. Calm, like they’re not in a hurry because they don’t need to be.
Then I hear a name.
“Lucio’s not here,” one of them says. “You think she’s dumb enough to still be hiding out in his house?”
A familiar voice. Emiliano.
The blood drains from my face.
“Search everywhere,” he adds coldly. “If she’s here, we take her.”
No .
My stomach twists, bile burning the back of my throat. I press myself tighter against the wall, willing my body to become nothing, to dissolve into the shadows. This isn’t a misunderstanding. He’s not here to talk. He’s here to finish what he started back in New York.
Another voice joins his. Calmer. Steel under velvet.
Romiro.
“You sure Lucio didn’t come back for her?”
“No,” Eli says. “He would’ve called. He wouldn’t have risked her like that unless he had a backup plan. She’s here. I know she’s here.”
My hands start to shake. Not from fear. From rage. From knowing that after everything, after the blood I spilled, after the fucking exile, he still thinks I’m expendable.
Lucio’s own brother.
They’re close now. I hear the stairs creak as someone comes up. The slow scuff of shoes on wood. Then they split up. One heads down the left hallway, the other this way.
I hold my breath. My fingers are cramping from how tight I’m gripping the knife. The steel is warm in my palm now. An extension of me. Like if I have to die tonight, I’ll die slicing through one of them.
Emiliano’s voice draws closer, speaking quietly into what I assume is a comm or earpiece. “Bedroom’s clear. Check the guest rooms.”
I shut my eyes.
Please don’t come in here.
Footsteps pause. A click. The door opens.
I can hear his breathing. Can hear the floor creak as he steps in.
I tuck my knees to my chest and hold the blade ready, every cell in my body locked in place, straining for silence. My pulse drums in my ears.
I think of Lucio. Of the moment my eyes found him at that dull gala where everyone pretended. Of the way he looked at me when he told me to trust him.
Another step. He’s in the room now.
I don’t know how much time I have. Maybe a few seconds. Maybe less. But if I’m going down, I’m taking him with me.
I tighten my grip.
Wait.
Then…I move.
The door swings open, and I’m already in motion, throwing my full weight forward. The blade in my hand buries deep into flesh—resistance, then give. A strangled sound tears from his throat as we crash to the ground. I’m on top of him, straddling, twisting the blade just enough to make him scream.
His elbow slams into my ribs. Pain lances through me, but I don’t loosen my grip.
“ Fuck— ”
He flips us over in a surge of power. My back hits the hardwood, the breath knocked from my lungs. I scramble to my knees, knife still in hand.
Emiliano clutches his side, eyes wild, blood blooming through his tailored shirt. “Are you insane ?”
“You’re in my house,” I snap. “With your gun drawn. I could ask you the same.”
“I wasn’t going to shoot unless?—”
“Unless what?” I spit. “Unless you found me? Unless I breathed wrong?”
He glares, breathing hard. “You stabbed me.”
“You’re lucky that’s all I did.”
We freeze there, staring. He doesn’t reach for his gun. He knows I’ll kill him before he can.
“Romiro’s checking the other rooms,” he warns, voice low and lethal.
“Then you’d better tell him not to open that door.”
He laughs. It’s bitter. Bloody. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, girl?”
“Making sure Lucio still has something to come home to.”
His expression darkens at Lucio’s name. I see it: that glimmer of hate, of pain, of something more complicated than he’s ready to admit.
“You’re going to leave,” I say. “Right now. And you’re going to pretend you didn’t see me.”
“And if I don’t?”
I take a breath. Drop my voice to a razor’s edge. “Then your dirty little deal with the Outfit becomes everyone’s business.”
His whole body goes still.
There it is.
“I don’t know what you think you’ve heard?—”
“I know enough,” I cut in. “I know about the agreement. About you promising to stay out of the Moretti kids’ fight for power in exchange for keeping Valentina and your daughter off Chicago’s radar.”
He doesn’t deny it. Not even a flicker.
“You’ve been cutting back-channel deals with the Outfit to keep your family safe while your brothers bleed for yours. You think no one knows, but people always know. And if you kill me here, my contact sends that file to every Underboss on the East Coast.”
He’s bleeding. Furious. Calculating.
“And what do you want?” he asks, voice hollow.
“I want you gone.”
“And Lucio?”
I lift my chin. “He doesn’t need to know.”
He gives me a long look. One I can’t read. Then he reaches into his coat and pulls out a black flip phone. Tosses it on the bed.
“You’ve got forty-eight hours to disappear. Take him or don’t, I don’t care. But if I catch wind of you still in Camorra territory after that?” His jaw tics. “I’ll bury you myself.”
“I believe you.”
“You should.”
He turns to leave, blood dripping onto the floor behind him. At the door, he pauses.
“When I find the person who gave you that intel, I’m going to kill them.”
I don’t blink. “I’m sure you’ll try.”
And then he’s gone.
I don’t move for a long time.
The room feels colder now. The phone glows faintly where it landed. My hand trembles as I pick it up, as I close the door behind me and press my back against it.
Forty-eight hours.
And a war I never meant to start.