Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bruno
My mother loves her.
I watch it happen in real time. The way Antonella smiles. The way she answers questions without hesitation. The way she touches my mother's arm when she laughs at something Aria says.
Within twenty minutes, my mother is completely charmed.
"You must come to tea with my friends," Aria says. She's holding Antonella's hands now. Both of them. Like they've known each other for years instead of minutes. "Elena and Francesca have been asking about Bruno's wife. They'll adore you."
"I'd love that," Antonella says.
She means it. I can tell she means it.
Either she's the best actress I've ever seen, or she just makes people love her without even trying.
I think it's the second one.
"We'll go tomorrow," Aria continues. "I'll call Elena tonight. She hosts the most wonderful lunches. You'll meet everyone."
"That sounds perfect."
My mother beams. Actually beams.
I can't remember the last time I saw her smile like that.
"Bruno." Aria turns to me. Her eyes are bright. "She's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful."
I don't know what to say.
"Thank you," I manage.
"Don't thank me. Thank whatever fate brought her to you." Aria squeezes Antonella's hands again. "I was so worried. When Nico called and told me about the wedding, about your plans to become Don again... I thought perhaps you were rushing into something foolish."
"Mother—"
"But I was wrong." She cuts me off. Looks at Antonella with something close to reverence. "I can see it. The way you look at each other."
Antonella's cheeks flush pink.
"Mrs. Sartori—"
"Aria. Please. You're family now."
"Aria." Antonella's voice is soft. "Bruno and I are still getting to know each other. It's only been a week."
"A week is enough." My mother's voice catches. "I knew with Bruno's father in three days. Sometimes you just know."
I grip the armrests of my wheelchair.
This is too much.
"I hope you're already in love," Aria says. Her eyes are wet now. Glistening. "And if you're not yet, I hope you will be. Soon. My son deserves happiness. After everything he's been through. After everything this family has suffered."
A tear slides down her cheek.
She wipes it away quickly. But more follow.
"I'm sorry." She laughs. Embarrassed. "I promised myself I wouldn't do this. But seeing you together. Seeing Bruno with someone who looks at him the way you do..."
I can't breathe.
I need to leave. Now. Before I say something. Before I do something.
Antonella's hand lands on my shoulder.
Light. Warm. Grounding.
"Aria," she says gently. "Bruno and I didn't really sleep last night. Would you mind if we rested for a bit before dinner? I want to be fresh when I meet your friends tomorrow."
My mother's expression shifts.
Her tears stop.
A knowing smile spreads across her face.
"Of course." She practically purrs the words. "Of course you need rest. Newlyweds." She winks at Antonella. "I remember those days. Go. Both of you. I'll have Giulia show me to my room."
"Mother, that's not—"
"Don't explain." Aria waves her hand. "I was young once too. Go be with your wife."
Antonella's cheeks are bright red now.
She doesn't correct the misunderstanding.
Neither do I.
"We'll see you at dinner," Antonella says.
I go away. Away from my mother. Away from the tears and the hope and the weight of expectations I don't know how to carry.
We don't speak until we're around the corner.
"Your room or mine?" Antonella asks.
"Mine."
The door closes behind us.
I exhale.
"Thank you," I say.
"You looked like you were about to curse."
"I was."
She moves around the wheelchair. Sits on the edge of my bed. Faces me.
"Your mother loves you very much."
"I know."
"She's terrified of losing you. That's why she cries. That's why she's so desperate to believe we're happy."
I don't respond.
"Bruno." Antonella leans forward. "What happened in that warehouse last night?"
The question catches me off guard.
"What?"
"You came back looking like a ghost. And now you can barely hold yourself together in front of your own mother." She pauses. "What did you do?"
I can lie.
But I'm tired.
So fucking tired of lying.
"I tortured a man," I say. "Cut pieces off him until he told me what I needed to know."
Antonella doesn't flinch.
Doesn't look away.
"Did he deserve it?"
"He helped steal from my family. He mocked me. Called me a cripple."
"That's not what I asked."
I meet her eyes.
"I don't know if he deserved it. I don't know if anyone deserves what I did to him. But I did it anyway. And I felt nothing."
She's quiet for a long moment.
"Do you want to feel something?"
The question hits me like a punch.
"I don't know," I admit. "I used to. Before. I used to feel everything. Too much. My father beat it out of me. Taught me that emotions were weakness."
"And now?"
"Now I'm empty." I look down at my useless legs. "I'm empty and broken and I don't know how to be anything else."
Antonella stands.
She crosses the space between us.
Kneels in front of my wheelchair.
Her hands rest on my knees.
"You're not empty," she says. "You felt something when your mother cried. You felt something when I kissed your cheek last night. You feel things, Bruno. You're just terrified of what happens if you let yourself."
I stare at her.
This stranger who sees me more clearly than anyone has in years.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask. "Why do you care?"
"I don't know." She smiles. Sad and soft. "Maybe because underneath all that armor, I think there's someone worth saving."
"There isn't."
Antonella
Bruno believes it. He's convinced himself he's hollow. Empty. A shell of whoever he used to be.
But I watched him at that party. I felt his pulse racing under my palm when I touched his shoulder. I heard him laugh in my room at two in the morning, a sound that surprised him as much as it surprised me.
He's not empty. He's terrified.
And right now, I make a decision.
I rise slowly from my knees. Bruno's eyes track my movement, dark and wary. He doesn't move. Doesn't breathe. Just watches me like I'm dangerous.
Maybe I am.
I step closer. The space between us shrinks to inches. His jaw tightens.
"What are you doing?" His voice comes out rough.
I don't answer. Instead, I lift my hand and touch his cheek.
His skin is warm under my fingertips. Stubble scratches my palm. I trace the line of his jaw, feeling the muscle clench and release beneath my touch.
Bruno's eyes fall closed.
He leans his head into my hand. Just slightly. Just enough.
I lean down and press my lips to his.
For one terrible second, he goes completely still. Frozen. I think I've made a mistake. I think he's going to push me away, wheel backward, disappear through the door like he did after I kissed his cheek.
Then his hand shoots up and grabs the back of my head.
His fingers tangle in my hair. He pulls me down to him, and suddenly he's not frozen anymore. He's consuming me.
His mouth moves hungry, desperate, angry. He kisses me like he's trying to prove something. Like he's punishing both of us for wanting this. His other hand finds my waist and drags me closer.
The wheelchair makes it awkward. My knees bump against the footrests. I have to bend at a strange angle to reach him. But I don't care. I don't care about any of it because Bruno Sartori is kissing me like I'm the only thing keeping him alive.
His lips leave my mouth and trail down my jaw. My neck. I gasp when his teeth graze the sensitive skin below my ear. His grip on my hair tightens, tilting my head back to give him better access.
"Bruno—"
He doesn't let me finish. His mouth finds mine again, swallowing whatever I was going to say. I grab his shoulders for balance, feeling the hard muscle beneath his shirt. He's so much stronger than I expected.
I like this.
The thought surfaces through the haze of sensation. I like the way he holds me. I like the desperation in his kiss.
When he finally stops, we're both breathing hard. He doesn't pull away. Instead, he presses his forehead against mine. His eyes stay closed. His hand remains tangled in my hair, though his grip has loosened.
I can feel his breath on my lips. Warm. Unsteady.
"You don't deserve this," he says.
The words are quiet. Almost gentle.
I don't move. "What?"
"This." His jaw works. "Me. This arrangement. Any of it."
"Bruno—"
"Once I get the title," he continues, his voice hardening, "I'll let you leave. You can have your own life. Go back to school. Open your bakery. Whatever you want."
He says it like he's offering me a gift. Like he's being noble.
I pull back.
His hand falls from my hair. His eyes open.
I step away from the wheelchair. One step. Then another. Creating distance between us.
"Antonella—"
"You'll let me leave." I repeat his words back to him. They taste bitter on my tongue.
"Yes." He frowns like he doesn't understand why I'm not grateful. "You'll be free. You can—"
"I wanted that kiss."
The words come out sharper than I intended. Bruno's mouth snaps shut.
"I wanted it," I say again. "I thought you wanted it too."
His expression shutters. The walls slam back into place so fast I almost get whiplash. "It doesn't matter what I want."
"It matters to me."
"It shouldn't." His hands grip the armrests again. White-knuckled. "This marriage is a transaction. You're here because your father gambled away your future and my family needed proof that I'm stable enough to lead. That's all this is."
"Is it?"
"Yes."
I stare at him. At the rigid set of his shoulders. At the way he won't quite meet my eyes.
He's lying. To me or to himself, I'm not sure. Maybe both.
"You kissed me back," I say quietly. "You pulled me closer. You—"
"A mistake." The word cuts through the air. "It won't happen again."
Something twists in my chest. Not heartbreak—we don't have anything to break. But something close to it. Something that feels like rejection even though I know this marriage was never supposed to be real.
I wanted that kiss. I wanted him to want it too.
And for a moment, I thought he did.
"Fine." I force my voice to stay steady. "Then I'll go rest before dinner. Your mother will expect us to look happy."
Bruno's jaw tightens. "Antonella—"
"I'll see you downstairs."
I turn and walk toward the door. My legs feel unsteady. My lips still tingle from his mouth on mine.
I open the door and step into the hallway, leaving him alone in his room with his wheelchair and his walls and his conviction that he has nothing left to offer.
Bruno
The bullet tears through the paper target's head. Center mass. Perfect shot.
I fire again. And again. And again.
Each round punches through the silhouette with mechanical precision. My arms don't shake. My aim doesn't waver. Over a year in this chair and I can still kill a man from fifty yards without blinking.
The training range sits at the back of the compound, far enough from the main house that no one complains about the noise.
I empty the magazine. Reload. Keep shooting.
She kissed me.
The thought burns through my skull like a bullet. I squeeze the trigger harder. The recoil jolts up my arms.
She kissed me and I kissed her back. I grabbed her hair and pulled her close and tasted her mouth like a starving man. I felt her gasp against my lips. I felt her hands on my shoulders.
And then I pushed her away.
Again.
I fire until the magazine clicks empty. The target is shredded. Holes cluster where the heart would be, where the lungs would be, where the brain would be. A perfect kill pattern.
I slam another magazine home.
I don't know how to do this.
I don't know how to let someone close. I don't know how to stop wanting her when every instinct screams that wanting her will destroy us both.
The first shot goes wide. I curse and adjust my grip.
Two years ago, I knew exactly who I was. Bruno Sartori. I had a plan. I had a purpose. I had a body that worked the way it was supposed to work.
I fire three rounds in quick succession. All center mass. My hands remember what my legs forgot.
Sometimes, late at night when the compound goes quiet and the pain in my spine keeps me awake, I think about ending it.
The thought surfaces now, familiar and unwelcome.
I've turned it over in my mind more times than I can count.
The gun in my hand. The barrel against my temple.
One squeeze of the trigger and the pain stops.
The humiliation stops. The endless fucking struggle to prove I'm still worth something—it all stops.
But I'm too selfish.
I want my life. Not this half-existence in a wheelchair, watching my brothers run the empire. I want my life back.
I will have it back.
I've suffered enough to earn it.
I've paid the price. I'm still paying it.
But Antonella hasn't.
I lower the gun. My arms ache. My shoulders burn. I've been shooting for over an hour.
When she kissed me, I felt alive for the first time in two years.
And that terrifies me more than anything.
I set the gun down on the table beside my wheelchair.
I can't drag her down with me.
But I'm too selfish to let her go.
The contradiction tears at me. I want her gone so she can have a real life. I want her here so I can keep feeling whatever this is.
I grab the gun again. Load another magazine.
The first shot hits the target's shoulder. The second hits the chest. The third goes through the throat.
She's wrong.
There's nothing left to save. Just anger and ambition and the stubborn refusal to die.