Chapter 26 - Alessandro
“The new security detail starts tomorrow—two men with you at all times when you leave the compound.”
I deliver the decree from behind my mahogany desk, leather and gun oil thick in the air of my study.
Emma stands before me like a summoned subject, still pale from her suicide attempt three days ago but with something harder in her eyes than I've seen before.
Three days of careful distance. Three days of her recuperating in our bed while I orchestrate lies from this desk.
Three days of pretending grief is all that's killing her.
"Two guards," she repeats, her voice flat. "Like I'm some kind of prisoner."
"Like you're under my protection." I keep my tone reasonable, controlled, though my fingers itch to reach for her, to feel her pulse confirm she's still alive. "After what happened, after the threats…"
"After I tried to kill myself, you mean." The words slice through my carefully constructed calm. "You can say it, Alex. I made a mistake. And now you're punishing me for it."
"I'm protecting you." My hands flatten against the desk hard enough to make the wood creak. This massive piece of furniture between us feels necessary. Distance keeps me from touching her, from letting emotion override logic. "The compound is secure. These men are trained. You'll be safe."
She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Safe from what?
From who? The Hewsons are still out there, escalating their blackmailing threats even after they had Tommy killed.
You couldn't stop the Hewsons, you couldn't stop the blackmailing, and you couldn't protect Tommy.
So how exactly are you going to protect me?
Everyone's gone or dead, now. Who are you protecting me from? "
From yourself. The thought burns through my mind like acid. Every time she's out of my sight, I imagine her finding another bottle of sleeping pills, a knife, another way to leave me. My jaw clenches hard enough to crack teeth.
"There are always threats in our world," I say instead, though the words are ash in my mouth. "You know this."
"I know you're treating me like I'm made of glass, Alex. I survived everything else. The wedding, the blackmail, losing Tommy. I can survive the truth."
"No." The word comes out harder than intended, more growl than speech. "You only survived losing Tommy because I was there to save you. This isn't negotiable, Emma. The guards stay."
I haven’t been idle these past days. The blackmailers’ money trail led me somewhere unexpected: a shell company with ties to Brighton Beach.
Russian territory. The blackmail felt personal from the start—someone who knew about Emma, who had access to information about the Hewsons' arrangement.
But Russians? The Volkovs have no reason to care about my marriage unless this isn't about Emma at all.
Unless she's just the door they're using to get inside.
Either way, she’s in danger, and I intend to keep her safe.
Her jaw sets. Three days ago, she melted at my touch. Now she stands straighter, claiming space instead of retreating. The woman who tried to die came back different. Less willing to be managed.
And she suspects I'm not telling her the truth about Tommy. She suspects I know more than I am letting on.
And she's right.
But I can't tell her. She can't handle the truth, she proved that much when she took those pills. So there's no fucking way in hell I'll risk her doing something so stupid again.
When she's better, I'll tell her. But not now. Not yet.
"Fine." She turns toward the bulletproof glass that make the windows, studying the grounds where my men patrol in precise patterns. "Since you're making all the decisions about my life, have you at least handled the arrangements?"
My chest tightens. "What arrangements?"
"For Tommy." Her voice catches slightly on his name. "His funeral. I need to know when I can say goodbye properly."
The medical reports locked in my drawer burn through the wood. Documents confirming her brother breathes in a secure facility upstate, recovering from injuries but very much alive. The lie I've been living scorches my throat.
"I'm handling everything," I say, keeping my voice smooth. "You don't need to worry about the details."
"I want to worry about them." She turns from the window, dark eyes searching mine. "He was my brother, Alex. I need to know. Where is his body? Which funeral home? When can I see him?"
"Stellina…" The endearment escapes before I can stop it, bitter on my tongue.
"Don't." Her hand cuts through the air. "Don't deflect. Don't evade. Just tell me the truth. Where is Tommy's body?"
I shuffle papers on my desk, buying time while violence coils in my gut. Not toward her, never her, but toward the situation I've created. "The authorities are still processing everything. These things take time."
"How much time?" She moves closer to the desk, her questions becoming pointed weapons. "It's been days. Have you claimed his body? Made arrangements? Or are you just hoping I'll forget?"
"Of course I haven't forgotten." The lie burns. "I'm trying to spare you the pain of…"
"Of what? Grieving my brother properly?" Her voice rises. "I don't need you to spare me, Alex. I need information. I need truth."
Truth. The word sits between us like a loaded Glock. The truth would either heal her or destroy what little stability she's found. Every instinct screams to maintain control, to manage this situation like I manage territories and shipments.
"The morgue requires paperwork," I hedge, watching her face tighten with each evasion. "Identification. Legal processes. I'm handling it all."
"Then show me the paperwork." Her demand catches me off-guard. The servant girl would never have dared. "Show me the death certificate. The morgue receipts. Something."
"They're being processed…"
"Stop lying to me!" The words explode from her, raw and desperate. "Every time I ask about Tommy, you deflect. You hide things. Just like you hid information about the blackmailers until it was almost too late. What aren't you telling me about my brother?"
The locked drawer pulses with accusation. I've been sloppy, distracted by nearly losing her, forgetting that Emma notices everything. A survival skill from years of being invisible.
"I need to make a call," I say, reaching for my phone though every instinct screams not to turn my back on her. "Territory issue. Five minutes."
Emma's bitter laugh cuts deep. "Of course. Business always comes first. Even over my dead brother."
I turn toward the window, phone pressed to my ear, discussing shipping routes I don't give a fuck about. But I'm hyperaware of the silence behind me shifting, the whisper of movement that shouldn't be there.
Stellina, what are you…
The soft click of my desk drawer opening. The drawer I always lock, except this morning when grief and exhaustion made me careless. I spin around, the phone clattering to the floor.
Emma stands at my desk, papers spilling across the mahogany surface like blood from a wound. The medical reports, transfer orders, custody agreements. All of it spreading before her in damning clarity.
"What is this?" she asks, her voice deadly quiet, each word is a bullet fired at point-blank range. "Patient name: Thomas Pitt."
The silence that follows feels like the moment before an execution.
"He's alive." She looks up at me, and the devastation in her eyes is worse than if she'd pulled a gun. "Tommy is alive, and you knew. Did you stage the whole thing?"
"What? No, of course not. Emma, let me explain…"
"Explain?" She holds up the medical report, her hands shaking so violently the paper rattles.
"Explain how my brother has been in your custody for three days?
How you've been getting medical updates while I grieved?
While I…" Her voice shatters. "While I tried to kill myself because I thought he was dead? "
Fuck. The papers tremble in her fingers. Each document another nail in my coffin, proof of my deception spreading across my desk.
"I was protecting you," I growl, the words inadequate even to my own ears. "The threats, the blackmail. If they knew he was alive…"
"You let me believe he was dead!" The scream tears from her throat. "You held me while I sobbed for him. You comforted me through nightmares about his death. And the whole time, he was breathing in some facility you control?"
I move toward her, desperate to make her understand, but she backs away like I'm poison. Three days ago, this body learned to crave mine. Now it remembers how to resist.
"You're just like them." The words leave her lips like shattered glass. "The Hewsons. Mrs. Hewson deciding what I could handle. And now you. Deciding what truth I deserve, what pain I'm allowed to feel."
She throws the papers at me. They scatter like dead birds, medical files and court orders fluttering across the Persian rug. One lands at my feet. Tommy's intake photo, very much alive, staring up at me in accusation.
"Emma, please…"
"You watched me grieve!" Her voice cracks with betrayal.
"I couldn't risk…"
"Risk what? Me having agency? Me making my own choices?" She laughs, but it sounds like breaking. "You don't see me as your wife, do you? I'm just another acquisition. Another beautiful thing to collect and control. A doll you can lock away when reality gets messy."
The accusation cuts deep. Every instinct screams to lock the door, to trap her here until she understands. But that's exactly what she's accusing me of. Making her another beautiful prisoner. The irony draws blood.
"I love you," I say desperately, my control fracturing. "Everything I did was to protect you."
"You don't protect someone by lying to them about their brother being dead!
" Her voice echoes off the walls. "You held me after I woke up, whispered that you understood my pain, that you'd help me through losing Tommy.
But you knew. You knew he was breathing, recovering, living. And you let me believe he was gone."
My carefully constructed justifications crumble. Every word she speaks cuts deeper than any knife. I treated her exactly like the Hewsons did. Like someone too fragile for truth, too weak for reality.
"I thought if you knew…"
"You thought." She emphasizes each word with bitter precision. "You decided. You controlled. Just like everyone else in my life, you took away my choices and called it protection."
The tears on her face gut me, but when I step toward her, she backs away with her hand raised. The rejection burns worse than any bullet wound.
"Don't. Don't touch me. Don't comfort me.
" Her voice steadies into something worse than anger.
Cold resolution. "I trusted you with everything.
My real name. My past. My body. My heart.
And you couldn't trust me with the truth about my own brother.
I was wrong about you, Alex." Emma's voice carries a deadly calm that makes my blood freeze. "I thought you were different."
She moves toward the door with measured steps, no longer asking permission, no longer seeking approval. Each click of her heels on marble sounds like bullets being chambered.
She pauses at the door, hand on the handle. "The truth is, you never trusted a mere servant to handle her own life."
"Emma, wait…"
"No." She turns to face me one last time, and the strength in her expression stops me cold. "I'm done waiting for other people to decide what I can handle."
She opens the door, and I feel our entire world tilting off its axis. If she leaves the compound now, if our enemies see her alone and unprotected, they'll smell blood in the water. And I've just handed them the knife.
"Where are you going?"
"To see my brother. My living brother." The words are precision strikes, each one aimed to kill. "And if your guards try to stop me, if you try to stop me, you'll learn that Emma Pitt isn't as fragile as you thought."
"You don't even know where he is."
She tilts her head, her eyes on fire. "3504 Hamilton Ave, Rockford."
I glance at the documents on the floor. Of course she memorized the address.
"Stellina…"
"That's Mrs. Rosetti to you." The formality cuts deeper than any blade. She weaponizes my own name against me. The name the Hewsons forced on her becomes her armor against me. Fucking poetic. "Since you seem to have forgotten that wives are partners, not possessions."
She walks through the door with her spine straight, her head high. Not fleeing, not running. Walking with the measured pace of someone who's finally claimed their own power.
My fist connects with the wall beside the door she just walked through. The plaster cracks, blood immediately welling on my knuckles. The pain is nothing compared to watching her walk away. The physical damage can't match what I've done to us.
I stand frozen among the scattered papers, the proof of my betrayal spread across my floor like evidence at a crime scene. The closed door might as well be an ocean between us, between what we were this morning and what we've become.
The silence in my study is deafening, broken only by the drip of blood from my knuckles onto the Persian rug. For the first time since our wedding, I don't know where my wife is going, what she's thinking, or if she's ever coming back.
And for the first time, I understand that I might have protected her from everything except the one thing that could truly destroy us. Myself.