Chapter 33 Sora
SORA
The window creaks as I force it open, the warm summer air rushing in like freedom. My hands shake, not from the chill, but from the terror slamming through me with every heartbeat.
If I get caught, they’ll lock me away again. If I don’t leave now, Leo will die.
I glance behind me one last time—the guards are still stationed outside the hallway. My mother thought she’d broken me. That locking me in this room, taking away my phone, would be enough to stop me from trying to warn him.
But she doesn’t understand who I am. She doesn’t know what matters to me more than anything. The baby. Leo. Even if he used me, even if he never truly cared, I do care. And I won’t let him die. I can’t.
I lower myself out the window and drop to the garden below, knees hitting the soft earth hard.
I wince but scramble up, slipping through the shadows of the estate like I used to as a child.
The side gate is unguarded—just like I hoped.
My father always did have a blind spot for his favorite koi pond.
Once I’m free of the wall, I run. It’s going to be a challenge to get back home without a phone or any means to pay someone. But I have to try. Even if it means walking all seven miles.
By the time I reach the outskirts of the Chiaroscuro estate, dusk is darkening the horizon.
No police lights color the quickly falling darkness, and a sliver of hope creeps into my belly.
Maybe, just maybe, I made it before the fighting started.
It’s possible my brother would want to wait for the cover of night before he makes his move.
Then I see the smoke. Thick black tendrils curl into the sky like a dark omen, barely visible in the dim evening light. My stomach drops.
No. No, no, no.
I sprint the last few steps and choke on a sob.
The front gates are gone. Blown open. One hangs by a single hinge, twisted like a bent limb.
Bodies lie scattered across the driveway beyond.
Men I recognize, men who were sworn to protect the Chiaroscuro family, lie face down in the gravel, blood painting the ground beneath them.
And as I slowly make my way past their lifeless bodies toward the house, the cold, horrifying truth sinks in.
The reason the police aren’t here is because someone paid them to stay away.
No one came to stop it. And worst of all…
My family did this.
As I reach the end of the long drive, my heart stops in my chest at the sight.
The front of the Chiaroscuro mansion—what used to be like a fairy-tale castle, with its stone arches and climbing vines—is all but gone, three-fourths of it collapsed into a pile of rubble and ash.
Flames lick the bones of the house I had started to think of as my home.
Shattered glass glitters across the scorched earth.
The once-impenetrable stone walls are cracked, blackened.
Smoke drifts from every corner of the estate.
Sporadic gunshots still echo faintly in the distance, but there’s no mistaking the silence beneath it all. As I look upon the horror my family has wrought, an icy fear creeps up my spine.
I’m too late.
It’s almost too much for my mind to process, the fact that there’s no chance Leo could have survived this.
Leo. My heart shatters, the already-fragmented pieces exploding into a million little shards as I think about how much has changed in a single day.
Just last night, I was in Leo’s arms, finally ready to tell him everything. I almost did.
I press a trembling hand over my stomach, shielding the tiny secret buried beneath my skin, and a fierce denial rages to life in my chest. Leo can’t be dead.
“Leo,” I whisper. “Leo—please.”
I stumble forward, feet slipping in soot and blood, eyes burning from smoke and tears and disbelief as I make it through the shambles of the front door.
The main hall is gutted, the towering roof collapsed on one side, the rubble still smoldering.
I think I scream his name, but the wind tears it from my throat.
He’s dead. They’re all dead. Oh, God, what has my family done? What have I done?
I only get a second’s warning from the sound of broken glass crunching beneath someone’s shoe before someone grabs me from behind. Then a strong hand clamps over my mouth, muffling my scream. I thrash, kicking, clawing.
“Shut up,” the man growls, and then I’m slammed back into the wall of what used to be the east wing as he pins me against the scorched bricks.
My breath catches as I look up into the devastatingly handsome and terrifyingly furious face. “Leo!”
My voice breaks as I say his name again, but it comes out muffled beneath his palm. Tears of relief well in my eyes, and I bite back a sob as he slowly lowers his hand but keeps his forearm firmly pressed against across my collar bones and the base of my throat.
“You’re alive! I thought… I thought…”
His face is smeared with ash and blood, his dark hair tousled, shirt torn, chest heaving.
And the look in his eyes—it isn’t relief.
It isn’t even anger. It’s betrayal. Fury crackles off him like lightning, searing my skin.
“You have a lot of nerve,” he spits, pressing me more firmly into the wall. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
My heart hammers, my mouth suddenly bone dry. “I–I came to warn you. I didn’t know they were going to—”
“To what, slaughter my entire family?” he snarls, every last ounce of the love and tenderness from last night gone.
“I swear, I didn’t know, Leo,” I gasp. “I only just escaped—”
“You escaped?” He laughs bitterly. “What, are you telling me they conveniently had you locked up this whole time?”
“They did,” I insist.
“You really expect me to believe that?” he snarls, his eyes lethal—black, unreadable, cold. “Don’t bother lying, Sora. Your brother told me everything. Right before I put a bullet in his guts.”
I flinch, but I don’t look away. “Kenji’s… dead?” An inexplicable sadness creeps into my chest. My brother was a cruel man. Leo had every right—every reason—to kill him. Still, I can’t help but hate just how much death and destruction clings to this world we live in.
Leo scoffs. “And if I had a shadow of doubt that you weren’t involved, the look on your face just confirmed it. You were never loyal to me, were you? You’ve been your family’s little spy this whole time.”
My pulse flutters as his eyes blaze with renewed hatred. “I didn’t know. I swear,” I breathe, for the first time feeling like Leo might genuinely be capable of killing me.
He lets out a bitter laugh, shoving off me like I’ve scorched him. “Right. Just like you didn’t marry me so you could play the perfect wife in my bed and pass on information until the time was right.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Isn’t it?” His voice is ice. “Then how is it you just so happened to disappear at the perfect moment, right before the attack? It doesn’t take a genius to do the math, Sora. I might not be the brightest man, but I’m no idiot.”
“I went to my family for help!” I shout, my voice cracking. “I thought they’d protect me—” I stop myself, the words catching in my throat like thorns. I can’t tell him about the baby. Not now. Not when he’s looking at me like I’m a traitor.
Leo’s face twists, reading the hesitation like it’s a confession of guilt. “Protect you from what?” he demands. “From me?”
“I was scared,” I whisper, the truth slipping out before I can swallow it. “I didn’t know who I could trust.”
His laugh is sharp and humorless. “You trusted them, though. You always did.”
“I don’t trust them anymore,” I snap. “You think I’d be here if I did?”
“You shouldn’t be here at all,” he growls. “Not unless you came to die.”
The words hit like a punch to the gut, and I flinch. Not because I think he’ll kill me, but because I know part of him truly wants to.
“You wouldn’t,” I breathe, my pulse fluttering erratically as I call his bluff.
“And why not?” he demands, his voice flat and deadly.
“Because they locked me up!” I shout, desperation surging. “They wanted to control me, Leo! They never cared about me, not really. But I care about you. I came back to warn you. You have to believe me.”
His mouth twists. “I don’t have to believe anything that comes out of your lying mouth. My men are dead. My home is gone. And your family did this. So no—I don’t owe you trust. I don’t owe you mercy.”
I take a step back, trembling as my spine finds the cold brick once more, and Leo follows, his expression menacing as he brings his face mere inches from mine.
“But I’ll give you mercy. Just once,” he hisses.
He grabs my arm, dragging me through the ruins. I stumble over bricks and broken glass. My legs are too weak to fight. He pulls me through what used to be the foyer and shoves me toward the crumbled doorway.
“Go back to your family,” he says. “Tell them I’ll see them soon.”
I shake my head, choking on a sob. “I can’t.”
“Why?” he snaps. “Because you want to stay and pick through the wreckage?”
I press my lips together, biting back the truth.
I want to scream it at him, to tell him everything, but it won’t change his mind.
Not now. Especially not now. If I told him I was carrying his child, he would only throw it back in my face, tell me I’m lying or trying to trick him somehow.
I can’t give him another weapon to cut me down with.
But as the silence stretches between us, I can see the conviction growing in his eyes.
“If I ever see you again, Sora… I won’t hesitate.” Leo’s voice is low, venomous.
And as he turns to walk away, it feels as though my heart is ripped from my chest, determined to go with him.
“Leo,” I whisper, one last, broken plea. But I don’t even know what I’m asking for anymore. Forgiveness? Protection? A reason to stay alive?
Leo turns his head to look at me over his shoulder, disgust written plainly across his face. “Go ahead, Sora, try to trap me longer. Feed me more of your pretty lies. I’m done believing them.”
“I don’t care what you believe,” I say, voice shaking. “I just wanted you to live.”
For a moment, there’s silence. Just the soft hiss of dying flames.
Leo’s shoulders drop, as if the fight has left him, and he sounds almost pained as he delivers his parting words. “The next time our paths cross, I will kill you.”
My heart shatters, clean and final, as he turns and walks away, leaving me standing in the rubble alone.
I don’t know how long I stand there. Long enough for the smoke to sting my eyes. Long enough for my knees to give out and my body to slump to the dirt like a discarded thing. I press my forehead to my knees and fight the sobs clawing their way up my throat.
I have nothing. No family. No allies. No home. And now, no husband. Just a secret buried beneath my ribs and a world that wants us both dead.
Finally, I force myself to stand. I have to move. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I can’t stay here.
But the realization comes too late. I’ve stayed out in the open for too long. I should know better than anyone what happens in the aftermath of a hostile takeover, but I was so overcome with grief, I didn’t think about how the last gunshots tapered off a while ago.
My heart skips a beat as I feel fingers on my hair, and the world around me snaps into sharp relief as they tighten, yanking my head back as a rough hand clamps over my mouth. I’m jerked back against a broad, powerful chest, only this time, I know it’s not Leo’s.
“Well, well,” my captor purrs in Russian-accented English as two more hulking, bearded men step from the shadows. “Look what we have here, boys.”
I thrash, but the hand in my hair wrenches me back painfully as his other hand moves to clamp around my throat. My ears ring as my blood and oxygen supply are both cut off in an instant.
The two men before me laugh, their wicked smiles warning me that this is only the beginning of the horrors to come.
“Chiaroscuro’s little wife? She’s prettier than I expected,” one says.
“Let’s fix that,” the other quips, pulling a knife.
I try to scream, but no sound comes out as they drag me into the shadows.