Silent Heart (Blood Promise #1)

PROLOGUE

Ariana's POV

"Ariana?"

My eyelids felt like lead, but that voice — that low, honey-thick voice — cut through the haze.

“Fuck...” I breathed, a smile twitching onto my lips. He was here. Finally.

Butterflies tore through my gut like shrapnel. I’d know that voice anywhere — the one that could make even a death threat sound like poetry.

“Ariana?”

There it was again. Jesus, that voice could melt steel. I wanted to jump up, throw myself into his arms, tell him I loved him — tell him a thousand times, so he’d never forget it.

“Ariana?”

He said my name like it meant something holy. My pulse spiked. Nobody else got to hear him like that — that soft tone that made me feel beautiful in a world built on violence. Everyone else feared him. But me? I saw the man under the monster.

Then his tone changed.

“Ariana?!?”

The air snapped cold. His voice was sharper, desperate, bouncing off unseen walls. I blinked, sat up — or tried to. The place around me wasn’t right.

What the hell...

The windows were sealed with rusted iron plates. No light. Just shadows and that thick, wet smell — blood. Fresh. My stomach clenched.

“Ariana? Where the fuck are you?! Stop playing games with me!”

His shout rattled my bones. That wasn’t the Alessandro I knew. This one was scared — or pissed. Probably both.

I pressed my palms to the cold floor, forcing myself upright. The air felt heavy, metallic. My breath came in short bursts.

He called again, and his voice cracked this time. “Ariana... stop. Please, baby. Please come out...”

Something in me broke. Alessandro never begged. Never.

I turned toward the sound — a steel door. His voice was coming from behind it. I tried to stand, but pain shot up my back like fire. I gritted my teeth and crawled, dragging myself until I reached the door. There was a tiny slit near the top. I pulled myself up by the frame — and froze.

He was on his knees.

Alessandro fucking Romano — the man everyone feared — was crumbling on the other side, head in his hands, shaking, whispering my name like a prayer.

My lips parted, but no words came out. I just stared, breath caught in my throat. I’d seen him kill men without blinking. But this? This broke me.

This had to be a nightmare. A bad dream. I just had to wake up.

Then the wind shifted — cold, filthy, crawling over my skin. Goosebumps raced up my arms. Something was wrong. Really wrong.

I tried to move, but pain ripped through me again. My muscles screamed, my bones felt like they’d been through a grinder. Still, I managed to turn — and froze when something brushed against me.

A hand.

No... not moving.

I turned my head — and my world tilted.

Bodies.

Five of them. Strewn across the floor, blood pooling around them like some fucked-up halo. Eyes open. Mouths slack. Still warm.

My heart slammed against my ribs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream. The sound died in my throat.

Then I looked down.

Blood. All over me. My hands, my shirt, my thighs. Red. Sticky. Too much of it.

“Oh my God...” I whispered, trembling. “Oh my fucking God...”

Whose blood was it? Mine? Theirs? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.

I forced myself upright, groaning through the pain. “Alessandro!” My voice cracked. “Alessandro, I’m here! I’m right here!”

Nothing.

He didn’t hear me.

I slammed my fists on the steel door until my knuckles stung. “Please! Look at me, dammit!” My voice echoed, hollow, bouncing back at me like mockery.

He stood up — and walked right past the door.

“No!” I screamed, my voice shredding. “No, no, no!”

I stumbled forward, tried to follow — but something yanked me back. The sound of metal clinking hit my ears.

Chains.

Thick ones.

Wrapped around my ankles, tight enough to bruise.

I just stared at them for a second, numb.

“What the hell...”

Then it hit me — the fear, the confusion, the disbelief. I was chained up, surrounded by corpses, covered in blood — and the man I loved was out there, breaking apart, thinking I was gone.

And I didn’t even know if I was still alive.

I fumbled for memory like a drunk groping for a light switch. Bits kept slipping away — a laugh, a flash, the smell — and every time I reached for them a hammer of pain exploded behind my eyes. My skull felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. I winced and tried again.

I stared at one of the bodies until my vision blurred.

Faces, uniforms — something familiar about the cut and the patch — but memory shrugged and walked away.

I didn’t recognize any of them. Their uniforms nagged at me like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

Where had I seen that pattern? Who wore that tag?

“Alessandro!” I rasped, half prayer, half command, and dragged my hand toward the door. My body betrayed me — I crumpled back to the floor, breath leaving me in a rattled sigh. I’d lost count of how many times I’d screamed his name.

“Ariana...”

His voice made me snap my head toward the sealed door. It was closer now, nearer than before. Relief seeped into my bones — he was in the right building, searching, and that meant he’d find me. That had to be enough.

I tried again, every syllable a struggle. “Alessandro!” I mouthed, but something rough hit my mouth — a hand, a gag — and my call turned into a muffled whisper. His shouts kept coming from the other side of the door, frantic, each one marching closer.

I saw a tall silhouette loom. I forced the name from my throat. “Dan—”

The rest of it never left my lips. Something covered my mouth hard, and someone hauled me away like a sack of meat.

The chains on my ankles scraped the floor, a shrieking metal sound that made my teeth ache.

I screamed anyway. Pain lit up my back as I was dragged into a smaller room off the main one, and then I was slammed against the wall — pinned, breath knocked out of me — while the pounding on the other door went into overdrive.

A heavy thud told me Alessandro had forced his way in.

“Dant—” I tried.

“Ssh!” the voice hissed.

Darkness swallowed the room. My eyes adjusted and I traced movement — a shape shifting in the black. Then a face stepped out of the gloom, and my chest did something that nearly killed me.

“D—Dad?” I breathed.

He emerged fully from the dark: hair plastered to a sweat-slick forehead, his suit a ruined thing, the lines of his face sharp and tired.

He looked like someone who’d walked through a thunderstorm and kept going.

He glared first, then softened a fraction when our eyes met.

Relief unfurled in me like a warm blanket — if Alessandro couldn’t find me, maybe my father could. Maybe this horror would end.

“It’s me,” he said, voice low and wrapped in a smile that did nothing to hide the danger under it.

I clung to that smile and the memory of him leaving a week ago for America burned in the back of my mind — he wasn’t supposed to be here yet. I shouldn’t have felt surprised to see him, but the way he looked now made something scream inside my ribs.

“Dad, what the hell’s going on? Why are we hiding?” My words came out fast and thin. I wanted out. I wanted home.

“Not now. I’ll answer later.” He cut me off with a growl.

“But—” I started.

“Shut the fuck up!” His hand clamped over my mouth like a vice. Pain rolled through me as his fingers dug into my jaw. I stopped, choking on the fear and the bile.

Footsteps crept closer to the door. My father watched the wall like a man expecting a landmine to spring. Then he turned back to me. His palm on my face tightened until I could feel bone through skin.

“Ariana,” he said quietly — the voice of the man who’d raised me, coated in steel. “You know I won’t tolerate childish behavior. I’m your father. You respect me the way I taught you.”

I nodded because my throat wouldn’t work right. He kept my mouth covered so I couldn’t call out, so I couldn’t warn Alessandro that I was alive. The words sank in like poison.

“You will never see Alessandro ever again. You will stay away from him. Is that understood?”

It hit me in the chest like a fist. Not just a command — a verdict. My heart splintered and started to rain shards. I’d known he hated our relationship; I’d known he’d try to stop it. I hadn’t believed he’d go this far. I’d never pictured him smiling as he did it.

Tears came hot and sudden. I felt my father’s thumb press into my jawbone until the world blurred. All I could do was roll down into a whimper.

“I said shut the fuck up, Ariana. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” He spat the words, venom slow and precise.

Then he slapped me. Full force. I went down hard, cheek burning as if branded. I vomited from the shock, clawing at the floor with nails that slid in blood and dust.

I tried to crawl away, but everything fired with pain — a sharp, aching burn in my lower stomach that made me double over, a shudder that was more than fear. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I could only cry and plead until my voice was a raw thing in my throat.

Then a gunshot cracked the air — a single, ugly sound from the other side of the wall. It ripped through me like a guttering flame. My heart jackhammered. I stilled, listening for the aftershocks.

My father laughed. A low, wet sound that oozed satisfaction and something worse. It felt like ice poured down my spine.

I hauled myself to the door and pushed it open with every ounce of strength left in me, sliding onto my stomach to see.

A body hit the floor with a dull thud; blood blossomed like a dark flower. For a dizzy second, everything in me screamed that it was Alessandro. My hands went to the ground, palms pressing into the grit, and I groped toward him, stupid, blind, begging for proof that this nightmare would end.

My father’s laugh cut through the haze again, closer now, full of the kind of sick pride that made bile rise in my throat. “Sweetheart,” he cooed, all sickly affection, and I hated him for the warmth in that voice. I ignored him and crawled toward the figure on the floor.

Before I could reach it, his grip like iron locked around my arm and yanked me back. He turned me until I met his face. Up close, his satisfaction was a thing that showed in his eyes.

“This bastard is gone,” he said, slow and final. “I finished him.”

The words dropped inside me like stones. I stared at my father and then at the body again, the world tipping. A tear fell, hot and unbelieving, and for a fragile second I refused to let the finality of his words take root.

“You won’t see him — not in a million years,” he said, voice hard as a tombstone. “He’s fucking dead. Do you hear me?”

I heard him. But hope — stupid, stubborn, dangerous hope — whispered that this couldn’t be true. I pushed myself up on shaking arms and went to the body again, hands trembling, desperate for something, anything, to prove me wrong.

“No... Dad, I—” My voice broke. I glanced over my shoulder, my eyes catching on the body sprawled across the floor. “He’s not dead... Dad, he’s strong. Stronger than anything. You’re just— you’re ly-lying. I—I don’t believe you.”

The words barely left my mouth before another slap cracked across my face.

The same cheek. The same sting. I didn’t even feel pain anymore — just the numb, hollow burn that came after too many hits.

I could tell he’d left a mark; my skin throbbed with it.

I stared at him through a blur of tears, searching for anything — guilt, mercy, love — but there was nothing there.

Just that dead, icy look I used to mistake for discipline.

“If the motherfucker’s so strong,” he snarled, “then why’s he over there, lying in his own pool of blood, huh? Tell me that, you foolish little girl!”

He grabbed me by the shoulders — hard — spinning me around like a rag doll until I was facing it. The body. “Look at him!” he roared. “Look at this dead thing! Look at this fucking bàstard!”

His voice thundered through my skull, and I wanted to disappear. I couldn’t look — I wouldn’t. Every instinct screamed not to.

I whimpered, shrinking back, but he shoved me forward again, forcing me closer.

“I fucking warned you, Ariana! I told you this would happen if you didn’t stop with your damn games!

” His breath came out sharp, venomous. “Never underestimate me, because look — look at what I’ve done!

He put himself here, in this position, for daring to touch what’s mine!

” He shouted again, rage bleeding into every word. “Look, Ariana!”

His fingers clawed at my jaw, nails digging in as he forced my face toward the floor. My eyelids clenched shut so tight they hurt. I couldn’t do it — couldn’t see him like that. Not Alessandro.

When I still wouldn’t look, my father shoved me forward — so hard I stumbled — and fell right onto the body. My palms hit something slick and warm.

I screamed.

The smell hit me first — blood, copper, and sweat. I scrambled back, hands shaking, but it was too late. My eyes caught the glint of silver around the wrist — his wrist. The watch I’d given him. The one he swore he’d never take off.

My chest caved in.

“No...” The word broke out of me like glass. My head spun; the world tilted sideways. I crawled to him on instinct, trembling, barely breathing. I rolled him onto his back, my fingers slipping on his blood.

It was him.

“D—Alessandro,” I whispered, the sound of his name cracking in my throat. “Wake up. It’s me. Wake up, baby...”

My hands cupped his face — cold, so cold — his skin pale, his lips dry and turning blue. I smoothed his cheek with shaking fingers, hoping he’d flinch, twitch, breathe.

He didn’t.

I shook him harder. “Alessandro! Come on, baby, you hear me? Wake the fuck up!” My voice fell apart, rasping, desperate.

I looked down — at the dark wound gaping in his stomach, blood still slick and hot against my thighs. Every second, more color drained from his face. He looked like marble, like something carved and left behind.

“Alessandro...” My voice cracked again. My chin trembled. I pressed my forehead against his, the world fading to a ringing silence. His blood stained my skin, seeped into my clothes, and the warmth of it made me realize just how cold he was.

There was so much of it — too much — and I couldn’t comprehend it anymore. My thoughts spun out, scattered like glass shards on the floor. I held him tighter, rocking him against me, as if that could pull him back.

And then, it hit me — the truth, blunt and merciless.

He wasn’t here anymore.

He was gone.

He was never coming back.