CHAPTER 19
Ariana's POV
I wipe my head and crouch on the floor, sitting in the corner, trying to figure out what the hell to even do at this point.
It’s been a few days since I was put in this house, and the only person I’ve seen is Mia — which, honestly, I’m grateful for.
She’s the only one here who doesn’t intimidate me.
I look up just as Mia walks in... with Matt.
What the hell was he doing here?
“Ariana...” Mia called gently, but I refused to look at them.
“Come on, Ariana, you have to speak to him.”
“Leave me alone.”
“No,” she said firmly. Mia knelt down, taking my hand in hers. “It’s been days, and you still haven’t spoken to anyone except me. Please... talk to Matt.”
I push myself up, trying to get out of her reach — but my head spins and the floor tilts. My balance gives out, and before I can fall flat on my face, Matt rushes forward to catch me.
“Okay,” he mutters, holding me steady. “When was the last time you ate, Ariana?”
I don’t answer. I’m too busy being pissed that he’s even near me. I don’t want him close — not after everything.
“She hasn’t eaten,” Mia answered for me. “All the food I brought her... untouched.”
Matt sighed, lifting me carefully and carrying me to the other room — the one where I was supposed to sleep. The second my head hit the pillow, it felt like a dream. My muscles were sore, my head pounding from hunger, my stomach growling like it might devour itself.
“Ariana, you need to eat,” Matt said softly, trying to get me upright. “Please don’t do this to yourself.”
“Why do you care anyway?” I slurred, my voice heavy.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he used a little force to get me to sit up.
The moment he did, I was fully awake — glaring at his face as he took a plate of food from Mia.
She hovered at the doorway, then left, and somehow that made me feel worse.
I didn’t even have the energy to fight anymore. Right now, I just needed food.
“As your therapist, I have the right to be concerned about you,” Matt said as he fed me a spoonful of rice. The taste — plain, simple rice — exploded in my mouth. I didn’t realize how starved I’d been until that moment.
“My therapist?” I scoffed, swallowing hard. I took the plate from his hands, unwilling to sit there and be spoon-fed like a child. He let me, just watching while I ate. “Are you even really a therapist? Is Matt even your real name?”
“Yes, Matt is my name. And yes, I am a therapist,” he said firmly, though his frown deepened. “As your therapist, I want to know how you’re feeling — why you haven’t been taking care of yourself these past few days.”
Before I could snap back at him, he added, “And please... put your anger aside. You can take it all out later, I’ll be here for it.”
I frowned, still chewing, but deep down there was a flicker of relief. Even in this mess, at least Matt was someone familiar — someone who’d listened before. For a moment, this felt like one of our old therapy sessions, just in a nightmare version of my life.
“I feel so betrayed,” I said finally, my voice cracking.
“So fucking hurt about so many things. I want everything to stop sometimes, but every time I think about it, I force myself not to... not to do something about it. My head hurts from overthinking, my body’s too tired to keep stressing about things that just keep coming back from the past.”
Tears burned my eyes and spilled down my cheeks, but I didn’t stop. Matt scooted closer, wrapping his hand around mine. He didn’t interrupt — just listened. And that, somehow, made it worse.
“I want to start over,” I whispered, “but every time I try, the past keeps coming back. I kissed you thinking I was over Alessandro, and for a split second... it worked. Until I found out you work for him.” My voice broke again, sharp and bitter. “Why, Matt? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m sorry, Ariana,” he said quietly. “You have every right to be angry with me. I work for Alessandro, yes... but I’ve never met him. When I was first assigned, I was told to be your therapist under his name. I was just following orders. He doesn’t even know I’ve been treating you.”
I stared at him, stunned, tears streaming down my face.
“How?”
“I work for the mafia, Ariana,” he said flatly. “That’s how.”
“Oh...” I muttered, blinking slowly.
Oh, indeed.
I’d forgotten — or maybe I’d just forced myself to. Mafias. Just when I thought I was free, the past clawed its way back to control my life again.
My eyelids grew heavy. I wiped at my face, absentmindedly poking at the food with my spoon. The only sound left in the room was the quiet clink of metal on porcelain — until Matt reached over and stopped my hand.
“I would never hurt you,” he said softly. “If anything, I’m here to protect you.”
“Protect me? From what?” My brows furrowed.
Matt didn’t answer. He just shook his head and released my arm.
“Finish eating, Ariana. You need rest.”
His reassurance meant nothing. My mind was chaos, screaming at me to ignore everything, but my heart... my heart was telling me otherwise. I needed to get out. Every time I thought of Mom, my stomach twisted — she must be worried sick by now.
I glanced up at Matt, trying to meet his eyes, but he wouldn’t look at me. He just stared at the floor, shame written all over his face. It made me wonder what else he was hiding.
He might have been my therapist, but I knew one thing for sure — he wasn’t telling me everything.
***
“RIGHT, SO WE NEED A plan for you, because realistically, this clearly isn’t healthy.”
Matt’s voice cut through the silence. I turned my gaze toward him where he sat, scrolling through an iPad — the same one he’d been glued to for the past hour.
He was working, or at least pretending to.
Beside him, Mia nodded in quiet agreement, her voice softer, more sympathetic when she spoke to me.
I looked away, my fingers fidgeting restlessly in my lap.
I knew my habits — skipping meals, ignoring hunger — and I knew exactly what they’d done to me.
The endless doctor visits, the warnings.
Matt knew, too. He’d been there through all of it.
He said it was a psychological thing, a reaction to the trauma — the abuse, the assault, the near-death that had branded itself into my brain.
Even now, my heart thudded painfully when I thought about Nicola... and how close I’d come to not surviving him at all.
Matt held the iPad out to me suddenly. “I made a diet plan for you. Please follow it,” he said, his eyes pleading.
I didn’t even look at it. My anger toward him hadn’t cooled, and I wasn’t ready to forgive the lies. Maybe my silence was the only way to make him leave.
When I didn’t respond, Matt sighed, defeated, and set the iPad on the bed beside me. Then he reached for my hand — careful, gentle. “Mia will help you if you don’t want me to,” he said softly. “Please don’t do this to yourself.”
That was what infuriated me most — the calm way they acted, like this was all normal. Like I wasn’t kidnapped.
The audacity.
They’d ripped me away from my home, from my mother, and now they were sitting here pretending this was some kind of recovery program.
Rehab, maybe? A twisted version of healing under lock and key.
It didn’t seem to bother either of them that they’d stolen me from my life — that they were keeping me somewhere I didn’t choose to be.
And Alessandro...
The fact that he was here — closer than he’d been in years — and yet refused to even look at me... that broke me more than I’d like to admit.
At that moment, all I wanted was my mom. I wanted to tell her everything — that I’d seen him, that he didn’t want me anymore. But there was no way to reach her. No phone. No freedom.
Just like before.
Just like Nicola.
Except... this time, it was different. Not as cruel, not as violent — but the fear still lingered, the helplessness still burned in my chest.
“Ariana,” Mia said gently, breaking my thoughts. “Why don’t we walk around the garden? Get some fresh air. I promise it’ll make you feel better.”
I glanced up at her and managed a small smile. The idea didn’t sound bad at all. I’d been trapped inside this place for days, with walls pressing in on me like a cage. The thought of fresh air felt like a lifeline.
I agreed and tried to stand, but Matt stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Eat something first,” he insisted.
So I did. A few bites, enough to satisfy him. Then Mia led me outside.
The house I’d been staying in — my temporary prison — sat a short distance from the estate. When we reached the gardens, I stopped in my tracks. My breath hitched.
It wasn’t a garden — it was a masterpiece.
Vibrant flowers of every color framed wide marble paths. Fountains glimmered under the sunlight. A driveway stretched beyond, lined with black cars with tinted windows — silent, sleek, dangerous. For a brief second, I forgot everything. The fear. The anger. The ache.
“This is so beautiful,” I whispered, taking it all in.
“I know,” Mia said brightly. “Alessandro insists on keeping it like this. I don’t know why, but he’s obsessed with this garden.”
I turned to look at her, smiling faintly. “This is all Alessandro’s?”
“Yes. The mansion, the cars, the little house you’re staying in, the garden — all of it belongs to him.”
Wow.
I remembered when Alessandro used to dream of this — training under his father, building his own empire. I used to imagine being by his side when he did. And now he’d done it all without me. The thought tore through me like glass.
We kept walking. My eyes landed on a section of the garden covered in white roses, arranged perfectly across the far side. My chest tightened; tears threatened to spill.
White roses. My favorite. And Alessandro knew that.
“Hey,” Mia said softly, tugging on my hand. “Do you want to come into the estate? We could have dinner together — you and me.”
For a moment, I hesitated. Going inside meant stepping into his space. I didn’t want him to think I was trying to force my way back into his life. But then again, he was the one who brought me here. If anyone should feel uneasy, it should be him.
I nodded slowly.
Mia smiled and squeezed my hand. In just a few days, she’d become the one person who made this bearable. Like a younger sister I never had.
As we crossed the garden, I glanced back at the mansion rising before us — grand, cold, magnificent. From here, I could see it all. The empire he’d built.
Alessandro had finally become everything he wanted to be.
He just did it without me.
We walked a little further, nearing the entrance of the estate — and that’s when it happened.
A deafening sound split through the air.
The crack of a gunshot echoed across the garden, loud enough to shake the ground beneath us. My entire body jolted. I froze mid-step, trembling where I stood as the sharp ring of the shot echoed in my ears. Birds scattered overhead, their wings slicing the air in chaos.
Then I saw it.
Just a few meters ahead, a body — limp, lifeless — collapsed to the ground. My eyes widened, following its fall until they lifted and locked on the figure standing over it.
Alessandro.
He stood there, calm and unflinching, a gun still clutched in his hand.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. The world tilted. My mind refused to process what my eyes were seeing — refused to believe that the man I once loved, the man I used to dream about, had just ended someone’s life in front of me.
I knew he was in the mafia. I knew killing was part of this world. But seeing it... watching it happen... it dragged me straight back to a time I’d buried deep.
Nicola.
The blood. The screams. The way he’d force me to watch him torture his victims, the way their begging would echo for hours afterward.
My lungs seized as I felt that same paralyzing fear coil around me, binding me to the ground.
I thought I was past it. I thought I’d healed.
But the horror clawed back through me like it never left.
Alessandro turned.
At first, he looked like he was going to walk away, but then his eyes met mine — and he stopped dead.
The fury that flashed across his face made my stomach twist. His brows furrowed sharply, his jaw tightening until the veins in his neck showed. Without a word, he shoved the gun into the waistband at his back, but his gaze never left me.
He looked at me like I was his next target.
His full lips were set in a deep frown, his eyes heavy with exhaustion and something darker — something colder. His hair was disheveled, his white shirt half untucked and streaked with blood and dirt, like he’d just walked out of a fight he clearly won.
Tears spilled down my cheeks before I even realized I was crying. I couldn’t look away from him — from the man who once held me, once whispered he loved me.
Now, he just scowled.
And then... he turned his back to me and walked away.
I stood there, frozen. Minutes passed — or maybe seconds; I couldn’t tell. My mind refused to move. Behind him, Salvatore and Bruno followed, both calm, both unfazed by the body on the ground. It was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
My gaze drifted back to the corpse lying motionless in front of the estate gates. My breath hitched as a wave of nausea climbed up my throat. My body trembled uncontrollably; chills crawled up my spine.
This wasn’t a place I could survive — not mentally, not emotionally. Not again.
I’d fought too hard to escape my past.
And now, here I was... living it all over again.
There was only one thing left for me to do.
I had to leave. No matter what..