Chapter Eight AURORA
The call ended. And somehow I felt worse.
For several seconds, I just stood there staring at the dark screen in Santino's hand.
My sister's voice still echoed inside my head.
Like she'd been trying to pull me home through the phone.
Like if she just said my name enough times, I'd magically appear back in Leo's penthouse.
Back where I belonged. Back where everything made sense, because it was all decided for me.
Instead I was standing inside a glass prison on the edge of a cliff while a storm swallowed the ocean. My life had officially become ridiculous.
The silence stretched. Heavy. Awkward. Dangerous. I became aware of Santino watching me. Again. Always watching me. The man stared at me the way starving people looked at food. The way collectors looked at priceless paintings. The way lunatics looked at the final piece of their obsession.
It should have frightened me. Instead it just made me angry. Which was probably a character flaw. "You can stop now."
His eyebrow lifted. "Stop what?"
"The staring,” I hissed.
"I wasn't staring,” he said.
I laughed. A short, disbelieving sound. "You absolutely were."
"I was making sure you didn't spontaneously disappear."
My jaw dropped. "What?"
He shrugged. "I wouldn’t blame you if you left. Although I’m surprised you haven’t tried escaping yet."
"It has been half a day,” I hissed.
"You've had a productive and busy schedule?” His brows shot up.
I hated him. I hated how quickly he could make me forget I was supposed to be furious. I hated how every conversation felt like a fight and a joke at the same time. Mostly I hated that I was beginning to understand him. That felt dangerous.
The truly terrifying thing wasn't that Santino Moretti was a monster. It was that sometimes he seemed human. And human monsters were always worse.
Rain slammed against the glass walls. The storm had finally arrived. Lightning flashed over the ocean. For a split second, the entire guest house turned white. Then darkness swallowed everything again.
Santino looked toward the windows. "You should sleep."
I stared at him. Then started laughing. Not because it was funny. Because it wasn't. Because if I didn't laugh, I might cry.
"You shot my fiancé. You kidnapped me. My family is probably losing their minds. And your contribution is sleep advice."
For the first time all evening, Santino actually looked offended. "I give excellent sleep advice."
I blinked. Then blinked again. "Incredible. You're genuinely insane."
A grin appeared. There it was. The grin.
The one that should've been illegal. The one that made me want to throw things.
The one that made me irrationally aware that he was attractive.
Which was deeply unfair. Because attractive people shouldn't be allowed to commit crimes. That felt like a reasonable law.
Eventually he left. Or at least he claimed he was leaving. With Santino, those were two very different things. The glass door slid shut behind him. I was alone. Really alone.
The silence hit me. No Chiara. No Matteo. No Sienna. No Leo pacing around like a giant homicidal snake. Nothing. Just rain. Thunder. The ocean.
My throat tightened. God. I missed home.
I missed seeing Sienna draw messages in lipstick on the mirror.
I missed Matteo’s weird protein shakes. I missed Chiara yelling at everyone.
I even missed Leo standing in doorways looking terrifying.
Which was honestly humiliating. I wrapped my arms around myself.
Then started walking. Because standing still felt worse.
The guest house glowed softly around me. Warm wood. Cream furniture. Soft lighting. Expensive rugs. Glass walls. Everywhere. That was the cruelest part. I could see everything. The ocean. The cliffs. The gardens. The lights from the main house. Freedom. All visible. None reachable.
It felt like living inside an aquarium. A beautiful one. A luxurious one. Still a tank. Still trapped.
I wandered through the rooms. Kitchen. Bedroom. Living room. Bathroom bigger than the room I used to share with Chiara when we were smaller.
Everywhere I looked, evidence of planning. Clothes waiting in closets. Books on shelves. Fresh flowers. Food. Blankets. Everything ready. Everything prepared. For me.
The realization made my skin crawl. How long had he been planning this? How many nights had Santino sat somewhere imagining me here? The thought was so unsettling I physically shivered.
Eventually I found a smaller room near the back.
An office. Unlike everything else, this room didn't look staged.
It looked lived in. Messy. Human. Books stacked unevenly.
Pens scattered across the desk. Folders left open.
A coffee mug. A half-finished bottle of whiskey.
For the first time since arriving, the estate felt less like a prison and more like a place somebody actually existed.
I stepped closer. And that's when I saw the photograph. My stomach tightened. Two boys. Identical. Dark-haired. Grinning. Maybe ten years old. One held a frog triumphantly above his head.
The other looked absolutely disgusted. I laughed before I could stop myself. The expression was so familiar. Because even as a child, one of them already looked permanently annoyed. Slowly, I picked up the frame.
It was his brother, unmistakably so. The room felt quieter. The oversized watch. The one from the club. The one I'd guessed wasn't his. The one that had changed everything. It was his twin’s.
I stared at the smiling boys. At the matching faces. The matching eyes. The matching grins. One frozen forever in a photograph. One kidnapping brides. Life was strange.
A movement behind me made me jump. The photograph nearly slipped from my fingers. I spun around. Santino stood in the doorway, holding a platter of food. For one second neither of us moved. His gaze landed on the photograph. Everything changed.
The warmth vanished. The amusement disappeared. The grin disappeared. The Devil disappeared. And all I saw was a man who'd been punched directly in the chest. He slammed the tray down on the desk, rattling the dishes.
"Put that down."
The words weren't angry. That would've been easier. They sounded rough. Raw. Like they'd scraped against something broken on the way out.
My grip tightened around the frame. Because I understood. This mattered. Not the office. Not the privacy. The photograph. The memory. Him. Slowly, I lowered it.
"Where is he buried?" I asked.
Silence. Thunder rolled over the ocean. Rain battered the glass roof. The storm seemed to hold its breath.
"On the property.” The answer landed heavily between us. I looked down again. Two boys. One future. One lifetime. Until there wasn't.
"The watch,” I said softly.
His jaw flexed. "What about it?"
"It was his."
A long silence. Then a single nod. My chest tightened unexpectedly. The watch. The one he'd never taken off. The one he'd carried everywhere. Not because it fit. Because it didn't. Not because it was expensive. Because it wasn't., Because it belonged to somebody he couldn't keep.
The photograph remained in my hands. Santino remained in the doorway. The distance between us felt strangely fragile. Like one wrong word could shatter something. I swallowed. Carefully placed the frame back on the desk.
The boys smiled up at us. Forever ten years old. Forever together. My chest tightened.
"What happened?" The question escaped before I could stop it. I regretted it. Because it wasn't my business. Because I didn't want to care. Because caring about the man who kidnapped me felt like the beginning of a psychological disorder.
Santino looked toward the photograph. Not at me. The photograph. For several seconds I thought he wouldn't answer. "He would have hated you, you know. You would have come between us."
I folded my arms. "That was an incredibly unhelpful answer."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Just slightly. Better. Still terrible. But better. I sighed dramatically. "You know, most people include details when telling stories."
"It wasn't a story." The amusement vanished from his voice.
The room felt colder. A muscle moved in his jaw.
For the first time all evening, Santino looked tired.
Not physically. Something deeper. Something older.
The kind of exhaustion that settled into bones and never really left.
"He was twenty-six when he died, four years ago.”
My chest tightened. Twenty-six. The same age forever. The age he'd remain while everyone else got older. The thought hurt unexpectedly. Santino stared at the rain running down the windows.
"When you're a kid, you think twins are magic,” he muttered. I blinked. The comment surprised me. His eyes remained on the storm. "You spend your entire life with somebody."
His voice was quiet. Almost absent. Like he wasn't talking to me anymore. Like he'd forgotten I was standing there.
"You look the same." The rain continued falling. Thunder rumbled. "You sound the same. You know what they're thinking before they say it."
Something twisted in my chest. Because I wasn't standing inside a guest house anymore. I was watching a man relive the worst thing that had ever happened to him.
"When we were kids, Angelo used to steal my homework." A faint smile appeared. Small. Real. "He didn’t even bother to change the name."
I laughed before I could stop myself. The smile widened. Barely.
"He wasn't stupid, he just had a crush on the detention teacher,” he sighed.
"That seems insane."
"He'd be proud of himself if he heard you say that,” he nodded.
The smile disappeared again. The room darkened. The storm intensified. Then Santino quietly said,
"The day he died..." His voice stopped. Just stopped. The silence that followed felt enormous. I didn't interrupt. For once. I didn't joke. Didn't push. Didn't fill the space. Because something told me this mattered. Deeply. Finally he exhaled. Slowly. "The whole world got louder."