Chapter Ten AURORA
The house felt wrong. I noticed it before I even opened my eyes. Silence. Not normal silence. The heavy kind. The kind that settles over a house after bad news. No music. No laughter. No Santino. No staff moving through hallways. Nothing. Just quiet.
I sat up slowly. Sunlight spilled across black sheets and polished wood floors, turning the room gold. Something felt off. For a moment, I couldn't figure out what. Then I realized.
Nobody had disturbed me. Nobody had checked on me. Nobody had brought breakfast. Nobody had annoyed me. Which meant one thing. Santino was missing.
My stomach did something strange. I ignored it. The man disappeared for a few hours and suddenly I was worried? Embarrassing.
I climbed out of bed. Pulled on one of his shirts I’d stolen, because I refused to wear the clothes he picked for me. And went looking. The mansion seemed almost abandoned. The kitchen sat empty. The living room sat empty. The terrace sat empty.
Even Marco wasn't downstairs. Which was unusual. Marco practically lived here.
I wandered farther into the house. A hallway I'd never noticed before stretched along the west wing. Dark. Quiet. Private. Every door stood open. Except one. A black door at the very end. Closed.
My eyes narrowed. Curiosity was a disease. I walked toward it. The closer I got, the stranger I felt. Not fear. Awareness. Like the entire house revolved around that one door. Like it mattered.
I reached for the handle. I turned it, and stepped inside. My breath caught. The room was frozen in time. Not old. Not dusty. Not abandoned. Preserved. Like a museum, a shrine. Like the occupant had simply stepped out for lunch and might return at any moment.
A perfectly made bed. Black leather jacket hanging on a chair. Watch collection displayed inside a glass case. Photographs. Books. Shoes lined neatly beside the wall. Everything was immaculate. Everything untouched. A chill crept down my spine. Because I understood exactly whose room this was.
Angelo.
I moved deeper inside. Slowly. Carefully. The air itself felt sacred. A framed photograph sat beside the bed. Two teenage boys. Identical. Laughing. Arms slung over each other's shoulders.
Santino. Angelo.
For the first time, I saw how impossible it must have been. Losing a brother was horrible. Losing a twin? Losing the person who looked like you. Sounded like you. Understood you. That felt different.
My chest tightened. A birthday card sat on the dresser. New. Fresh flowers beside it. A bottle of expensive whiskey. A small chocolate cake.
Happy Birthday, Angelo.
The words hit me like a punch. Oh. Today. Today was their birthday. But… Angelo was four years dead. And Santino was still buying him birthday cakes. My throat burned.
Now the room wasn't creepy. It wasn't unhealthy. It was heartbreaking. Because this wasn't a man refusing to let go. This was a man who genuinely didn't know how.
My eyes landed on a frame. Silver. Beautiful. Without thinking, I stepped closer. Reached toward it.
"Don't."
The word cracked through the room like a gunshot. I jumped. My hand jerked away. Santino stood in the doorway. My heart stopped. Not because he looked angry. Because he looked terrifying. Not Devil terrifying. Not mafia kingpin terrifying. Something worse.
Human.
His eyes were bloodshot. His jaw clenched so tightly I thought it might break. His hands hung rigid at his sides. Every muscle in his body looked locked. Like he was holding himself together through pure force.
The room felt smaller. I swallowed. "I'm sorry."
His gaze never left the watch. "Don't touch his things."
Sharp. Immediate. Not shouted. Somehow worse. My stomach twisted. "I wasn't…"
"Don't."
His voice sliced through mine. Silence crashed into the room. The flowers. The cake. The photographs. The whiskey. Everything made sense. Every year. Every birthday. Every memory. Every ritual. Preserved. Protected. Untouched.
Like Santino believed one wrong movement would erase him completely.
My chest hurt. "Santino…"
"Leave."
I stared at him. Because beneath the anger wasn't rage. It was panic. Raw panic. Like the idea of somebody touching Angelo's things genuinely terrified him. Like memories were all he had left. And somebody had gotten too close.
His breathing sounded uneven now. His eyes never left the frame. Never left the place where my fingers had almost touched it. A shrine. Not a bedroom. A shrine built by a grieving man who had spent four years trying to stop time.
"You celebrate your birthday?" The question slipped out before I could stop it. His entire body went still. A mistake. A huge mistake. For several seconds, he didn't answer.
"Every year." The words sounded dragged out of him.
Painful. Unwanted. I looked around the room again. The photographs. The cake. The flowers. The whiskey. The preserved life. And I understood something that terrified me.
Santino Moretti wasn't obsessed with possessions.
He was obsessed with remembering. Because if he stopped remembering Angelo...
Then Angelo would truly be gone. And Santino wasn't strong enough to survive that.
Neither was I. Because for the first time since meeting him, I wasn't looking at the Devil.
I was looking at a man still bleeding from a wound that happened four years ago.
I should have left. Any normal person would have. Santino had told me to leave. Twice.
The room still felt heavy behind me as I stepped into the hallway, pulling the door shut carefully.
My chest hurt. Which was ridiculous. I barely knew him. I barely knew Angelo. I barely knew anything. And yet... I couldn't stop thinking about the look on Santino's face.
Not anger. Not really. Fear. Raw, desperate fear. Like grief had become something living inside him. Something that lashed out whenever anybody got too close. The mansion seemed quieter than before. The hallway stretched endlessly ahead of me. Dark. Empty.
I started walking. Halfway down the hall, I stopped. Frowned. Turned around. The door remained closed. I stared at it for several seconds. Then looked down the hallway again. Then back at the door.
"Oh my God," I muttered.
Curiosity was genuinely going to get me murdered one day.
I went back. Not inside. Just enough to crack the door open. Just enough to look. The room remained untouched. Still. Silent. Frozen. And then I noticed something I hadn't before. Something about the small chocolate cake beside the flowers. One candle. One slice missing.
My stomach twisted. Not eaten. Just cut.
The piece still sat on a plate. Untouched. Waiting. Like somebody was expected to come back for it. My throat tightened. Jesus.
Hours later, I found Marco in the kitchen. Rain tapped softly against the windows. The kitchen lights were dim. Only a few lamps glowed beneath the cabinets. Marco sat alone at the island.
A bottle of whiskey beside him. A glass in his hand.
He looked up when I entered. Immediately suspicious. I was beginning to realize everybody around Santino was suspicious by default. "You're awake."
"I have questions."
His expression became exhausted. "Of course you do."
I slid onto a stool. Crossed my arms. Looked at him. Marco looked back. Neither of us spoke. Finally he sighed. "Ask.”
I hesitated. "Why is he away today? Why does he keep his room that way?"
His eyes flickered. Only slightly. But enough. He knew exactly what I meant. The room. The flowers. The cake. The shrine. Everything. Marco looked down into his glass.
"Four years." The answer hit harder than I expected. Four years. Four years of birthday cakes. Four years of untouched rooms. Four years of preserving somebody who wasn't coming back. “Four years of this madness, ever since his brother died.”
I swallowed. "Every year?"
Marco nodded. "Every year."
The rain outside seemed louder. "He does everything himself?”
"Every year."
My chest tightened. "He still visits the grave too, doesn't he?"
Silence. Marco took another drink. Then nodded. "He does. A lot."
I stared down at the marble countertop. Cold beneath my fingertips. My mind kept replaying the room. The photographs. The watch. The cake.
The fear in Santino's eyes when he thought I might touch something. Not because I would break it. Because I might change it. Move it. Disturb it. Erase some tiny piece of Angelo.
"He loved him that much?" The question slipped out quietly. Marco laughed. Not a happy sound.
"No." I blinked.
"No?" His jaw tightened.
"They were twins." Something in his voice made me go still. "They were born together. Raised together. They slept in the same room until they were sixteen because neither of them could stand sleeping alone."
My chest hurt.
"They did everything together." Marco stared into his whiskey. "Everything."
The kitchen seemed too quiet. Too small. Too intimate. Outside, lightning flashed over the city. For a second neither of us spoke. Then Marco looked at me. Really looked at me.
"You know what everybody gets wrong? They think Santino is angry because Angelo died." The words settled heavily between us. I waited. Marco's eyes dropped back to the whiskey. His voice became quieter. Rougher. "He's angry because he didn't."
Silence. My breath caught.
"He was supposed to be there." Marco laughed once. Bitter. "That's the funny thing about twins. Neither of them ever imagined there would be only one."
The words shattered something inside me. Because I understood. None of it was about moving on. Santino wasn't preserving Angelo because he couldn't let go. He was preserving him because he genuinely didn't know how to exist without him.
The realization hurt. More than it should have. Much more.
Marco drained the rest of his whiskey. Then stood. Conversation over. But before he left, he paused. Looked at me. And said quietly, "Nobody talks about Angelo anymore."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"They stopped years ago." His expression hardened. "Family. Friends. Business associates. Everybody."
My stomach twisted. Marco shrugged. "People move on."