Chapter Nineteen SANTINO
Aurora was avoiding me.
Three fucking days of it.
Three days of polite nods across the long marble dining table, her dark eyes sliding away from mine the moment they met.
Three days of clipped, careful answers when I asked her a direct question, her voice soft but distant, like she was speaking to a stranger instead of the man who had buried himself inside her raw and bare, flooding her womb with load after load while she screamed my name.
Three days of doors closing softly behind her, the quiet click louder than any gunshot.
She still slept in my bed every night, because I carried her there when she pretended to fall asleep on the couch with some worn paperback in her lap, but the warmth was gone.
No soft sigh when my hand slid possessively between her thighs in the dark. No defiant little glare that always melted into desperate, broken moans as I pinned her wrists above her head and reminded her exactly who she belonged to.
She was pulling away, brick by careful brick, building walls I could feel in every inch of space she kept between us. And it was driving me out of my goddamn mind.
I stood at the edge of the private gym on the top floor of the estate, arms crossed over my chest, the black compression shirt clinging to my sweat-slicked skin from the brutal sets I’d already put myself through.
The air smelled of leather, metal, and exertion. Heavy bags swayed gently from their chains. The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the cliffs and the restless sea beyond, gray waves crashing far below under a brooding sky.
My gaze stayed locked on Matteo as he hammered the heavy bag with raw, unfiltered fury. The kid was improving fast, faster than I’d expected. His footwork had sharpened, his strikes carried real weight now, that stubborn Ventura fire turning into something precise and lethal under my guidance.
But even as I watched him train, my mind kept circling back to her. Always back to her.
Aurora. My little troublemaker.
The woman who had walked into After Dark wearing white heels and wide-eyed innocence like armor, only to leave with my obsession carved so deep into her soul that neither of us could escape it.
The same woman who now looked at me like I was both her salvation and her cage. Like the filthy promises I’d snarled against her throat while I bred her had finally sunk in.
She’d found the unused condom wrapper. She knew I’d lied. She knew every dark word had been truth wrapped in lust. And now she was scared. I fucking hated it.
“Elbows in,” I barked as Matteo threw a sloppy hook that left his side exposed.
My voice echoed off the concrete walls. “You telegraph that shit and someone puts a bullet between your ribs before you finish the swing. Again.”
Matteo adjusted, the bag rattling violently under the corrected combination.
Jab. Cross. Hook. Low kick.
Sweat flew from his brow. He was breathing hard, but his eyes burned with that same determination I’d seen in Aurora’s the night she chased me down in the club.
“Better?” he asked, wiping his face with the hem of his shirt.
“Marginal,” I grunted, stepping onto the mat. I circled him slowly, my own muscles coiled tight with restless energy. “Full combination. Don’t half-ass it. Pretend the bag owes you money and fucked up your sister.”
He attacked like the bag had personally orchestrated the attack in the rose garden three days ago. The chain screamed. The impacts landed heavier, cleaner. I let him burn through it, my mind drifting again despite myself.
The memory of that morning after hit me hard.
Aurora waking up to the discarded condom wrapper I’d left deliberately visible.
The way her face had gone pale, then flushed with fury.
The way she’d dressed in yesterday’s clothes with shaking fingers and fled the room like I was the monster she’d always accused me of being.
I’d pushed too hard. Too fast. I knew that.
But the thought of her carrying my child… Her body changing, swelling, marked from the inside by me… It had consumed me that night. Still did.
I wanted her tied to me in every way possible. Blood. Seed. Legacy. After losing Angelo, the idea of creating something permanent with her was the only thing that quieted the emptiness.
Matteo finished the set and stepped back, chest heaving. We drank water in heavy silence. He glanced toward the door again, like he kept expecting Aurora to storm in with one of her sharp-tongued remarks or that fiery glare that always made my cock twitch.
“She’s still pissed at you, huh?” he asked carefully, not quite meeting my eyes.
I didn’t answer right away. My jaw tightened until it ached. Angelo’s watch, now my watch, felt heavier than usual against my wrist, the silver band cool against my heated skin. A constant reminder of everything I’d lost and everything I refused to lose again.
“She’s scared,” I said finally, my voice low and rough like gravel under boots. “Of what I want from her. Of what this is becoming. Of forever. Of me making it real.”
Matteo nodded slowly, understanding flickering across his face. He was only sixteen but he carried the weight of our world already.
“She’s always been like that. Runs when things get too real. Too permanent. After our mama… she used to talk about disappearing. A motorcycle. A tiny apartment somewhere no one knew our name.”
A dark smirk tugged at my lips, but there was no humor in it. “She ran straight into a trap last time. Nearly got taken because she needed to prove she still had control. Because I pushed too hard about the future I see for us.”
The memory ignited fresh rage in my blood. That fallen tree. The black SUV tailing her. The way she’d looked so small and fierce on my bike when I finally reached her. Two minutes later and I might have lost her forever.
Matteo studied me for a long moment. “You really love her, don’t you?”
Love.
The word felt too soft, too clean for the violent storm raging inside my chest.
What I felt for Aurora Ventura wasn’t gentle romance or sweet devotion. It was obsession carved into my bones. Possession wrapped around my black soul like barbed wire. The only light I’d allowed into the darkness since Angelo was ripped away from me.
She was mine, body, heart, future. And I would burn cities to keep her.
“Yeah,” I said roughly, meeting his gaze without flinching. “I do.”
He didn’t tease me. Smart kid. He just nodded like he understood the weight of it.
We trained for another brutal hour, sparring this time. I pushed him hard but not cruelly, letting him use his speed and agility against my raw power. He landed a solid hit to my ribs that made me grunt in approval.
Pride swelled in my chest, unexpected and sharp.
By the end, he was on the mat, chest heaving, blood trickling from a split lip, but his eyes burned with quiet triumph.
“Not bad,” I told him, offering my hand. He took it, and I pulled him up easily. “You’re starting to hit like you mean it.”
“Thanks… for this,” Matteo said quietly as we cooled down, wiping sweat from his brow. “For letting me stay. For training me like I’m actually part of this. Like family.”
I clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, feeling the lean muscle already building there. “You’re earning it, kid. Every bruise. Every drop of blood. Keep earning it. This world doesn’t give respect for free.”
We headed downstairs together.
The estate felt unnaturally quiet without Aurora’s sharp tongue slicing through the air or her laughter echoing from another room.
She’d been spending more time with Nonna Rosa and the children lately, or locked away in the library pretending to read while she processed everything I’d laid at her feet.
Avoiding me. Avoiding us.
I hated how much I missed her fire.
How my hands itched to pin her down and remind her exactly who she belonged to. How empty the bed felt even when she was in it, because she wasn’t reaching for me anymore.
No more soft whimpers when I cupped her pussy possessively in the night. No more defiant little “I hate you” that always ended with her coming on my cock.
The weight of her silence pressed down on me heavier than any punch Matteo had landed today.
I clenched my jaw as we descended the stairs, my blood still humming with leftover adrenaline and frustration.
Three days of this careful distance was unraveling me faster than any enemy ever could. Aurora was mine, and yet she was slipping through my fingers like smoke.
I would let her have her space tonight. But tomorrow?
Tomorrow I was done waiting. I’d drag her back into my arms, pin her beneath me, and fuck the fear out of her until she remembered exactly who she belonged to.
Until she was dripping with my cum and whispering my name like a prayer again.
Because running from me had never worked before, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to work now.
The alert came at dusk, slicing through the heavy silence like a blade.
My phone buzzed violently against my thigh while I reviewed security feeds in the study. Marco’s voice crackled through the speaker, tight and urgent.
“Intruder on the east perimeter. One of the motion sensors just went dark. Looks professional, clean cut on the feed. No amateur shit. Moving toward the rose garden.”
I was already moving, grabbing the loaded Glock from my desk drawer, chambering a round with a sharp metallic click. “Where’s Aurora?”
“Last check she was in the rose garden with a book. Matteo’s out there too. Said he wanted fresh air after training.”
Fuck.
Adrenaline surged through my veins like liquid fire as I sprinted for the east wing, Marco’s voice continuing in my earpiece. “Second sensor down. He’s inside the wall. Armed. Silenced weapon.”
I burst through the side doors into the sprawling rose garden. The manicured hedges stood tall and fragrant in the fading golden light, blood-red blooms casting long, ominous shadows across the stone paths. It looked peaceful. Serene.
Too fucking serene.
Then I saw her.