Chapter Twenty-One SANTINO
Icouldn’t sleep.
The room was quiet except for the soft, steady rhythm of Aurora’s breathing beside me.
She had curled against my chest sometime in the night, one small hand fisted in my shirt like she was afraid I’d disappear if she let go.
Her dark hair spilled across the pillow in wild, silken waves, catching the faint silver light filtering through the heavy curtains.
Each strand looked like liquid obsidian, shimmering with every subtle shift of her body.
She looked peaceful. Safe. So heartbreakingly vulnerable in a way that made something primal and possessive stir deep in my chest, a beast I’d long thought buried beneath layers of ice and calculated violence.
I should have felt victorious. Another enemy erased. Another message written in blood. But instead of the cold satisfaction that usually followed a kill, all I felt was a sick, crawling dread lodged deep in my gut, twisting like barbed wire.
For a few seconds today, I had almost lost her.
The image wouldn’t leave me no matter how hard I tried to shove it down.
Aurora sitting on that stone bench in the garden, completely unaware of the danger closing in, her dark hair catching the last golden light of the dying sun.
The gun rising behind her, steady and merciless.
The split-second before Matteo launched himself like a fucking missile, tackling the shooter to the ground in a blur of fury and desperation.
If he had been half a second slower… if his instincts hadn’t been sharpened by everything I’d drilled into him…
I closed my eyes, but the darkness only made it worse. All I saw was Angelo.
Blood on concrete. Snakes hissing in the shadows of that abandoned warehouse. My brother’s body broken and still while I screamed his name into the void, my voice raw until it cracked.
The metallic taste of fear and failure still coated my tongue years later. I couldn’t save him. I should have been there. I had failed the one person who had ever truly mattered to me before Aurora crashed into my world like a storm I never saw coming.
I wouldn’t fail her. Not this time. Not ever.
My arm tightened around Aurora instinctively, pulling her closer until her heartbeat thrummed against my ribs in a steady, reassuring rhythm. She made a small, sleepy sound, half sigh, half murmur, and pressed her face into the crook of my neck, her warm breath fanning across my skin.
The trust in that unconscious movement gutted me. After everything I’d done, stealing her, breaking her walls, claiming her body and soul, she still sought me out in sleep.
The warmth of her body against mine, the soft curve of her hip under my palm, should have calmed the storm raging inside my chest. Instead, it only made the fear sharper, more vicious. Because now I had something to lose again.
Something precious.
Something I would burn the entire world down to protect.
The door opened quietly, a whisper of sound that wouldn’t have woken most people.
Marco stepped in, his face grim, movements silent and efficient so he wouldn’t disturb the one thing that kept me tethered to my humanity.
He knew better than anyone. He’d seen me at my worst, after Angelo. He understood what she meant.
“Intruder confirmed Edoardo’s,” Marco said without preamble, voice low and gravelly.
“Communication records don’t lie. The man was reporting directly to him, feeding him locations, routines, weaknesses.
More soldiers are moving around the city.
Subtle, but we’ve spotted three new crews in the last forty-eight hours.
Your father is escalating. This wasn’t random. ”
I nodded once, my jaw tight enough to ache, teeth grinding together.
Of course it was him. The man outside Nonna Rosa’s house. The watcher on the winding road leading to the estate. The pieces had been falling into place for weeks, but tonight they locked together with brutal clarity.
Edoardo testing me. Trying to take the one thing that had finally made me feel alive again after years of emptiness and rage.
Marco hesitated at the door, his broad shoulders tense under his dark jacket. “We need to move on him soon, boss. Waiting gives him time to regroup. Time to strike again.”
“I know,” I replied, the words rough.
But my eyes never left Aurora. On the faint bruises still fading on the delicate skin of her throat and wrists.
Marks left by my hands in the heat of passion.
On the way she trusted me enough to sleep so deeply in my arms after everything.
After I had stolen her from her old life.
Broken down her defenses. Claimed her completely.
Love had made me weak.
And now she was my biggest weakness.
The next morning found me in the one room we never used. Angelo’s sanctuary, left untouched like a shrine to the brother I couldn’t save.
The box sat on the heavy oak table like a coffin waiting to be opened, dust motes dancing in the slanted sunlight streaming through the tall windows. I hadn’t touched it in years.
Photos spilled out as I lifted the lid. Candid shots of us as stupid kids, grinning wildly on motorcycles, sneaking out at night to chase adrenaline and trouble in the underbelly of the city.
Race tickets from underground circuits, edges worn soft from being carried in pockets.
An old watch case, empty now, the leather strap worn smooth from years of constant use. I ran my thumb over it, remembering the weight of Angelo’s watch on Matteo’s wrist in the garden.
It had hurt more than I expected. Not just because I had lost another piece of my brother to time and memory. But because Matteo had looked proud wearing it. Like he understood the legacy it carried. Like Angelo would have been proud of the kid too, seeing how fiercely he’d protected Aurora.
I was starting to see him as family. Not just a soldier. Not just useful muscle. Family.
The thought should have terrified me. Loyalty like that invited betrayal, invited pain. Instead, it settled like something warm and dangerous in my chest. A new kind of bond. A new kind of weakness I was beginning to accept.
Matteo was in the gym when I found him later that morning.
The room smelled of sweat and polished wood, heavy bags swaying from chains, the rhythmic thud of fists echoing off the walls. He moved through the combinations I’d taught him with sharp focus and growing precision, each punch cleaner, each kick more powerful.
Angelo’s watch glinted on his wrist with every motion, catching the light like a silent promise.
He didn’t notice me at first, lost in the zone.
“You don’t have to wear it,” I said quietly from the doorway, arms crossed over my chest.
Matteo stopped mid-punch, breathing hard, sweat glistening on his skin and dripping from his dark hair. He looked down at the silver band for a long moment, chest heaving. Then he met my eyes steadily, no hesitation, no dramatics.
“I want to,” he said simply. “It reminds me what we’re fighting for. Who we’re protecting.”
No tears. No grand speeches. Just a quiet, mafia truth, loyalty forged in blood and shared loss.
I nodded once. That was enough. Words weren’t needed between us anymore.
“You’ve got it bad,” Marco said later that afternoon, leaning against the doorframe of the security room, watching me stare at the feeds for the tenth time like a man possessed.
Multiple screens showed every angle of the estate. Gardens, hallways, perimeter fences. I’d reviewed the footage of yesterday’s attack at least a dozen times, searching for anything I might have missed.
Normally I would have joked. Brushed it off with a cutting remark and that knowing smirk I wore like armor. Told him to fuck off and mind his own business.
This time I didn’t.
Because it was true.
I loved her.
The realization felt horrifying.
Love created weakness. Love gave enemies leverage.
And now Aurora was my biggest weakness, the one thing Edoardo could use to destroy me completely. To rip out my heart and leave me bleeding on the same cold concrete where Angelo had died.
I stood up abruptly, the chair scraping loudly against the marble floor. “I’m going to find her.”
Marco didn’t stop me. He just watched with that quiet understanding in his eyes.
Her room was empty. The bed still rumpled from where we’d slept. Her favorite book lay open on the nightstand, a silk bookmark halfway through.
The bathroom was empty. Steam still lingered faintly from a recent shower, her scent, vanilla apples, clinging to the air.
The closet was empty of her presence, though her clothes hung neatly. Too neatly.
The balcony was empty, the doors slightly ajar, a cool breeze carrying the distant sound of waves.
Her phone was gone from the charger. One of the smaller bikes from the garage was missing, tracked only moments later by frantic calls to the men on duty.
My stomach dropped like a stone into an abyss. No denial. No frantic, useless searching of the house. Just pure, ice-cold instinct kicking in.
Because I had lived this nightmare before. The sudden absence. The silence where there should have been life.
The entire estate exploded into chaos within minutes.
Men running through halls, boots pounding marble.
Orders shouted in rapid Italian and English.
Cars roaring to life in the courtyard. Guns being checked with metallic clicks that echoed like war drums, magazines slamming home, safeties flipping off.
A young maid was dragged forward by two of my soldiers, trembling so hard her knees nearly gave out, tears streaming down her pale face. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen.
“She asked me for a pregnancy test,” the girl whispered, voice shaking violently. “Discreetly, last night. I got it for her from the pharmacy in town. She took it upstairs right after. I didn’t think… I swear I didn’t know anything was wrong.”
One of the men held up the test, still in its plastic wrapper but clearly used. Two pink lines stared back at me.
Positive.
The world went very still. Time fractured. My pulse roared in my ears like thunder.