Chapter Twenty-Two AURORA
The wind whipped across my face like a slap from the universe itself as I tore down the coastal road on the stolen bike.
My hands gripped the handlebars so tightly my knuckles had gone bone-white, but I couldn’t loosen them.
Not when every second of freedom felt like it was slipping through my fingers like sand.
I was pregnant.
The two pink lines on that test were burned into my brain.
Santino’s baby. The devil’s child growing inside me.
I pressed one hand to my lower belly for a split second before jerking it back to the handlebars, the bike wobbling dangerously on the narrow curve. The sea crashed against the cliffs far below, gray and restless under the late afternoon sky, mirroring the storm inside my chest.
I should have felt something warm. Something hopeful. Instead, all I felt was terror and a sick, twisting guilt that made bile rise in my throat.
Sergio. His ruined face haunted me every time I closed my eyes. The way his voice had come out wet and broken in that crypt. The jagged scar tissue, the milky blind eye, the way he’d rasped about Santino leaving him choking on his own blood on the altar.
I had watched Santino shoot him. I had let myself be carried away in a bloodstained wedding dress while Sergio lay dying, or so I’d thought.
Now he was something worse than dead. A broken, demented shell of the man who was supposed to be my husband. All because of one kiss with a stranger in a devil mask. Because Santino had decided I belonged to him and burned everything else down.
And I was still running back to him. Still letting him touch me. Still coming apart under his hands like my body had forgotten what betrayal felt like.
Tears stung my eyes, blurring the road ahead. I blinked them away furiously. I couldn’t afford to crash. Not now. Not when I had a baby to think about. Santino’s baby. A child who would be born into this world of blood and lies and endless violence.
I needed help. Real help. Not Santino’s brand of possessive protection that came with chains and breeding and dark promises whispered against my skin. I needed my sister.
My hand fumbled for the phone Santino had given me, the one I knew was probably tracked, but I didn’t care anymore. I swerved slightly as I pulled it out, thumbing through contacts with one hand while the bike roared beneath me.
Chiara’s name stared back at me. My big sister. The one who had survived Leo. The one who might understand what it meant to be stolen by a monster and still feel things you shouldn’t.
I hit call.
The phone rang once. Twice. My heart hammered louder than the engine.
“Come on, Chiara,” I whispered, voice cracking. “Pick up. Please pick up.”
The third ring cut off abruptly.
A black SUV surged out from a hidden side road ahead, tires screeching as it swerved sideways and slammed to a stop, completely blocking the narrow coastal path.
I slammed on the brakes, the bike fishtailing wildly beneath me. Gravel sprayed. The back wheel locked. For one terrifying second I thought I was going to lose control and fly over the edge of the cliff.
I managed to stop just feet from the SUV’s gleaming black side, heart in my throat. The phone slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the asphalt. The call to Chiara never connected.
I stared at the black SUV, chest heaving, the engine of the stolen bike still rumbling beneath me like a dying animal. The driver’s door opened slowly. A figure stepped out.
Not one of Edoardo’s faceless soldiers.
Sergio.
My stomach dropped like a stone into the sea below. He looked even worse in the harsh daylight than he had in the crypt.
The left side of his face was a grotesque map of ruined flesh. Thick, angry scar tissue pulling his mouth into a permanent snarl, one eye milky and blind, the other burning with something unhinged and desperate.
Half his face was the man I remembered, cold, controlled, lethal. The other half was a monster Santino had created. He moved with steady, deliberate steps, and the gun in his hand was held with terrifying steadiness.
“Aurora,” he rasped, his voice wet and broken, like stones grinding together in his throat. “You stupid little girl.”
I killed the engine. The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by the crash of waves far below and the pounding of my own heart. My hands shook as I gripped the handlebars tighter, refusing to let go completely. Like the bike could still save me.
“Sergio…” My voice cracked. “How did you…”
“You think I wouldn’t follow you?” He laughed, that horrible wet sound echoing off the cliffs. “You ran straight from his bed to my crypt and now you’re running again. Always running. Always making stupid decisions.”
He took a step closer. The two men who had exited the other doors stayed back, watching with cold detachment. His loyalists. The ones who had dragged what was left of him from that blood-soaked altar.
“I told you,” he continued, gesturing with the gun like it was an extension of his ruined hand. “I told you he would destroy you. But you didn’t listen. You went back to him. Let him fuck you. Let him put his bastard in you.”
My hand instinctively moved to my stomach again. Sergio’s good eye tracked the movement, and something vicious flashed across his ruined face.
“Pregnant,” he spat. “With the Devil’s child. You really are just a stupid little girl, aren’t you? Running around thinking you could have freedom. Thinking you could choose. Thinking you could fix what that monster broke.”
Tears burned my eyes. The guilt I’d been carrying since the crypt crashed over me like a tidal wave. This was my fault. Santino had done this to him, for me. Because of one reckless kiss at a bachelorette party. Because Santino had decided I was his the moment our eyes met across that club.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, voice trembling. “Sergio, I’m so sorry for what he did to you. I never wanted this.”
“Save your apologies,” he snarled, cutting me off. He stepped closer, the gun never wavering. “You had your chance to come with me. To let me save you. But you chose him. Again. So now I have to take matters into my own hands.”
He reached out with his free hand, and grabbed my arm in a bruising grip. I gasped as he yanked me off the bike. The motorcycle tipped and fell with a metallic crash onto the road.
“You’re just a stupid little girl,” Sergio repeated, his breath hot and metallic against my face.
“Playing dress-up in a world that will eat you alive. You think Santino loves you? He doesn’t love anything except power.
He’ll use that baby to tie you down forever, then discard you when you’re no longer useful. ”
I struggled against his hold, but he was stronger than he looked, desperation and madness giving him strength. “Let me go, Sergio. Please. This isn’t you. You were never like this.”
His ruined mouth twisted into something that might have been a smile. “You don’t know me anymore, Aurora. Thanks to your devil.”
He started dragging me toward the SUV. My heels dug into the gravel, panic clawing up my throat. The baby. I couldn’t let him take me. Not like this.
“Chiara!” I screamed, hoping against hope that the call had somehow gone through before the phone fell. “Chiara, help me!”
Sergio laughed again, that broken, wheezing sound. “No one’s coming to save you, little girl. Not your sister. Not your devil. Not this time.”
He shoved me into the back of the SUV. The door slammed shut behind me with terrifying finality. As the vehicle roared to life and sped off down the coastal road, I pressed both hands to my stomach and whispered a silent prayer to whoever might be listening.
The SUV sped deeper into the unknown, the coastal road giving way to narrower, winding paths that cut through dense forest. I kept my hands pressed tightly over my stomach, trying to shield the tiny life inside me from the madness surrounding us.
Sergio had gone quiet for a few minutes, but the silence was worse than the muttering. Then he turned in his seat again, slowly this time, and looked at me with an almost gentle expression on the undamaged side of his face. It made everything so much more horrifying.
“Don’t cry, Aurora,” he said softly, his voice oddly tender despite the rasp. “I’m not going to hurt you. I could never hurt you. You’re still my bride. Even after everything.”
He reached back between the seats with his hand and gently brushed a tear from my cheek with surprising care. The contrast between the tenderness of the touch and the grotesque ruin of his face made my skin crawl.
“You’re carrying his bastard,” he murmured, almost sadly, “but that’s not your fault. You’re just a stupid little girl who got caught in the devil’s web. I’ll fix it. I always fix things for you.”
The driver kept his eyes on the road, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. Even his own men were afraid of him now.
Sergio kept stroking my cheek with that ruined hand, murmuring to himself and to me in the same breath. “Pretty girl… always so pretty… even with his mark on you. I’ll cut it out if I have to. Make you clean again. We can still have our wedding. Smaller this time. Just us. No Morettis. No devils.”
I shrank back against the seat, fresh tears falling. “Sergio… please. This isn’t you. The man I was supposed to marry… He was cold, but he was sane. He had control.”
He smiled at me with the good side of his mouth, the ruined side twisting it into something nightmarish.
“Control?” He laughed softly, the sound wet and unhinged. “Control is an illusion, my love. Santino taught me that when he put a bullet through my face in front of God and everyone. But I’m better now. Clearer. I see what needs to be done.”
He leaned closer, his breath brushing my face. “I’ll keep you safe. Keep the baby safe too… until it’s time. Then we’ll start over. You and me. Like it was always meant to be.”
His hand moved down to rest gently, almost reverently, on my stomach. I froze, every instinct screaming at me to slap it away, but terror kept me paralyzed.