Chapter 52
The restaurant was nearly empty. It was just us.
A small place tucked in a quiet corner of the city. Dominic had chosen it on purpose, far from the noise, far from anyone who could see us.
The lights were low, soft jazz humming faintly through the air. The smell of rosemary, wine, and something sweet drifted from the kitchen.
He sat across from me, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up, hands resting lazily around a glass of red wine. The warmth of his gaze was heavier than the candlelight.
I sat there, but I wasn't really there. My head was still spinning from the kitchen—from the glass breaking and all those memories hitting me at once. I felt like I was floating, like the world wasn't quite real yet.
“You’ve been quiet,” he murmured, finally breaking the stillness, eyes never leaving mine.
“I’ve been thinking," I said softly, tracing the rim of my glass. “About… everything.”
His jaw flexed, but his voice was calm. “You don’t have to remember to know I’d burn the world for you, Ara.”
My chest fluttered. He always said it like it was a simple truth; and now with my memories back I knew enough to tell he wasn't bluffing.
I looked at him trying to find the words but then the front door swung open.
My brain seemed to tone the music out and cold air seeped through the door, causing me to shiver slightly.
Aurelio stepped in, no guards, no smile, just quiet fury hidden beneath a mask of calm. His white shirt was untucked, sleeves rolled to the elbow, his cufflinks missing. He walked towards us, more like stalked over.
Dominic’s hand froze around his glass. His shoulders went rigid.
Aurelio’s gaze found mine, soft for half a second, then hollow. “Vee.”
My throat tightened. “Aurelio…”
He looked between us, my hand close to Dominic’s, the candlelight glinting off the faint hickey on my neck from last night’s intimacy. His eyes darkened.
“You didn’t answer my calls,” he said quietly to Dominic.
Dominic stood. Slow. Controlled. The calm before violence. “I did tell you I was going to block your number.”
Aurelio’s lips twitched into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course you did.” His voice cracked slightly, something between pain and pride. Then he stepped closer. “Tell me, cousin, do you enjoy taking what isn’t yours?”
“Unlike you, I've had to kiss your father’s feet to have my birth-right handed to me while you got it on a silver platter.” Dominic’s expression didn’t change. “Ara was never yours to begin with.”
And then Aurelio hit him.
The punch was clean, fast, sharp, straight to the jaw. Dominic stumbled back, the wine glass shattering behind him, deep red spilling across the white marble like blood.
Silence.
Then Dominic laughed dangerously. “Wrong move, cousin. I’ve always warned you to never throw the first punch.”
He lunged.
He moved faster than I could see, his fist connecting with Aurelio’s jaw with a sickening crack.
Aurelio stumbled back, crashing into a table and sending silverware flying. He wiped a streak of blood from his lip, his eyes turning dark.
“You think you can touch her?” Dominic snarled, grabbing Aurelio by the collar and slamming him against the wall. “You think you own her?”
Aurelio spat blood, laughed bitterly. “I had been promised her, Dominic. You were too busy breaking people to understand what love means.”
Dominic’s fist crashed into his ribs. “You think love is a contract? She’s not your property!”
Aurelio lunged forward, tackling Dominic into a stone pillar. I screamed as they hit the ground, a blur of expensive suits and raw violence.
Aurelio landed a heavy punch to Dominic’s ribs, but Dominic didn't flinch. He roared, grabbing Aurelio by the throat and slamming him down onto the hardwood floor.
"She is not a prize!" Dominic yelled, his voice sounding like an animal's. He landed a punch that sent Aurelio’s head snapping back against the floor. "She isn't a merger! She isn't a contract!"
Aurelio kicked out, catching Dominic in the chest to create space. They both scrambled up, breathing hard, faces bruised and bloody. Aurelio looked like a maniac now.
“STOP!” I screamed, voice shaking.
They didn’t stop.
The beatings reminded me of when those monsters would torture and beat me, then drown me in cold water.
“Wait till my father finds out his dog wasn't following orders anymore.” Aurelio seethed.
Dominic’s eyes went cold—the kind of cold that meant someone was going to die. He stepped in, dodging Aurelio’s desperate swing, and drove his knee into Aurelio’s stomach.
As Aurelio doubled over, Dominic grabbed his head and slammed it into the edge of the marble bar.
Aurelio slumped to the floor, barely conscious and bleeding.
Dominic stood over him, his chest heaving, his knuckles split open and dripping red. He didn't look like the man who had held me by the river. He looked like a monster.
“Dominic, stop!” I ran forward, grabbing his arm. My voice cracked. “Please! You’ll kill him.”
He froze. His breath came out in ragged; blood ran down this temple. His eyes met mine and I could see the protective yet hurt in them.
Then he walked away from Aurelio, who was managing his consciousness.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I swallowed hard, moving to Aurelio’s side, my hands trembling as I touched his face. “You’re bleeding—”
“I’m fine,” he rasped, catching my wrist gently. I began using the tissues to clean the blood.
His eyes softened as they met mine. “You know…”
“What?”
“You glow when you’re around him.”
I froze.
He gave me a sad smile, chest heaving. “It hurts to see it, but I’d be a fool to deny it. You belong to him in a way I never had you.”
“Aurelio.”
He let out a short, bitter breath. “The day you woke up in that hospital bed and looked right through me… it felt like the only thing I ever actually found for myself had just slammed the door in my face. It hurt like hell. But part of me got it. I understood why your brain wanted to forget me. Why would you want to remember the man who carries the same blood as the person who kidnapped you?”
Tears burned the back of my eyes. I said nothing. I couldn’t.
“I’m backing off,” he said quietly. “I thought I had you, Versace… but maybe I just had a version of you that doesn’t exist anymore.”
He stepped closer, slow, careful, like I was something fragile. “I’m calling off the engagement, Versace. It doesn’t feel right anymore. I thought I had you… But I think I was just holding on to the idea of you.”
“You don’t need to explain,” he said when I stayed silent. “I see the way he looks at you. And the way you look back at him. That’s not something you can fake. Not even for loyalty’s sake. I would hate to fight my cousin for someone that doesn’t even want me.”
A lump formed in my throat. I wanted to tell him how much he mattered, how deeply his kindness had stitched warmth into parts of me I thought were cold forever. But the words refused to come.
My brain flashed back to Paris, when he held my shoes in his hands and we walked barefoot on the streets at night.
My heart clenched.
He leaned in, brushed a soft kiss against my cheek, faint, trembling. “We’ll still be friends, yeah?”
I blinked hard. My voice was barely a whisper. “I know you know my memories are back.”
He smiled once, small and tired, “let’s talk later.” Then he got up to leave, blood on his lip, shirt torn, dignity somehow still intact. He staggered away.
Dominic stood by the shattered table, chest heaving, bruised and bloodied, watching silently as he signed a check to the restaurant waiter.
When the door closed behind Aurelio, the world seemed to exhale.
I turned to Dominic slowly. His jaw was tight, his hands still trembling. “He touched you,” he said quietly. “He kissed you.”
“He didn’t mean—”
“He kissed you,” he repeated, eyes dark, voice low and dangerous. “And I let him walk out alive.”
I stepped closer, my hand finding his chest, feeling the tremor under my palm. “Dom… He’s your cousin. Show him some sympathy too.”
He caught my wrist, holding it there. His breath was uneven, his gaze burning through me. “He’ll never touch you again. Not while I’m breathing. And I will show him sympathy the day he steps the hell up.”
I couldn’t stop my heart from aching for him.
Because Dominic wasn’t just the man I loved.
He was the storm I’d chosen to walk into.
And this time, I wasn’t running.
The house was silent when we got back.
Too silent.
I could still hear the echo of glass shattering, Aurelio’s ragged breath, Dominic’s voice, low, feral, cutting through the chaos of the restaurant.
It clashed with the glass shatter in the kitchen and when I got my memory back. Resonating in my head.
Now, the silence felt heavier.
Dominic dropped onto the bathroom counter, the marble beneath him streaked with blood. His knuckles were split, his jaw bruised, and his shirt hung open like the fight had tried to tear him apart.
I found the first aid kit under the sink, keeping my hands busy so I wouldn’t have to think.
When I turned back, he was staring at me, that same unreadable look that always managed to make my heartbeat stumble.
“This is giving déjà vu,” he said finally, voice rough but quiet.
I froze for a second, the words digging into me.
“The last time you treated me in a bathroom,” he continued, almost smirking, “we’d just had a fight too.”
“You were obsessed with calling me a paedophile.” He chuckled and I rolled my eyes at the memory.
I ignored the ache that crawled up my chest and focused on cleaning his wounds. “You should stop making it a habit,” I muttered, disinfecting the cut along his cheek.
He winced slightly, though his lips twitched. “You’re assuming I started it.”
I shot him a look. “You did.”
“Maybe.” His tone was low, almost teasing. “But you didn’t stop me either.”
He was right. I hadn’t tried. I could have walked up to them, pulled one by the shirt and slapped him hard across the face, but I didn't.
Because part of me… the stupid, stubborn part, the part that keeps dragging me back to the mafia, had wanted to see how far he’d go for me.
I pressed the gauze a little harder, just to make him hiss. “That’s for breaking a man’s nose in public.”
His gaze softened, and for a second, all the arrogance drained away. “He touched you.”
The words hung in the air, quiet, unflinching. His knuckles flexed again, and I could see the ghost of violence still humming under his skin.
“He didn’t hurt me, Dominic,” I whispered.
“You don’t get it,” he said, eyes darkening. “He looked at you like you were still his. Like he could take you back.”
“And you decided to remind him otherwise?”
He gave a low, humourless chuckle. “I reminded him you were never his to begin with.”
My hand stilled. He didn’t realize how much those words hit, because I did remember. Every scar between us, every night blurred between hate and hunger.
When I didn’t answer, Dominic leaned forward slightly, his voice softening. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m tired,” I said, though we both knew that wasn’t true.
He studied me for a moment, then reached for my wrist, the touch gentler than I expected. “You’re shaking.”
I wasn’t. Not from fear anyway.
He tilted his head. “You’re thinking too loud again.”
I huffed, trying to pull away, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he shifted me closer, and before I could stop him, I was standing between his legs, his breath warm against my neck.
“Dominic—”
“Shh.” His hands slid to my waist, slow, deliberate. His eyes searched mine, not for permission, but for truth.
“There was a time,” he said quietly, almost to himself, “you wanted to put a bullet in my head.”
My lips twitched, fighting a smirk I couldn’t quite hold back.
“Who says that time’s over?”
He froze, then laughed under his breath, a sound that was half relief, half something else. The kind of laugh that meant she’s still here.
His hands moved up, cupping my face like he was holding something fragile. The tension between us stretched, thinned, then broke, and when he finally pulled me into him, it wasn’t rough.
It was desperate.
Hungry.
And when I sank into his arms, I realized something that terrified me more than any fight ever could, even with all my memories back—
I didn’t want to shoot him anymore.