Chapter 58
The city looked different when you weren’t running from it.
When it bowed instead.
Rain slid down the glass walls of my office, turning Milan’s skyline into a watercolour painting. I sat in the same black leather chair he used to sink into during meetings, signing off an agreement that would make three families kneel.
My surname stamped the paper in red ink.
Versace.
The signature didn’t tremble anymore.
It had been thirteen months since the night of the explosion.
Since the watch.
Since the scream that still lived somewhere inside my ribs.
Thirteen months since Dominic Cassian Moretti died—
Since I killed him with my own hands and bullets I had bought from his company.
The twins were asleep when I left the estate that morning.
One had my eyes, emerald and sharp.
The other had his smile.
I never said that aloud. Not even to my mother. Some truths were too sacred to speak—they could break you if you gave them sound.
Mama had moved back to the mansion permanently. She’d stepped down from power, and now I sat on the throne she’d built—the Mafia Queen of the House of Versace.
We kept the twins secret from everyone else except my close friends. We had just survived a war, the last thing I wanted was to start a fight on legitimacy, and my mother advised me on that too.
She ruled the nursery like she once ruled boardrooms: efficient, graceful, terrifyingly tender. She told me I worked too much, that no mother should negotiate arms deals on three hours of sleep.
But she didn’t understand.
The moment I stopped moving, the moment I dropped the pen—
I saw him.
The smirk. The jaw. The hazel eyes that disarmed before the bullets ever could.
And with one pull of a trigger, I had destroyed the only person who ever made me feel human.
I hadn’t fired a gun since. The therapist called it trauma. Said my brain had stacked too much pain in too little time: memory loss, pregnancy, loss, betrayal.
She said I had survived the impossible. But survival didn’t mean peace.
The screen on my desk flickered. Aurelio appeared on the other end of the call. Sleeves rolled up, tie loose, eyes shadowed with the kind of exhaustion only power could cause.
“When I say three o’clock, I don’t mean five, Versace.”
I arched my brow. “Good afternoon to you too, Aurelio.”
“The shipment from Marseille arrived. Ozona’s men will distribute it next week. Profit’s split three ways—mine, yours, and the Moretti branch.”
“Good,” I said, leaning back. “Keep it quiet. No leaks this time.”
He nodded, then paused. His expression softened, enough to make me uneasy.
“Versace,” he said quietly. “How are you?”
“I’ve always been fine.”
A flicker of a smile touched his mouth. “You sound like him,” he murmured. “Except he kept to his appointments.”
Before I could reply, the call cut. Silence again. Always silence after him.
Aurelio was able to take over the House of Kashani after his father died. It was like he was broken from the shackles that held him down.
The Moretti empire hadn’t fallen after Dominic’s death. Someone had kept it breathing.
A woman—his sister.
Renaisa Moretti.
She’d reached out months after the explosion through channels meant only for ghosts and bloodlines. Her first words had cracked something in me.
“He told me so much about you.”
No accusation. No grief.
She ruled quietly now, loyal to the end. We met sometimes for brunches that were half business, half truce. She never mentioned his name again and I never asked.
“Versace.”
Asvika’s voice cut through the silence. I looked up to find her leaning in the doorway, black leather, gold hoops, and mischief.
“You’re drowning in paperwork again.”
“I’m building a future,” I muttered.
“You’re hiding from life.”
She stepped inside, arms crossed, eyes softening when she saw the fatigue undermine. “You need air, Vee. Come out tonight. It’s the new opening of the Moretti Club.”
“I just had twins.”
“You mean four months ago.” She smirked. “Your mother already texted me that she’s kidnapping them for the night. You’re coming. End of story.”
I wanted to say no.
I wanted to stay where ghosts couldn’t follow. But Asvika was right. The walls I built were starting to rot from the inside.
“Okay,” I said.
Her grin widened. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The club pulsed with gold light and bass. Perfume, liquor, laughter, sins dressed in silk.
Renaisa had outdone herself. The decor was Moretti-level perfection: dark marble, golden chandeliers, a kingdom reborn.
I hadn’t worn a dress like this in over a year. Black silk, slit high, back bare.
People stared. They always did. But for the first time since the blast, I didn’t feel like a weapon.
I felt like a woman trying to remember she was still alive.
Our group sat at a VIP table—Aahil, Mayami, Aurelio, Asvika. The laughter came easier than I expected.
The club was a temple of gold and shadows, a place designed for forgetting. The bass didn't just play; it vibrated in my chest, a rhythmic reminder that my heart was still beating, even if I’d spent months pretending it was made of stone.
"To the Queen," Aahil said, raising a crystal glass of amber liquid.
"To us," I corrected, clinking my glass against his.
The laughter around the table felt like a warm blanket. Mayami was dancing in her seat, her usual sharp focus softened by the music. Aurelio was leaning back, watching the crowd with a relaxed grin, his old rivalry with the House of Versace seemingly buried under the rubble of the past.
For hours, we weren't heirs or soldiers.
We were just people, reclaiming a night that didn't belong to a war.
We danced until my feet ached, talked until our voices were hoarse over the music, and for a few fleeting moments, I didn't see the muzzle of a gun when I closed my eyes.
I saw the gold light reflecting off the champagne.
As the clock neared 3:00 AM, the lights dimmed further, and the crowd began to thin into a hazy, late-night hum.
"We should go," Mayami said, though she didn't look like she wanted to. "The twins will be up at six, and your mother might actually kill us if we're hungover for breakfast."
I laughed, feeling a lightness in my limbs that I hadn't felt in an eternity. "She’s right. But Asvika..." I turned to my friend, who was still glowing from the dance floor. "We’re coming back tomorrow."
Asvika's brows shot up in a delighted arch. "Tomorrow? You're actually making plans for fun twice in one week?"
"The vibes here are perfect," I said, looking around at the dark marble and the rebirth of an empire. "Everyone is in town. We should enjoy this while the world is quiet."
"I'm in," Aurelio agreed, standing up and straightening his jacket. "Consider the table reserved."
We walked out into the cool night air, the city lights shimmering against the damp pavement. As the valet pulled my car around, I felt a strange sense of peace. The ghosts were still there—they always would be—but for the first time, they weren't the only ones in the room.
"Same time tomorrow?" Aahil asked, leaning against the doorframe.
"Same time," I promised.
As I drove home toward my mother's house and the two sleeping lives that carried a secret name, I realized that surviving wasn't just about winning the war. It was about allowing yourself to live in the peace that followed.
The bass was a rhythmic thrum in the floorboards, matching the steady beat of my heart as we walked back into the Moretti Club the following night.
True to his word, Aurelio had secured the same VIP booth. We were a circle of survivors, drinking to a future that finally felt within reach. Asvika was laughing at something Aahil said, her gold hoops catching the strobe lights, while Mayami watched the crowd with her usual sharp, protective gaze.
“Dare,” Asvika said, sliding her drink toward me, eyes glinting. “Kiss a stranger.”
I scoffed. “You’re insane.”
“For old times’ sake.”
I sighed, clinking my glass against hers. “Fine.”
The music swelled. I rose, scanning the crowd. Faces blurred beneath the strobe lights. Then my gaze caught on one.
A man at the bar. Half in shadow. Broad shoulders. Black shirt. Cap low over his face.
Target locked.
I walked toward him, heartbeat pounding like it was trying to warn me. His scent—smoke, cedar and spice hit first. Familiar enough to split me open.
He didn’t move as I stopped in front of him. Even in heels, I had to look up.
“Hi,” I said, trying to be playful. “I’ve been dared to kiss a stranger. No hard feelings.”
He leaned down, voice low, threaded with something dangerously familiar.
“Really, love?” he murmured. “Just getting over me like that?”
The words detonated.
The lights flashed—white, gold, red.
And then I saw him.
Dominic.
Alive.
The hat came off.
Hazel eyes gleamed beneath the strobe, a faint scar cutting through his temple. His hair was longer, his jaw rougher, but the look—that look, was the same.
I stumbled back, the world blurring around him.
He reached out, catching my wrist, pulling me closer before I could disappear.
“It’s me,” he whispered. His thumb traced my pulse like he was reminding it how to work. “It’s me, Ara.”
The noise of the club vanished.
“You—” My voice cracked. “You died. I shot you.”
“I almost did,” he said. “The blast… They pulled me out. I had lost my sight temporarily. Renaisa hid me until I healed. I couldn’t come back. Not until—”
“Until what?” I demanded. “Until I stopped mourning you? Until I stopped screaming your name in my sleep?”
He didn’t answer. He just looked at me like he used to, like he could see every lie I’d built to survive him.
And then he pulled me into him.
The hug broke me. His heart slammed against mine. My hands fisted in his shirt, terrified he’d vanish again.
“You’re real,” I whispered.
“I never stopped loving you,” he said against my hair.
Tears burned hot, but I swallowed them. “You left me.”
“I didn’t leave,” he murmured. “I had to recover. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to see your emerald eyes again.”
He drew back enough to really see me, his gaze sweeping over my face, lingering on the short strands framing it. His hand slipped into my hair, fingers tracing the edges gently.
“You… you cut your hair,” he said softly, voice breaking around the words.
I looked down, the air suddenly too heavy. “It held too many memories,” I whispered. “It suffocated me.”
As his fingers brushed my neck, memories slammed into me, the way he used to gather my hair into a bun, slow and careful. The way he’d kiss the back of my head afterward as if tying my hair meant claiming a piece of me. I could almost feel it now, phantom hands, phantom warmth.
His thumb lifted my chin, eyes wet and wild. “Still beautiful,” he murmured.
The lights flickered, gold catching in his hazel eyes. The room blurred.
And then he kissed me.
It wasn’t gentle. It was ruinous.
A kiss made of fire and grief and everything we’d lost.
When we finally pulled apart, shaking, breathless, I whispered, “You shouldn’t be here. You should be dead.”
He smiled faintly, voice low. “I came back for what’s mine.”
His hand brushed my jaw, reverent, trembling.
And for the first time since the explosion,
since the blood, since the watch, since the silence—
I didn’t feel dead either.