Chapter 29
Princess
H e’s toying with me.
From the moment he laid eyes on me and knew of my existence, he’s toyed with me. And I let it happen because I crave his attention as much as he craves my obsession. This is a two-way street for the both of us.
Lucio snuck into my room three nights ago, and since then, it has been radio silent. The asshole got what he wanted, and now he’s no longer interested, because he hasn’t responded to a single text.
Me:
Hey.
Are we going to talk about what happened last night?
That text was from two days ago and I still haven’t gotten a reply.
I don’t know why he’s doing this. I was happy with just staying in the shadows and watching him from afar, but he just had to find out my true identity and fuck with me.
“Stop looking at your phone, Princess. You know the rules when you’re sitting at the table.” My mother’s sharp voice cuts through the silence, and I look up.
I really want to throw my steaming coffee cup in her face, but actions have consequences, and I don’t think the small satisfaction of pissing her off and giving her superficial burns are worth those consequences.
“Sorry,” I murmur, pushing around the scrambled eggs on my plate.
Dad clears his throat, and we all turn our attention to him.
“I’ve got some news.”
We all hold our breaths, hoping its good news, but we know the chances of that are slim to none.
“The doctors overestimated the time I have left,” he finally says.
It feels like the whole room is spinning. My heart slams against my ribcage, fighting to get out.
What? That’s not right. It has to be some sort of sick joke. Because the opposite of that is stone, cold, hard, reality, nothing less and nothing more.
“That can’t be right, Da—” I stop myself from calling him Dad in front of Mother. “Father, that can’t be right. There has to be something they can do.”
My father exhales, slow and measured, before placing his coffee cup back onto its saucer with a quiet clink.
“There’s nothing more they can do,” he says simply.
The finality in his tone is a gut punch. I stare at him, my scrambled eggs forgotten, the weight of his words pressing down on my chest and squeezing the air out of my lungs.
I try to swallow it down, to push the lump in my throat back where it belongs, but it lodges itself there, heavy and unmoving.
He’s dying. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Silence chokes the dining room, filling the space between us like a tangible thing, thick and suffocating. My mother is the first to recover. She places her napkin delicately on the table, her movements precise, controlled. As if this is nothing more than a business transaction gone wrong.
“Then we move forward,” she says briskly, not even sparing him a glance. “The arrangements will need to be adjusted, of course, but this doesn’t change anything.”
I grip my fork so tightly my knuckles turn white.
That’s it? That’s all she has to say?
She doesn’t ask him how he’s feeling. She doesn’t reach for his hand. She just accepts it. Because in her world, emotions are useless things.
I glance at my brothers, but they say nothing. They sit, stiff and silent, as if speaking would make this more real. Maybe it would. Maybe that’s why my voice remains stuck in my throat.
“I want to be left alone,” my father finally says, pushing back his chair.
He doesn’t wait for a response. He just stands, adjusts his suit, and walks out.
I watch him leave, my hands trembling in my lap. Then I look at my mother. And I know she feels my stare because she lifts her chin, eyes flicking toward me with thinly-veiled irritation.
“What?” she says coolly, taking another sip of her tea, completely unaffected.
I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s been preparing for this moment her entire life, and she expects me to do the same.
But I don’t. I can’t.
“You’re unbelievable,” I whisper, barely trusting myself to speak.
She sighs, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her napkin before folding her hands neatly on the table. “Princess, spare me the dramatics. You knew this was coming.”
I shake my head, rage simmering beneath my skin. “And that makes it okay?”
“It makes it inevitable,” she corrects, her expression impassive. “And if you were smart, you’d focus on what happens next rather than wallowing in sentimentality.”
I laugh—a sharp, bitter sound. “Right. Because that’s all this is to you. Business. Strategy. A means to an end.”
Her gaze hardens. “That’s what it has always been, Princess. You should understand that by now.” She leans back, regarding me with something almost like amusement. “And besides,” she murmurs, tilting her head slightly, “I have bigger concerns than your feelings right now.”
My jaw tightens. “Like what?”
She gives me a slow, calculating smile. “Like your engagement.”
The words land like a slap. A fresh wave of rage burns through me, searing hot. I shove my chair back, the legs scraping against the floor, and stand so quickly that my vision blurs for a second.
My mother watches me, unimpressed. “Where do you think you’re doing?”
“To do what I should’ve done the second you announced that bullshit in front of everyone.”
I grab my phone from the table, my hands shaking with fury as I storm toward the staircase.
My mother sighs behind me, bored, exasperated. “Don’t be ridiculous, Princess. You know this is what’s best for you.”
I ignore her. If I stay here for another second, I’ll end up throwing my plate across the room, and I really don’t have the patience for the theatrics that would follow.
I make my way up the stairs and into my room. It feels too small. Too suffocating. I pace the length of my balcony, my hands gripping my phone, staring at Lucio’s name on my screen.
Three fucking days. Three days since he snuck into my room, since he took what he wanted and then vanished like a ghost.
Since then, he’s been silent. Like I don’t exist. Like I never mattered. Like he didn’t just set my entire world on fire.
I don’t know what I hate more: the fact that he’s ignoring me or the fact that I can’t stop thinking about him anyway.
I should be focusing on my father. On this forced engagement. On everything else falling apart around me. But all I can think about is Lucio and the way he looked at me like he knew exactly what kind of monster I was.
I squeeze my eyes shut, dragging my nails down my arm in frustration. He started this. He made me his game. And now he’s ignoring me?
I won’t let him.
I inhale sharply, my thumb hovering over his name, heart pounding as I type another text.
Me:
If you don’t want me, just fucking say it.
My fingers hesitate over the send button. I almost delete it. I almost talk myself out of it.
But then I press send. And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
No response. Nothing. I throw my phone onto my bed, swallowing a shaky breath, my chest tight with frustration, with anger, with something far too painful to name.
He’s toying with me. He’s always been toying with me, from the moment he found me. And I fucking let him.
I pace my room, my heart pounding, my mind spinning.
Lucio isn’t answering me. He isn’t responding to my texts. He isn’t anywhere.
I grab my laptop from my desk, flipping it open with shaky fingers. My breathing is uneven, shallow, as I navigate to the app that allows me to access the cameras I’ve installed in his apartment. If he won’t give me answers, I’ll find them myself.
I log into the security cameras, my fingers moving over the keyboard with practiced ease, my eyes glued to the screen as the footage flickers to life.
But he’s not there.
The place is dark. Empty. Not even a shadow of movement.
I check the footage from the past couple of days with timestamps. He hasn’t been there for days.
The sick feeling in my stomach tightens—a slow, twisting thing. Where the fuck is he?
I close the feed and switch tactics, pulling up the tracking system that’s embedded into his phone. Only to be met with…nothing.
Blank. The tracker is gone.
A bolt of pure panic rips through me. Lucio isn’t super focused on his phone. He wouldn’t have been able to remove it, let alone notice the tracking chip. Someone else must have.
I inhale sharply, my fingers clenching into fists. This isn’t right. Something is wrong. And I need to know what.
My hands move on instinct, clicking through encrypted pathways, bypassing firewalls, searching for another way in.
And then I remember. The Camorra’s internal system. It’s set up to appear as part of Folonari Jeweler so when the feds come sniffing, they won’t be able to pin anything on them. It holds everything. Locations, business movements, security protocols, personal details which will lead me to…him.
I hesitate for half a second. Not because of fear, but because this crosses a line. But I don’t care. I plug into the secure network, my fingers moving fast, slipping through the cracks of their defenses one breach at a time.
One wall down. But even as one wall falls, another pops up in its place, fortifying the system.
I don’t stop. I don’t tire. I keep at it till each one falls after the other.
Then another.
I keep going. Until…I’m in.
It takes me hours to crack it, but I slip in. Determination is one hell of a drug. The Camorra’s system opens to me like a forbidden door, information spilling out in lines of code and restricted files.
I don’t stop to think about what I’ve just done. I don’t consider the consequences. I just search. For Lucio. For anything that will tell me where he is, what’s happening, why he’s disappeared.
But then the screen freezes. A split-second delay. An unnatural lag.
My stomach drops.
And then…
SECURITY brEACH DETECTED.
My blood turns to ice. Fuck .
I froze the system. I just triggered an internal security breach in the Camorra’s network.
They’ll know.
They’ll trace it back.
And if they find out it was me?—
I slam my laptop shut, my breath ragged, sharp, uneven as I stare at the mirror positioned in front of me, at my own reflection.
I just hacked into the system of one of the most dangerous organizations in the world. For him.
And the worst part? I’d do it again.