Chapter 34 Evi
EVI
Sandro’s words echo in the dark, lending me strength long after he says them. I’ve got you.
They settle somewhere deep inside me, in the part that’s been holding its breath since the moment I woke to find a stranger crouched in my room.
I rest my ear against his chest, listening to the slow, steady rhythm of his heart.
The sound keeps me tethered, keeps the panic from pulling me under again.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
His arm tightens around me. “Don’t say that.”
“I mean it. You shouldn’t have to protect me. I’m just—”
He cuts me off softly. “You’re the reason I’m still fighting.”
I close my eyes, swallowing hard. His voice is rough, a low rasp from exhaustion and pain, but underneath it is conviction. That’s what breaks me most. He means it.
When I finally lift my head, I can just barely make out his face in the low light—a blur of bruises, shadow, and stubborn will. His eyes look darker here, more dangerous and somehow more human all at once.
“You really think we’ll get out of this?” I ask.
“I have to,” he says simply. “If I don’t believe it, neither of us will.”
It’s not much of an answer, but it’s the only one he can give.
I trace the torn edge of his sleeve, noticing the bruises creeping up his arm, the dried blood from where his skin beneath the cuffs has been lacerated. I wish I could clean and bandage them. “You shouldn’t have come after him. Kenji.”
He gives a small laugh that’s more air than sound. “You sound like Raf.”
“Maybe he was right.”
“He always is,” he admits. Then his hand finds mine, his thumb brushing my knuckles. “But if I hadn’t come, they would’ve killed someone else. Maybe Raf. Maybe Miko. It had to be me down here. No one relies on me.”
Heart aching, I lift my head to look at him. “I do,” I insist, my voice breaking on the confession, and Sandro’s eyes soften in the dark, his hand coming up to cradle my cheek.
“Oh, Sunshine,” he murmurs, the rough pad of his thumb caressing my skin. Then he pulls me to him once more, placing a kiss on the crown of my head that feels half apologetic, half promise.
Hours pass—maybe longer. The light outside the cell died a long time ago, plunging us into a heavy, suffocating dark.
My lips are parched from lack of water, my stomach raw with hunger.
But it doesn’t feel as lonely as it did before.
And thanks to Sandro’s body heat, despite the persistent chill, I’ve stopped shivering.
Sandro shifts, his chest brushing my shoulder. “You should try to sleep.”
“I can’t.”
“Close your eyes anyway,” he says. “Rest while you can.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
I glance up, barely able to see him. “Because you think they’ll come back?”
“Because I don’t want to be caught unprepared when they do.”
Something about the honesty in his tone makes my chest tighten.
“Do you blame yourself for what happened?” I ask quietly.
“I failed them,” he says. “My brothers, my family. I failed you.”
“You didn’t.”
His laugh is sharp, bitter. “I walked us straight into a trap.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
His silence tells me he doesn’t believe it.
So I reach for him again, my fingers brushing his forearm until he lets me take his hand. His skin is rough and warm despite the cold. “You’ve done nothing but try to protect the people you love. That’s not failure.”
For a long time, he doesn’t respond. Then he exhales slowly. “You shouldn’t talk like that. It makes me forget everything I’m supposed to remember.”
“What’s that?”
“My priorities,” he says, voice low. “My focus.”
“Maybe you need to forget them for a little while. You’re carrying too much.”
He turns his head, the motion small but unmistakable. “If I stop, we won’t survive this.”
I bite back my response, unsure whether I should push further.
Then, softly, he says, “You’re not a distraction, Evi.”
My heart skips a beat, and I tilt my head to search Sandro’s troubled face.
He’s already apologized for what he said, but it must still be weighing on him, and hearing him deny his statement fills me with a warmth that chases away the dungeon’s dank chill.
“I made Raf’s big night about myself when I reacted to my parents the way I did.
I should have known better than to let them get under my skin.
You were just trying to be there for me…
” I insist, guilt knotting my stomach when I think of Sandro’s look of desperation when he realized Raf was in danger and too far away.
“I should have handled it better,” he counters. “It’s my job as Raf’s right-hand man to protect him. But it is also my responsibility as your husband to keep you safe. I’m the one who let things get out of hand.”
I hesitate, surprised he’d even bring it up again, and astonished by how introspective his assessment is.
Sandro is loyal. He’s kind. But he’s also deeply compassionate in a way I sometimes forget because he hides it beneath a gruff exterior.
“You’ve all been under immense pressure.
I’m sorry my family drama landed on your plate at all. ”
“That’s not an excuse.” His voice is quiet, rough. “You have done so much to help us, since the moment you came into my life, and the first time you truly needed me, I shut you out.”
I shift closer, my cheek pressed to his chest. “You were scared.”
“I don’t get scared,” he counters too quickly, and it makes my chest tighten.
“Yes, you do,” I say gently. “You just call it something else.”
That gets a low huff from him, almost a laugh. He shakes his head. “You think you’ve got me all figured out.”
“Not even close,” I admit. “But I’m trying.”
The silence that follows is companionable this time. Then, because the stillness feels too heavy, I ask, “What were you like growing up?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “You mean before all this?”
“Yes. Before the empire. Before the violence. Before you became the man you are now.”
His hand tightens slightly around mine. “Weak,” he says.
The word hits me like a slap. “I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true.” He exhales, head tilting back against the wall. “I wasn’t like my brothers. I was quiet. Too quiet. Couldn’t get a word out half the time.”
“Why?”
He hesitates, as if deciding whether he can trust me with a secret no one else knows. “I had a stutter.”
I blink, startled. “You?”
He gives a faint, humorless smile. “Yeah. Hard to imagine, huh?”
I shake my head. “Not hard to imagine. Hard to believe anyone would see that as weakness.”
“My father did,” he says flatly.
Something in the way he says it makes my stomach twist. “What do you mean?”
“He used to—” Sandro stops himself, jaw tightening. “He thought he could beat it out of me. Literally.”
My throat goes dry. “Sandro…”
“When that didn’t work, he stopped talking to me altogether,” he continues. His voice sounds detached, like he’s reciting someone else’s story. “He couldn’t stand it. Said it made me sound like a coward. So he pretended I didn’t exist until my speech tutor fixed me.”
I can’t speak for a long time. My heart aches with something sharp and hot. “He beat you for stuttering?”
He shrugs. “He made me strong.”
“No,” I say softly. “He hurt you.”
Sandro frowns, clearly taken aback. “He loved us.”
“Did he?”
“Of course he did.”
“Then why did he hurt you?”
He shakes his head. “You don’t understand. That’s how he showed it. He wanted us to be capable. To never depend on anyone else.”
“And that meant breaking you first?” I ask quietly. “Breaking all of you?”
His expression shifts, uncertainty flickering behind his eyes. “He didn’t—”
“Didn’t he?” I press gently. “From what I understand, Don Augusta pressured Leo into taking his place as Don when Leo didn’t want it.
Miko was stolen from his birth parents and brought into your home but never treated like part of the family because of his heritage.
Your father kidnapped Gio’s girlfriend to control him and left her for dead when things went south.
And you—” My voice catches. “He beat you as a child because you couldn’t speak the way he wanted you to. ”
Sandro’s eyes narrow slightly. “Where did you hear all that?”
“I’ve gathered it in bits and pieces, from Raf after the wedding—and Anika while we were staying at Miko’s house.
From the way you all talk about him. Tell me I’m wrong.
” I take a breath when Sandro stays silent, then forge ahead, trying to help him see the trauma of his childhood.
“Your father didn’t make you strong, Sandro.
You made yourself strong in spite of him. ”
He stares at me, like he’s not sure if he should be angry or grateful.
“I don’t—” He rubs a hand over his stubbled jaw. “You don’t understand how things were.”
“Then explain it to me,” I plead.
He exhales, the sound ragged. “He expected perfection. From all of us. And he gave everything to make us that way. His time, his money, his blood. He believed the world would chew us up if we weren’t harder than it. But if we could learn to control it, no one could hurt us.”
“Maybe,” I say quietly. “But he also chewed you up to make his point. And in the end, look at where it’s gotten you.”
The silence after that is long. He looks away, jaw flexing.
When he finally speaks again, his voice is quieter. “You really think he was cruel.”
“I think he was human,” I say. “But I also think you’ve spent so long justifying his actions that you’ve forgotten it’s okay to admit he hurt you.”
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he shifts his gaze to the darkness across the cell. “If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be the man I am. And right now, that’s the only thing that might keep us alive.”
I reach out, touching his face gently. “I don’t want to be kept alive by your pain, Sandro. I just want you.”
His hand finds mine again, and for a heartbeat, the hard lines in his expression soften.
“I don’t deserve that,” he murmurs.
“Yes, you do.”
We sit there in the dark, pressed close together, our breaths tangling. His thumb moves over my wrist in small, slow circles. I can feel the tension in him, the weight of what he’s never said. And underneath it, something warmer—something he doesn’t know how to name.
When he finally speaks again, his voice is barely audible. “You shouldn’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m worth saving.”
I swallow hard. “You are.”
For a moment, he just stares at me, his polished hematite eyes fathomless and mesmerizing, and I swear the world outside the cell disappears. Then, quietly, he pulls me against him. His arms come around me, solid and sure, and I melt into him without hesitation.
There’s nothing romantic about this dungeon, nothing safe or soft—but when he holds me, I feel all of those things anyway.
I rest my head on his chest again, savoring the rise and fall of his breaths. “Do you ever wish things had been different?” I ask.
“Sometimes,” he admits. “But if they had, I might not have met you.”
My breath catches. I want to tell him something then—everything, maybe. The secret I’ve been keeping, the one that grows heavier with each passing hour. The truth about the tiny life inside me, the one I’m terrified will never see the world outside these walls.
But I can’t. Not now. Not when he’s already carrying so much.
So instead, I whisper, “I’m glad you did.”
He tilts his chin resting his cheek on the crown of my head. “Me too.”
Seconds later, the sound of footsteps shatters the fragile quiet.
Sandro’s head snaps up instantly, his grip on me tightening, and he pulls me to my feet as he rises. “Stay behind me,” he murmurs.
Then the door at the top of the stairwell creaks open, flooding the basement with harsh, yellow light. Shadows stretch long across the floor.
Kenji descends slowly, his polished shoes echoing with each deliberate step.
Two of his men follow, rifles slung across their shoulders.
And when one flips a light switch, two sets of harsh fluorescent strip lights flicker to life overhead, illuminating the creepy open space with chains hanging from the ceiling and searing into my eyes.
I blink, bringing a hand up to shield them as I squint into the sudden brightness.
“Well,” Kenji says, his voice as smooth as oil. “How touching. Two lovers whispering sweet nothings in the dark.”
Sandro straightens, chains rattling. “Come closer and I’ll show you how touching it can get.”
Kenji laughs, low and mocking. “Still defiant. I admire that about you, Sandro. But the time for endearments is over.”
I feel Sandro tense beside me, his hands flexing into fists as he brings them up, almost as if on instinct.
Kenji crosses the room, stopping just outside the cell. The light catches his smirk. “It’s time for the fun to begin.”