Bound by Vows and Vendetta
I was born into a world where loyalty is currency and vengeance is law. In this life, love is a weakness... and I learned that too late.
My name is Aria Valente—daughter of a mafia kingpin, a pawn in a bloody game I never agreed to play. I was raised to be poised, silent, and obedient. But everything changed the day I was forced to marry Lorenzo De Rossi—the heir of our enemy, a man as cold as the steel he carries.
His touch burns. His silence cuts deeper than any blade. And yet, behind those dark, calculating eyes lies a storm that calls to the chaos in me.
We were never meant to fall in love.
Torn between family legacies and buried secrets, I uncovered truths that shattered the world I thought I knew. Lies. Betrayal. A history soaked in blood. Lorenzo isn’t just my husband—he’s the very weapon forged to destroy me.
But I am not the delicate flower they raised me to be.
In this world of blood and bullets, only one truth remains:
I will not bow.
I will rise.
Now, we are no longer pawns.
We are fire and fury.
And this is no longer a love story. It’s a war.
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Chapter: BONUS CHAPTER 11: AUTHOR’S NOTE — THE FIRE THAT BUILT IT~AUTHOR~To my dear readers, those who stayed until the end, and those who never wanted it to end:Thank you.~~~~~THE EASTER EGGS & ECHOESSome readers caught the quiet patterns. Others felt them without needing to name them.Like how Lorenzo’s arc ends not with vengeance, but silence.How Emilio never fully inherits his father’s name, but he protects the world his father helped destroy.How Aria is always both the blade and the balm. Queen and orphan. Firestarter and firefighter.And of course…“He didn’t die like a king. He ended like fire does, quiet, when the world no longer needed heat.”Those words came to me during a blackout. Literally. No power. Just me, a candle, and the hum of loss in the air.~~~~~WHY I WROTE THISBecause I was a little tired of mafia stories that glorified cruelty but skipped the cost.Because I wanted a heroine who was never just in love, never just cold, never just strong. I wanted someone who could burn a room down at noon and tuck a child in by mid
Last Updated: 2025-08-01
Chapter: BONUS CHAPTER 10: BEHIND THE GLASS ARIA’S CHILDHOOD~ARIA~THE NIGHT SHE LEARNED THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SILENCE AND DEATH~~~~~It started with glass.Thick. Reinforced. Almost unbreakable.Aria was six the first time she stood behind it, a one-way mirror, tall as the ceiling, sealed into the training hall her father used to test loyalty.The room on the other side was dim. Metallic. Smelled of oil and blood. Her small fingers pressed against the cold surface, leaving faint smudges. She didn’t know what she was watching yet. Only that Don Victor Valente had told her to stay quiet. "Watch and remember."She obeyed.Two men stood across from each other in the room. One wore a blindfold. The other held a knife. They said nothing. Didn’t move. For a long time.Then the order came: "Begin."It was over in twenty seconds.Steel flashed. The blindfolded man dropped to his knees. Then his chest. Then silence.Aria didn't cry.She didn't flinch.She asked: "Why was he blindfolded?"Her father’s voice, calm: "So he would only hear the footsteps
Last Updated: 2025-08-01
Chapter: BONUS CHAPTER 9: Q&A WITH THE DEADSection One: Lorenzo De Rossi – "Dead Men Answer No Questions… Except Today"A candlelit study in the afterlife. Leather chair. Glass of scotch. Shotgun leaning against the wall. Smoke curls from a cigar, even though there's no fire.Somehow, Lorenzo is still alive in posture—dead only in fact.A screen flickers to life. A voice off-screen says:“Lorenzo De Rossi, welcome to the Afterdeath Archive. You’ve been requested to answer fan questions from the world you left behind.”Lorenzo (smirking):I’m dead. I have no obligations. But fine. Let’s play.~~~~~Question 1: “Did you ever love Aria from the start, or was it just politics?”Lorenzo:From the start? No. From the war? Yes.She was fire walking on two legs. The kind of woman who could either kill you or crown you.At first, I was just trying not to bleed when she looked at me. But then she stayed. Even when she hated me.That’s how I knew it wasn’t just survival.It was love. Bruised, sharp-edged, hard-earned love.~~~~~Question
Last Updated: 2025-08-01
Chapter: BONUS CHAPTER 8: WHAT IF — LORENZO LIVES~EMILIO~Alternate Reality / Dream SequenceTheme: Survival vs. Peace. Power vs. Legacy. The Cost of a Name.~~~~~ROME — THE BLACK HOUSE — NIGHTIt begins in silence.Not peace. Not quiet. Just the kind of silence that waits for gunfire.Emilio stands in the war room. It's not as he remembers it. The walls are intact, but everything else feels off, like a film layered over a dream. The light is too sharp. The floor too clean. The maps are updated, glowing.And then, he hears it.Bootsteps. Measured. Familiar.He turns.Lorenzo De Rossi walks in.Not in memory. Not in illusion. Not dying.Alive.Dressed in a matte black suit, his signature long coat sweeping the floor. Silver at his temples, but his eyes still storm-bright.He walks to the table, nods once. Lights a cigarette."Status?"Emilio can’t breathe.He doesn’t know how to answer.Because in this world, Lorenzo never died.And the war never ended.~~~~~FLASHCUT: GLOBAL OPERATIONSScreens flicker with chaos. Black Sun cells st
Last Updated: 2025-08-01
Chapter: BONUS CHAPTER 7: EMILIO TO ECHO (NEVER DELIVERED)~EMILIO~ROME — BLACK HOUSE // WAR ROOM ARCHIVES (UNSENT FILE)You said you'd disappear.You did. You always do. Like smoke through steel. Like the last breath in a quiet room.I told myself I didn’t care. That I didn’t need to ask why. That we had nothing left to say.But I’m writing this anyway.Not because I expect you to read it. Not because I want you to write back. But because silence has weight. And I've carried enough of it. So here it is, the noise I never gave you.You saved me. That night. You didn’t have to. You could’ve let the code consume me. You knew what Elias had planted inside me, what he’d wired into the fault lines of my mind. You were the only one who could’ve stopped it, and you chose to help me hold it in—to lock it in the dark with me.You said you were my firewall.But what does a firewall become when the virus is gone?I kept thinking about that.I still remember the first time I met you. Not when we shook hands. Before that. When you stood behind Aria in th
Last Updated: 2025-08-01
Chapter: BONUS CHAPTER 6: A LETTER FROM ARIA TO LORENZO(POST HUMOUS)~ARIA~ ROME — BLACK HOUSE BALCONY 03:33 A.M.The city was silent beneath her. The lights of Rome shimmered like old ghosts refusing to die. Aria stood wrapped in a dark shawl, a single candle burning beside her as the ink bled into paper. She had written and torn up this letter more times than she could count. But tonight, she wouldn’t stop. Tonight, the words would be spoken, even if only to silence.~~~~~Dear Lorenzo,I don’t know if the dead can read. I don’t know if silence has memory. Or if smoke remembers the shape of the flame.But I remember you.Every version of you. The cruel one. The clever one. The broken boy inside the monster. The man who called war his lover and still found time to teach his son how to aim.Do you remember the night you told me, "I’ll never ask you to forgive me. I just want you to survive me"?Well, I did. I survived you.But I didn’t escape you.You linger in every room. In the smell of cigar ash and old steel. In the silence between commands. In th
Last Updated: 2025-08-01
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