LOGINALESSANDRO’S POV “… you’ve got to open that door, but you are not doing it alone.”Adriana’s words settled over me while her arms stayed careful around my shoulders. The simplicity of the offer carried more weight than she could know. I had told her the story of my biological parents and the possibility of Vittorio being the man behind their death, because I no longer knew where else to place it. Trust had become a scarce thing. The revelations of the past days had shown me that people I once considered fixed points could shift without warning. Garcia had raised me since I was a teenager. Liora was my sister, probably the only person who never succumbed to my bullshit. I love them, but still I could not bring myself to let them in on this discovery until I’m sure it’s the truth. But Adriana was different. Despite the lies she had told and the decisions she had made without me, she remained the one person I could open the darkest rooms for. Telling her had finalized something inside
ADRIANA’S POV “… Grazie a dio,” Garcia said, her voice loud with happiness and broken sobs. “We are on our way. Tell my son that his mother is on her way.” I could hear Liora crying with relief in the background. The gloom that had settled over the family for three days had finally lifted.“Of course, Mother,” I replied, clutching my dress to suppress my own happy tears. I ended the call and leaned against the cool wall of the corridor. A long breath left me. For the first time in three days the tight band around my chest loosened a fraction. He was awake. He had looked at me and said my name. The rest of the fear could wait one more minute while I simply stood there and let the fact settle.My mind drifted back to the conversation with Rocco after I had first voiced my suspicion days ago. I had told him I believed Roman and his mother Catherine were behind the crash. Rocco had listened without interruption and then shaken his head. According to him, the attempt on Alessandro’s li
ALESSANDRO’S POV Rain hammered the windshield until the road disappeared into streaks of light. Tears still burned tracks down my face from everything Raffaello had forced into the open. The wheel felt slick under my palms. Headlights flared too bright from the opposite direction. Then the impact came hard from the side, metal screaming as the other vehicle drove into me once. The car lurched. Another slam followed, heavier, deliberate, pushing the frame inward. Glass exploded across my lap and chest. I tried to correct, but the third hit finished whatever control I had left.“Adriana—”Her name left my mouth as the world turned over in a roar of rain and tearing steel. And the last thing I remembered was darkness swallowing everything.I woke up to a different kind of weight. I felt something rigid sitting in my throat, I heard something beeping steadily somewhere to my left. My eyelids dragged upward against a heavy pull. White ceiling tiles swam into focus, then the rails of a be
ADRIANA’S POVThe moment Dr. Moretti’s voice confirmed that Alessandro was in the hospital and that I needed to come immediately, something inside me fractured. My knees softened. The phone nearly slipped from my fingers. Fear wiped every remaining trace of composure from my face. I could not form a full sentence. The world tilted and the wreck behind us, the rain, the flashing lights all blurred into one crushing weight. Rocco moved first. His hand closed around my elbow while Liora took the other side. They held me upright when my legs threatened to fold completely.“We are going to him right now,” Liora said, her own voice tight. “He is alive. We are going to the hospital and you are going to see him. Please, you've got to calm down.” Rocco echoed the same steady insistence as they guided me back to the car. I let them put me in the back seat because standing alone felt impossible. The engine started. The hospital lights grew closer with every minute, yet the distance still felt
ADRIANA’S POVThe house pressed in on me with every unanswered ring. I stood in the center of the living room and tapped Alessandro’s number again, my heart beating faster than it should have. The automated voice returned at once, calm and final. The subscriber you are trying to reach is switched off. I ended the call and started another. Around me the same failure repeated. Liora paced near the windows with her phone clamped to her ear, her free hand twisting the edge of the curtain. Garcia held Luca against her shoulder, one palm moving in slow circles over his small back while her other hand tried the number for the third time. Rocco stood by the door, arms folded, his single good eye fixed on the floorboards as if the wood might offer an explanation. The knowledge that Alessandro had left without him sat heavy in the silence between us all. I lowered my phone and stared at the black glass. The anger I had seen in him earlier told me that it didn’t belong only to the lies I had
ALESSANDRO’S POVI left the bedroom and the house without giving Adriana another chance to speak. The anger sitting in my chest belonged to two separate fires that had burned into one. The first was the story Salvatore and the others had forced on me about Antonio and Elma Ferrara, about the deal, the greed, and the attack ordered by the man I had called father for more than twenty years. The second was the clear knowledge that Adriana had looked me in the eye and lied. She was not a woman who simply drove off for air when the walls closed in. There was something else she wasn’t saying, something that already felt capable of following us for years. I walked out because I refused to let my anger and frustration land on her in that moment. “Figlio,” Garcia called out as she tried to step into my path near the stairs. “I’m not interested,” I replied with no emotion as I moved past her. The truth about my blood still felt too raw to place in her hands, and part of me still fought to
ADRIANA’S POV I gripped the tray until my fingers ached and stepped through the heavy velvet curtain into the VIP section. Thick cigar smoke curled through the air like ghosts, and the dim amber lights barely pushed back the shadows. Low conversations hammered around the long table where several m
ADRIANA’S POVThe hospital room smelled of antiseptic and exhaustion. My heart hammered painfully as Doctor Cassian flipped through Luca’s chart with a grave expression that made my stomach twist. Rain pattered against the window, blurring the city lights outside into streaks of neon. “Miss Rossi,
ALESSANDRO’S POVI strode down the dimly lit west wing corridor, my footsteps echoing against the marble like distant gunshots. The meeting with my capos had stretched well into the night, leaving a sour taste in my mouth that no amount of whiskey could wash away. “Don, the evidence is clear, Vale
ADRIANA’S POVI followed Alessandro out of the club on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. The rain had slowed to a miserable drizzle, but my clothes remained cold and heavy, plastered against my skin like a second layer of shame. The words I had spoken earlier still echoed in my mi







