The air inside the bunker tasted stale, heavy like it was soaked with grief I was still trying to swallow. I pulled the sleeves of my jacket over my hands, staring blankly at the cracked floor. There was a war outside, a silent one, moving like a shadow across the city.And Matteo Vergara was playing the part of the broken man.I saw glimpses of it on the small TV in the corner. His black suit. His bloodshot eyes. His voice shaking as he gave statements to the media. The world mourned for him, the heartbroken fiancé who had lost everything in one cruel twist of fate.Except none of it was real.I was still here. Hiding. Breathing. Burning from the inside out."You ready?" a deep voice asked from the doorway.I turned my head and saw Nico leaning against the frame, arms crossed, a small smirk playing on his lips. He was one of Matteo’s trusted men, someone who had been with him long before all this chaos started."As ready as I'll ever be," I said, pushing myself to my feet.The past f
Matteo’s POVThe rain had started again. Not the kind that invited umbrellas or window-side poems—this was the cold, punishing kind, the kind that made everything feel heavier than it already was.I sat in the backseat of the black Escalade, silent as the engine idled near the dockyard. Nico was in the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel, eyes watching the storm.He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. We both knew what tonight was. Not a truce. Not a conversation.A reckoning.“You sure about this?” Nico finally asked, voice low.“No,” I said, and meant it.He gave me a look in the rearview mirror, then turned off the engine.We walked the rest of the way.The abandoned warehouse stood like a beast’s carcass—stripped, skeletal, looming. Inside, only one overhead bulb flickered above a steel table, two chairs waiting like vultures.He was already there. Rafael Aragon. Wearing black gloves, sipping from a paper cup like he wasn’t the one who had just pulled strings that nearly end
Amara’s POV"Tell me," I said.His silence terrified me more than any gun ever pointed at my head.Matteo stood in front of me, drenched from the rain, shoulders slumped like he’d just buried someone. There was something haunted in his eyes—something I hadn’t seen before. Not even when he thought I died.He opened his mouth. Closed it. And when he finally spoke, it wasn’t what I expected."He knows you’re alive."The breath left my lungs. I stepped back, the walls of the safehouse suddenly too close, too tight."Rafael?"He nodded once. "He showed me a picture. Said he’s known for a while. He’s just been waiting.""Waiting for what?"Matteo didn’t answer right away. He looked down at his hands, like they were covered in blood."He gave me a choice."His voice cracked. My heart did too."What kind of choice?"He looked at me then. Really looked. And I knew. I knew before he said it. I felt it like a scream in my bones."He wants me to kill you," Matteo said. "Seven days. Or he’ll kill
Amara's POVThe night was too quiet, too calm, like the eye of the storm had passed over and now we were just waiting for it to rip everything apart. But there was no escaping. Not anymore.I stood in the dimly lit room, my fingers shaking as I stared at the blade in my hand. Lazaro’s voice echoed in my mind, his offer still ringing in my ears. I had no choice. None."Everything Rafael stole from me, I’ll give it to you," I had promised him, my voice steady despite the chaos in my heart. "In exchange for Matteo’s freedom."Lazaro had agreed, his eyes gleaming with that sick satisfaction that made my skin crawl. But there was a price. Always a price."A blood pact," he had said, his voice low, deliberate. "Sealed with loyalty."I had tried to push back, to make some kind of excuse, but Lazaro wasn’t a man who dealt in excuses. He was a man of demands, of terms I couldn’t refuse. And as much as it repulsed me, I knew I had to play
Amara’s POVI didn’t sleep that night.The cut on my palm had dried into a thin, ugly line, but the ache didn’t stop there. It spread through my chest like rot, thick and impossible to escape from. Matteo’s face wouldn’t leave my head—the way his eyes hardened, how his voice cracked when he said goodbye.It played on repeat. Every blink, every breath, it was there.“You don’t understand.”“Don’t.”“I trusted you.”“I’m done with you.”I could still hear it.I sat alone on the cold floor of the safehouse, the silence so loud it nearly screamed. Outside the window, dawn hadn’t even tried to break yet. Just black sky and heavier shadows.He didn’t even let me explain.But maybe he didn’t need to.I had cut myself open for Matteo—literally—and he still walked away like none of it mattered. Maybe to him, it didn’t.I wanted to scream.I wanted to smash something.But more than anythin
The blood wouldn’t stop.It soaked through my fingers, warm and terrifying, as I pressed harder against Matteo’s chest. I couldn’t even tell where the bullet had entered anymore—only that the bleeding wouldn’t slow, and his breathing was getting shallower.“Faster!” I screamed over my shoulder, my voice cracking. “We’re losing him!”Emil didn’t reply. He just drove harder, weaving through the barely lit roads like every second could kill us.The safehouse wasn’t far now. A medical one—hidden deep in the hills, off-grid, fully equipped and used only for the most desperate moments.And this was desperate.I stared down at Matteo’s face. His lashes twitched against his pale skin, sweat dotting his forehead. His lips were tinted red.“Stay with me, please.”My voice was smaller now. I didn’t care about pride or anger or what happened yesterday. Not when his life was slipping through my hands.The van jolted
The second envelope came at dawn. No knock. No footsteps. Just a soft thud, like a breath exhaled through paper, as it landed on the floor of Matteo's room. I didn’t notice it at first. I was dozing off, curled up in the chair, my fingers still loosely holding Matteo's hand. But the sound pulled me out of the fog. There it was. Another letter. Same yellowing parchment. Same shaky ink. But this time, it was addressed to Matteo. I didn’t touch it. Not right away. Something about it felt wrong. Like it breathed. Like it watched. I stared at it as the sun cracked through the slats in the window, slicing light across the tile floor. My heart hammered in slow, heavy thuds. I didn’t know if I was more afraid of what was inside it or the fact that it had gotten in at all. No one had come through that door. No one. And still, it sat there. I finally reached f
Rain tapped like soft whispers against the windshield, and the world outside the tinted glass blurred into shadows and smoke.The hearse ahead of us moved slowly, a dark carriage dragging Matteo Monteverde's name through the mud one last time. The streets were lined with umbrellas and whispers, mourners and monsters dressed in black.And somewhere in the crowd... was me.Draped in a long black veil, a wig darkening my hair, I stood still. Silent. My heart beating in sync with the thunder above. My heels sank into the softened earth, and my gloved hands clenched the umbrella handle so tightly I thought it might snap.I didn’t speak. I didn’t blink.I just watched.Watched Rafael Aragon walk up to the podium like a grieving brother. Like a man who didn’t have blood on his hands.He wore mourning well. Black suit, black tie, just a touch of red in his pocket square—because the devil never forgets his color.He look
I wasn’t planning to break anything today. Not locks. Not rules. Not even my own promises. But there I was, standing in front of a door Matteo had explicitly told me never to open. The red room. It wasn’t just locked. It was sealed like a secret. Like it was guarding something so dangerous, even the walls didn’t want to remember. But I needed answers. Not whispers. Not warnings. Real ones. So I picked the lock. The click echoed in the hallway. It sounded too loud, too final. But I pushed the door open anyway. The first thing that hit me was the smell. Dust. Paper. Something older than time. The room was windowless. Red velvet curtains hung on the walls even without windows to cover, and the light was dim, coming from a single bulb swaying slightly from the ceiling. I stepped inside, and the air shifted. The room wasn’t a bedroom or a library. It was something else. A vault of memory. A shrine. Or maybe a crime scene. There were filing cabinets. Stacks of boxes. Shelves filled
The house was quiet in a way that didn’t feel peaceful. It was the kind of silence that pressed on your chest, like it knew what you were hiding. Like it was waiting for you to remember something you'd rather forget. Matteo was resting in the guest room on the lower floor, heavily bandaged and sedated. Rue was with him, sitting in the corner with a book she wasn’t really reading. She'd been shot too, but Rue had always treated pain like it was a mosquito bite—annoying, but not enough to slow her down. I climbed the stairs slowly, each creak of the wood loud in the stillness. Matteo's family house was old. The walls held secrets, and the air was thick with stories no one had finished telling. I wasn’t even sure why I ended up in his old room. Maybe I was looking for a distraction. Maybe I was trying to remember a version of him before the blood, the war, and the hurt. Maybe I just wanted to feel close to him while I still could. The room was cleaner than I expected. There was a
The first shot missed. The second almost didn’t. I heard it before I felt it—the whistle of death slicing through the air, the splinter of stone beside my head as the bullet embedded itself in the wall. Dust exploded near my cheek. "Stay down!" I screamed at Matteo, dragging his heavy body behind the fallen column. His blood smeared across my palms, sticky and warm, like a promise that kept breaking every time I tried to hold on. Another shot rang out. This one hit metal. Sparks. Sniper. I was trained to recognize the rhythm, the way death hums just before it sings. Rafael wasn’t just taunting us. He was orchestrating it like music. A symphony of destruction. And we were the finale. Matteo groaned. "You need to leave me." "Don’t you dare say that." He blinked, dazed. His shirt was soaked through with red. His lips pale. The blood loss was catching up. "We’re not both making it out," he said softly. "Then neither of us is leaving." Our radios were dead. Our allies scattered
The sound of the gunshot echoed louder than my heartbeat. But it wasn’t pain I felt. It was warmth. Not mine. Blood sprayed across my cheek like a kiss from death. Not mine. “Matteo!” He had stepped in front of me. I caught him before he hit the floor, his body heavy, his knees giving out like they had no more strength to fight. His arms tried to hold on to me, but they slipped, and then I was holding all of him, trembling, trying to press against the wound like I could stop the bleeding with sheer will. Lazaro staggered back, his face frozen in shock. “No,” he whispered. “That wasn’t—” “You shot him,” I said. My voice cracked, not from fear, but fury. “You shot him!” His hand was still on the gun. Still trembling. Still aimed. Matteo coughed, blood leaking past his lips like ink from a dying pen. “I’m fine,” he said. But it was a lie. His eyes were already unfocused. “You’re not,” I whispered, pressing both hands on his chest. “Don’t lie to me.” The world around us ha
The sky wasn’t just burning—it was screaming. Flames licked the skyline as smoke spiraled upward like curses cast in ash. Buildings groaned under the weight of war. Sirens wailed far away, too far, like they knew this fight wasn’t theirs to stop. Matteo gripped my hand as we darted through shattered glass and fallen walls, bullets rattling like hail on concrete. We weren’t running from something. We were charging straight into it. "Go low!" he shouted, pulling me behind a flipped SUV. I dropped to the ground just in time to feel a bullet split the air above my head. The scent of oil and blood clung to the dirt, thick and choking. "They hit the southern line first," Emil's voice crackled through Matteo's comm. "Rafael's forces are splitting, but Lazaro's are on the move. It's chaos." "Good," Matteo replied coldly. "Let them burn each other. We'll clean the rest." We moved like shadows through the wreckage. Matteo took lead, always just ahead, always checking my back. He didn’t s
War is a pact of fire. We sign it in blood and light it with a match. I should be afraid. But I’m not. I sit in the war room of the Crimson Line's hidden compound, a place that smells like gunpowder, sweat, and dying prayers. Across from me sits Elias—traitor, father, ghost. The silence between us is louder than bombs. "You’re insane," I say. Elias shrugs. "Probably. But I’m offering you the only shot at winning. Rafael is coming. He wants Matteo’s head and your ashes. I can give him something bigger." "The Vergara estate." He nods. "We let him win. We let him walk in. Then we bury him in it. One click. One explosion. End of story." I study him. The years have turned his face into stone, and grief has hollowed him out. I don’t trust him. But sometimes, you make peace with the devil to burn a worse one. "And after?" I ask. "I disappear. You rebuild. Matteo lives." He stands to leave, but I stop him. "He’s going to kill you," I say quietly. Elias pauses. "Let him try. I’ve g
The silence was deafening. The kind that doesn’t just settle into your ears—it crawls into your bones. For the first time in weeks, no one spoke. No one dared to. We just stared at each other, faces half-lit by the low hanging bulbs of the safehouse, the weight of Matteo’s decision heavy in the air. He had snapped. Not loudly. Not with guns or fury. He broke quietly. Like glass left too long in a fire, beautiful until it just… cracked. “I’m done holding back,” Matteo finally said. I looked up from the blueprints spread across the table. “What are you saying?” He didn’t answer right away. He just walked over, placed Rafael’s video message in the center of the table, and hit play again. His brother’s muffled cries filled the room. Everyone flinched. “This—” Matteo pointed at the screen, “—this is the line. The last f*cking line.” No one argued. Not eve
Betrayal has a sound.It isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself with crashing glass or bullets through walls.It whispers.And tonight, I heard it.The whisper of footsteps where there shouldn’t be any. The creak of a hinge. The breath someone holds when they think they’re alone.We had grown too comfortable. Too confident in our shadows and secrets. And now, those same shadows were bleeding.It was Elias.Matteo’s right hand.The one who stood beside him in every war, every negotiation, every moment where death leaned in too close. The one who had once pulled Matteo out of a burning car with a bullet in his shoulder and a snarl on his face.And he was the one leaking information.I didn’t tell anyone at first. I watched.I watched him excuse himself just before major meetings. I watched his phone light up in the middle of blackout drills. I watched him brush off questions with too muc
I had barely stepped into the damp, echoing silence of the abandoned warehouse when the weight of what was about to happen hit me. My breath caught, chest tight with something I couldn’t name. The smell of iron and old leather lingered in the air, mixing with the faint scent of gunpowder that had almost become synonymous with my life.Matteo Monteverde stood just a few steps ahead, his posture tense but resolute. His eyes were trained on the dark figure ahead of us, waiting. Watching. Calculating.Rafael Aragon.We had tracked him here. This was it. The moment we had prepared for. The moment Matteo had sworn would end with blood on his hands. Rafael had pushed too far this time. He had killed too many of us. Torn families apart, burned lives to the ground. There was no turning back now.But as I watched Matteo take a slow step forward, I saw something in his eyes. A hesitation. A flicker of something I hadn’t expected.“I thought this wou