LOGINNadia's POV FLASHBACK CONTINUES "I'm sorry, Nadia." I stepped back. Just one step, but it felt like the floor had moved under me. Like the whole room had shifted slightly to the left and nothing was where it was supposed to be anymore. Pregnant. She was pregnant. I stood there trying to make the word make sense in my head and it wouldn't. It just kept bouncing around, hollow and sharp at the same time, not landing anywhere. This can't be true. This cannot be true. "Nad—" "Don't." I held up a hand. "Don't Nadia me right now." He closed his mouth. I pressed my fingers to my forehead, trying to think, trying to line everything up in a way that made sense. How? How had this even happened? Giovanni had made me promises... "You...you told me you were not even going to touch her." My voice came out strange. Flat and trembling at the same time. "You told me you were sleeping in separate rooms. You told me you had never even kissed her before." I looked at him. "You told me..
Nadia's POV FLASHBACK BEGINS "What do you mean you can't marry me?" My voice came out sharp and high, sharper than I intended, but I didn't care. I was shaking. My whole body was shaking and I needed him to see that. "What do you mean you have to marry someone you barely know because of strengthening some stupid Mafia thingy?" I demanded, and before I could stop myself, I grabbed the spoon off the table and threw it at him. It wasn't meant to cut him. Or maybe it was. I don't even know anymore. The spoon caught Giovann (Cassius and Tyler's father) on his left cheek, a small nick, before it clattered to the ground between us. He flinched, touched his face, looked at the tiny smear of blood on his fingers. I didn't apologize. "Nadia, you have to understand me." He said, stepping closer. His voice was calm, which somehow made it worse. "I'll marry you. But my dad told me to marry her first, and after a year we can file for a divorce. It's not even like I like her." "I kn
5 DAYS LATER Cassius's POV "I think you really need to go home and freshen up, sir. You've been here for almost a week now." The nurse said, after checking Crystal who was still laying lifeless on the bed. She said it gently, like she felt sorry for me, but her eyes were also telling me I look terrible. "Please, when exactly will she wake up?" I asked. I already knew the answer. I had asked that same question every single day and every single time, the answer was the same. But I couldn't stop asking. It was the only thing keeping me from losing my mind. "As the doctor told you, her surgery was successful but it's left to her to fight for her life and you should keep praying. The doctor already tried their best." She said, didn't wait for my response and left the room. The door clicked shut and the silence swallowed me whole again. I turned back to Crystal. The machines around her beeped softly, steady, one after the other, and I had memorized that sound by now. I could
Cassius's POV"The bullet in her forearm passed through cleanly...it entered and exited without lodging, which is the best possible outcome for that wound. It has caused muscle damage that will need to be properly cleaned and sutured, but that one is the most straightforward of the three."The doctor paused there, just briefly, the way doctors do when they're about to move from the good news to everything else.I was listening. I was hearing every word. But part of my mind kept drifting back to the last thirty minutes — to rushing through those hospital doors with Crystal in my arms, to the way the nurses had swarmed around her the second they saw the blood, to all the things they had done to her since then that I stood outside and watched through a small rectangular window in a door, understanding almost none of it but unable to make myself walk away.I had never felt this helpless in my life. Not once. Not in all the years of building what I had built, surviving what I had survived,
Cassius's POV"Should I stop?" Raven asked, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror for a split second."No, don't." The words left my mouth before I could think about them properly, even though everything inside me was screaming the opposite.I turned slightly in the back seat, my jaw tight, and watched through the rear window as Crystal ran after the car. Her legs were moving fast, her arms pumping at her sides. My chest did something strange at the sight of her — something I didn't like, something I didn't want to name. Then, as if she finally realized it was pointless, she slowed down and stopped. She then stood there for a brief moment in the middle of the road, chest heaving, and then turned and walked away.I kept watching long after she disappeared from view.Fuck.I faced forward, settling deeper into the cool leather seat, and rubbed a hand down my face. I was supposed to be angry. That was the plan — stay angry, stay cold, keep distance. Anger was easy. Anger was somethin
Zara's POVNever in my life. Not even in my wildest, most twisted dream, would I have ever thought the person who wanted Cassius dead, the same person who had my sister killed, the same person who handed Xander that mission that eventually landed in my hands...was someone I had already met.Someone I had already spoken to.My stomach dropped. The realization hit me like a bucket of ice water straight to the face. That son of a gun who helped me get into the club that night. He was behind everything? He was the one pulling the strings this whole time?I searched my brain, clawing through my memory for his name. Nothing. I couldn't grab it. It kept slipping like wet soap between my fingers, and that frustrated me even more.Wait.So when he approached me at the club and helped me entered, he already knew exactly who I was. He knew my name, he knew my face and he still walked up to me like we were strangers meeting by chance.What an absolute asshole.My jaw tightened. My grip on the gun
I froze. His lips moved against mine with a force that sent a shiver down my spine. It was rough, demanding, completely overwhelming. My fingers twitched at my sides, my breath caught in my throat as he tilted his head, deepening the kiss. Damn. His lips were so soft against mine, and he knew h
Zara’s POV I held my chest as I got down from the taxi, paid the taxi man, and headed inside. Nah. I need to see a doctor. This consistent beating of my heart needs to be checked. Is it arrhythmia? That better be it, ’cause tell me why my heart beats so fast these days. But today, it was defini
Delia’s POV Fury Yeah, that's the best word to describe what I'm feeling right now. Ever since this poor rat came for her interview, I had known she would be a problem to my relationship with Cassius. Something about her had screamed trouble, but she looked too fragile, too harmless then. I h
Zara's POV I placed my hand on my racing chest, trying to steady my breath. My heart pounded against my ribs, my pulse erratic as I leaned against the desk. I still couldn't believe it—standing up to Cassius these days like I had a death wish. A Mafia Lord at that. Ruthless, dangerous, feared by e







