The last night

Scarlett's POV

“You’re so fucking tight,” he snarled, his voice raw. “I’m going to ruin you for anyone else. You’ll feel me everywhere, even when I’m gone.”

Loving Christian Marchetti was a sickness. At eighteen, it was officially terminal.

I became a shadow in my stepbrother's life, utterly consumed by him. I memorized the cadence of his footsteps in the hallway. I knew the exact time he slipped out of the house into the night, and I would press my face against my bedroom window just to catch a glimpse of his broad shoulders disappearing into the dark. I even snuck into his bedroom when he was out, sitting on his unmade bed just to inhale the intoxicating scent of tobacco, leather, and woodsmoke left behind on his sheets.

But to Christian, I didn't exist. He treated me with an indifference that cut me every single time.

Whenever our paths crossed in the house, he would look straight through me. If I tried to speak to him, he would walk past as if I were the enemy. I was the daughter of the monster who tortured him, the golden child who slept in luxury while he bled. I knew he had every right to hate me.

But I didn’t want his hatred, and I didn’t want his brotherly affection either. I wanted him to see me as a woman. I wanted him to burn for me the way I had been burning for him since I was thirteen.

Tonight was his last night under this roof. Over dinner, my father coldly announced that Christian was being stripped of his inheritance and exiled from the family syndicate forever. Worse, tomorrow I was scheduled to meet Damian Russo—the man my father had arranged for me to marry.

My world completely imploded.

My father never liked Christian. To him, he was a living reminder of his cheating ex-wife, Gaia, Christian's mother. Even after conducting multiple DNA tests, all confirming that he was his son, Father never forgave him. He tortured him for lengthy hours, treated him like dirt, and always reminded him that he was the son of a filthy whore. And tonight, he was finally casting him away from the family and the Famiglia mafia entirely, stripping him of his inheritance, especially since his latest child-bride was finally pregnant with his ‘real’ heir.

Father adored me, however. Despite how depraved and sadistic he was, I was his golden child. It was a painful contrast. While Christian spent years locked in the basement or nursing the agonizing injuries from Father's belt, Father would tuck me into silk sheets, press a kiss to my forehead, and whisper that I was the only thing in his world worth protecting.

But every lavish gift he gave me felt like a crushing weight on my chest, because I knew that somewhere downstairs, the boy I loved was hurting when he deserved to be loved like I was.

And that was exactly why my sickness had grown terminal.

For years, I watched him endure Father’s psychological warfare with a terrifying, silent dignity. He never cried; instead, I shed tears for him while I heard the whips echoing from below. He never begged. He just grew taller, broader, and deadlier. To me, Christian wasn't just my stepbrother—he was a beautiful, dangerous god trapped in a cage.

At least he would be free from Father's torturing and vileness. But what about me? Would I survive life without him?

By 1:30 AM, I sat on the edge of my bed, choking back broken tears as I called my best friend.

"Chloe... he's leaving. Tomorrow morning," I told my best friend over the phone in broken tears.

"What?" She gasped on the other end of the line. “Scarlett, you've loved this guy for years. If he's leaving, don't you want to tell him how you feel? Don't you want to find out if it's been mutual this entire time?"

Mutual? Christian hated me. There was no way it was mutual.

"I don't know," I whispered, a hot tear rolling down my cheek. "He won't even look at me, Chloe. To him, I'm my father's daughter. I'm his enemy."

There was a long, heavy pause on the line before Chloe spoke. And that's when she dropped the bomb.

"Then don't use words, Scarlett. Force him to look at you. Force him to see you, not your father's daughter. If he’s leaving forever, make sure he never forgets what he left behind."

"What do you mean?" My heart pounded in my chest painfully. Chloe's ideas always meant trouble. But tonight, desperation drowned my hesitation. I wouldn't care.

"Put on that red silk robe you bought while we went shopping last week," Chloe whispered into the phone. Then, she went on to tell me exactly what to do when I walked into his room.

After I ended the call, I felt intoxicated. It was reckless. It was insane. It was entirely forbidden. But desperation swallowed my fear. Chloe was right. This was my last chance to melt the ice between us. Maybe I could even convince him to take me with him, and we could run away and be together, just like I had always fantasized.

With all the courage I could muster and all the desire that had built up in me for years, I slipped out of my bedroom stealthily. I walked to

Christian's bedroom and stood outside his door, fumbling with the straps of my red robe. My waist-long brown hair was combed and free, cascading down my shoulders. I had applied red lipstick so I could look like the mature women I had seen my stepbrother with.

And underneath my robe, I wore absolutely nothing.

My heart was hammering against my ribs and my chest tightened. My fingers trembled violently as I wrapped them around the door handle.

Breathe, Scarlett.

Taking a deep breath, I turned the handle and pushed the door open.

The room was dim, illuminated only by a single desk lamp. Christian sat in his leather chair, in a black shirt that stretched tight across his broad, heavily muscled shoulders. He didn't look up when I walked in. He was focused entirely on the desk. In his large, scarred hands, he held a sleek, black handgun, calmly running a cloth over the barrel.

Did he want to kill my father before he left? Or me?

"You shouldn't be in here, Scarlett." His voice was low and gravelly. Christian hardly ever talked. He had become selectively mute over the years, so whenever I got the chance to hear that rich, husky voice, my core clenched. He still hadn't raised his eyes. "Go back to bed."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and stepped deeper into the room, closing the door softly behind me. "You're leaving tomorrow morning.

You didn't even say goodbye to me."

"And why would I tell you goodbye?" he murmured, his thumb tracing the edge of the firearm.

"B... because I'm..." Hopelessly in love with you? Why would he wish me goodbye? I was my father's daughter, after all.

I walked closer. The soles of my feet were freezing from the cold tiles of his bedroom. He didn't have plush, warm rugs like I did, and I had completely forgotten to wear my flip-flops. But his bare feet had no trouble with the cold floor. He had been through much worse.

The scent of him—woodsmoke, expensive cologne, and raw testosterone, was making my head spin, making my mind race.

"Because I deserve it! Because I'm not my father.”

Christian finally stopped. He dropped the handgun flat on the desk with a deafening, metallic thud and tilted his head up.

When his dark eyes locked onto mine, the sheer intensity of his gaze made my breath catch. His eyes screamed absolute danger, a warning loud enough to send any sane person running away. His eyes found mine across the room, glowing faintly, and terrifyingly wrong in the dark.

But I wasn't sane at this point, so I stayed. And maybe that was my biggest mistake.