Chapter Forty-One

“Roman's mother. Enrico killed her,” He said watching me like a hawk. “In front of Roman.”

I don't know what happened, but I felt like a bomb had gone off inside my chest. My mind went blank and the only thing I could hear was the grating sound of static and crumbling stones. For a moment I don't know where illusions ended and the reality begins. It was as if the whole place was shaking from its foundation and I am drifting away farther and farther from the ground as the taste of the air around me changes into a suffocating fog of smoke and fire.

“Victoria!” it was as if someone was catching me as the intensity of hatred that started to bloom within me was staggering, to say the least. I don't even know that I'm capable of such hatred and how my heart could withstand such feelings for a single person.

The vindictive part of me simmers as it grows into an overwhelming vortex of bitterness and darkness. Yet, even inside my head, I could still feel the ground shaking just as Alaric tig