Chapter Sixty-eightRain I paced back and forth, circling the same spot over and over again, wishing the loud voices in my head would just die off. I just wanted to think straight—truly think straight—for the first time since that bombshell of a truth was dropped on me.But I couldn’t. I hadn’t been able to. It felt like there were a thousand thoughts in my head, all colliding, shouting over each other. Questions I didn’t have answers to. Thoughts I didn’t know how to silence.I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to turn. Everything I had known all my life—everything I believed to be true—was a damn lie. And now I was left to search for my truth, to pick up the shattered pieces of my identity.And the “what ifs”? They wouldn’t stop ringing in my head.What if I didn’t even belong to anyone?What if I truly had no parents?What if I was just an abandoned orphan with no past?What if this entire search led nowhere?What if no matter what I did… I would never find them?My legs
Chapter Sixty-sevenEnzoI stood there, unable to move, unsure of where to turn. I didn’t know the way out of the building. I didn’t know how to find my way outside. I was just a blind man, lost in a place I couldn’t navigate, trapped in a moment I couldn’t fix. I had never felt so blind in my entire life. I couldn’t even run after Rain. I couldn’t go after her to stop her.Maybe people were right about me all along. Maybe I’d always thought too highly of myself. Maybe I was nothing more than a blind, miserable man who believed he was more than he really was. My woman was out there, hurting, slipping through my fingers, and I couldn’t even chase after her. I couldn’t do anything—except stand there, helpless, and let it happen.Watch it all unfold? No—I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t see a damn thing. All I had were sounds.“Sir…” the woman’s voice came softly from behind me, and I turned slowly toward her. “If you don’t mind, I can help you out of here.”My heart twisted in my ches
Chapter Sixty-sixEnzoI understood Rain.I understood her pain—whatever storm was crashing through her heart in that moment, I could feel it too. I could relate to what it meant to be pushed aside like you were nothing. To be made to feel invisible in a place you had poured yourself into, just to be accepted. To fight tooth and nail, just to be seen… only to discover you were never meant to belong in the first place. That you were never part of the family to begin with.When I first got the proposal from this family—that they had a daughter I could marry—they didn’t know I was a man without sight, but not without power. They thought they could manipulate the arrangement to suit themselves. They tried to act out of line the day we met, tried to take control of the conversation, but my men shut that down immediately. Since then, they never dared to speak when I spoke.When they began to present who I was meant to marry, they offered me Rain’s sister. She was present that day too, loud
Chapter Sixty-fiveRainMaybe it wouldn’t have hurt this much if I had known from the beginning.If someone had just sat me down when I was a child and said, “You’re not ours, but you’re still loved,” maybe the ache wouldn’t have carved so deep into my chest.Maybe if I had grown up with the truth, I would have had time to build some kind of armor around it—to accept it, to shape my identity around it, not let it shatter me in one cruel moment.But no one told me.No one thought I deserved that kind of honesty.Instead, they let me grow up in a house where love felt like something I had to earn, where every hug felt rationed, where every word of affirmation was measured and second-guessed. And I still clung to the hope that one day, if I was good enough, kind enough, successful enough—they would treat me like I mattered. Like I was really theirs.But I was never really theirs.And now that I knew, it all made a sick kind of sense.Every punishment that felt too harsh. Every birthday t
Chapter Sixty-fourRainI couldn’t move.I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even cry.I just sat there—on the cold floor, my knees scraped, my dress crumpled—watching the two people I’d called parent and family stand before me like strangers who had just rewritten my entire existence with one cruel truth.Not my mother.Not my father.Not my family.“You’re lying,” I whispered, but even my own voice didn’t sound convinced. I wasn’t even sure I belonged here, because thinking back now, my stepmother felt justified for everything she had done to me. I wasn’t even a member of the family, I wasn’t related to them in any way.“I wish I was,” my father—no, the man I thought was my father—said quietly. His eyes were full of something I’d never seen before. Regret? Shame? Pity? I didn’t know which hurt more.“Why now?” I choked. “Why the hell would you keep this from me all my life?”“You don’t get to be angry,” my stepmother snapped. “You should be grateful he took you in.” She shr
Chapter Sixty-threeRainEvery day since that moment had felt like the best day of my life—like it could top the moment Enzo told me he loved me. But none ever did.Because that moment… that confession… it changed everything.For the first time in years, I felt loved. Truly loved. Seen. Wanted. And not in a fleeting, surface-level way, but deeply and constantly. It wasn’t just a one-time spark or a romantic high that faded with time. It was steady. It was daily. His love grew with every passing hour, and so did mine.Enzo was always by my side, as though being near me was the only thing that made sense to him. He sent me flowers at work, sometimes twice a day. Beautiful, extravagant arrangements with handwritten notes that said things like, “I love the way you melt when I touch you.” Or, “The world doesn’t deserve you, but I’ll keep trying to be the man who does.”And yesterday, while I worked on Reina’s wedding dress, perfecting the final fitting, Enzo stayed right there with me—thro