Chapter 14: The Wounds We Buried

The night was unusually still.

No guards pacing outside her window. No distant footsteps echoing through the marble halls. Just silence — the kind that wrapped around Siena like a question she didn’t want to answer.

She slipped out of the bedroom barefoot, wrapping a shawl around her shoulders. The corridor was dim, bathed in the soft amber glow of wall sconces. The air smelled faintly of smoke and citrus. She followed the scent without thinking.

Out onto the terrace.

Adriano stood alone at the edge, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand, the moonlight carving lines across his face. He didn’t turn when she stepped out.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked quietly.

"Not really," she replied. "You?"

He took a sip. "I haven’t slept well in years."

Siena leaned against the opposite end of the stone railing, keeping distance. The silence stretched again, this time heavier.

"Is this how you imagined things would be?" she asked, her voice soft but sharp.

He glanced at her, one brow raised. "You mean us living under the same roof again?"

She didn’t answer.

Adriano set the glass down on the railing. "No. I imagined a thousand versions of this. None of them peaceful. None of them this... quiet."

"You dragged me here," she said.

"I brought you here to keep you safe."

"You don’t get to decide that for me."

His jaw tensed. "And yet here you are."

The wind stirred her shawl. She held it tighter around herself. "You think this is safety? This mansion? The men with guns? This constant fear of what you'll do next?"

"It’s the only world I know how to control."

Siena turned to face him fully. "And what about Lucia? What kind of world is this for a child?"

Adriano exhaled, slow and harsh. "One where she won’t be left behind. One where no one sells her mother to save their own skin."

Siena flinched.

He saw it. Regretted it instantly. But he didn’t take it back.

"You think I wanted to disappear?" she said. "I was alone. Pregnant. Hunted."

"You could have come to me."

"I was scared of you."

His voice dropped. "I was scared of me too."

The admission surprised them both.

A long silence followed. The wind shifted again. Somewhere in the distance, a nightingale sang.

"You were the only thing that ever mattered," he said.

She met his eyes, tears catching the moonlight. "Then why did you let me go?"

He stepped closer.

"Because if I didn’t," he said, "I would have destroyed you."

The space between them evaporated. The years melted. Her breath hitched as he reached up, brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

His hand lingered.

Their faces were inches apart.

He didn’t kiss her.

Not yet.

But he wanted to. And she knew it.

And for the first time in years, Siena didn’t pull away.

---

The silence between them stretched like a blade.

Adriano stood at the far end of the library now, his back to her, one hand braced against the window frame as the last rays of sun cast molten gold along the floor. Siena stayed by the fireplace, her arms folded tightly across her chest, as if holding herself together was the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

"You think I walked away because I stopped caring," she said at last, her voice low, tired. "But I walked away because I cared too much."

He didn't move. Not even a breath.

"I was nineteen," she continued. "Barely able to tell right from wrong. But I knew what it meant to love you. I knew how dangerous that could be."

"And still you left," he said. The words were flat. But the pain behind them was anything but.

"You were changing," Siena whispered. "Or maybe I was just starting to see it. The blood. The silence. The threats. You were drowning in power, Adriano — and you didn’t even see it."

He turned then. Slowly. His eyes locked onto hers, but they weren’t angry.

They were broken.

"I saw it," he said. "Every fucking day. I just didn’t care. Not until I lost you."

She flinched.

"I told myself it was punishment," he went on. "For what I’d done. For what I didn’t stop. But you want the truth, Siena?"

He stepped closer. One step. Then another.

"You were the only thing I ever gave a damn about. Everything else — my father’s empire, the blood, the men who feared me — it meant nothing when you disappeared."

Siena didn’t realize she was crying until a tear slid along her cheekbone.

"You could’ve found me," she said softly. "You had the power. The money. The reach."

He was in front of her now. Close enough to touch.

"I did find you," he said. "Three years too late. And by then, you were gone again. New name. New life. A child."

Her chest heaved. "You knew?"

"I suspected. But I never... I didn’t think you'd keep her from me."

Silence again.

Then he reached for her, slowly, carefully — like a man approaching a sleeping lioness.

His hand brushed her cheek. She didn’t pull away.

"All this time," he whispered, "I thought I was angry at you. But it wasn’t anger. It was grief."

Siena's lip trembled. She closed her eyes for a breath.

When she opened them, he was still there. Still waiting. The man who once terrified her… now looked terrified of her answer.

"I didn’t know how to let you in without losing myself," she said.

"You don't have to lose yourself," Adriano murmured. "Not anymore."

His hand was still on her cheek. Her lips parted.

He leaned in.

Close.

Closer.

And then —

A sound pierced the quiet.

A cough. Then another.

Wet. Rasping. Wrong.

Siena froze.

Lucia.

She bolted from the room, Adriano on her heels, both of them tearing through the hallway like the past was nothing compared to what waited at the end of it.

Lucia lay curled in her bed, pale and small. Her lips were tinged with blue, her breath shallow. A small blotch of red stained the pillowcase.

Siena’s scream cracked through the night.

"Elena!" Adriano bellowed, scooping the girl into his arms. "Call the doctor — NOW!"

Panic surged through the house like fire.

And somewhere in the middle of it, Siena realized:

This wasn’t just a war between her and Adriano anymore.

It was a war for their daughter’s life.

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