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Chapter three
publish date:
2026-11-09 03:56:33THE WOMAN WHO TRIED TO KILL THE DEVIL
The first thing I noticed was that Gio Locatelli had stopped moving.
His eyes were fixed on the photograph of the woman standing outside our gates. For a man who could silence an entire room with a glance, he suddenly looked like someone had dragged his darkest memory into the light.
“Give me the phone,” I demanded.
He didn’t move.
“Gio!”
His eyes finally met mine.
“This could be a trap.”
I laughed bitterly.
“My supposedly dead mother is standing outside our house, and someone claims she tried to kill you. Forgive me if I’m not interested in another one of your warnings.”
“Amelie, you don’t understand what you’re dealing with.”
“Then explain it!”
He reached for my wrist, but I pulled away.
“You don’t get to decide when I deserve the truth.”
Something flickered across his face.
“Your mother used to say that.”
My heart stumbled.
“You knew her well?”
“Well enough to know she was the only woman who ever made my father afraid.”
Before I could question him, the lights flickered.
Gio immediately drew his gun.
“Get behind me.”
A gunshot shattered the silence.
I barely had time to scream before he pulled me behind a cabinet. Footsteps thundered through the corridor, followed by shouting from the security guards.
“Someone breached the east perimeter!” a man yelled.
Gio positioned himself between me and the doorway.
“Stay here.”
“I’m not a child.”
“Tonight, I don’t care what you think you are. Stay behind me.”
A guard appeared.
“Boss, the intruders escaped. The woman at the gate is missing.”
“How?”
“The cameras went black for forty-seven seconds.”
Gio’s expression hardened.
“Seal the estate. Nobody leaves.”
Forty-seven seconds.
That was all it had taken for my mother to disappear again.
His phone vibrated.
A photograph appeared on the screen. A man lay motionless beside a black vehicle, blood spreading across the wet pavement.
Beneath it were six words.
SHE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO RETURN.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Someone who worked for my father.”
“Your murdered father?”
Gio looked at me.
“Yes.”
“Did he know what happened to my mother?”
“He knew enough to become dangerous.”
I swallowed.
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what happened eight years ago.”
Gio looked towards the window.
“Your mother came to me because she believed my father wanted her dead. She had evidence that could destroy him.”
“And you helped her?”
“I helped her escape.”
“Then why did she leave me?”
His expression changed.
“She wanted to take you. Daniel refused.”
My chest tightened.
“My father stopped her?”
“He believed keeping you ignorant would protect you.”
I laughed painfully.
“How convenient. Everyone keeps protecting me by destroying my life.”
Gio stepped closer.
“I was twenty-two, Amelie. I had no power over my father’s organisation. I couldn’t protect your mother and fight an entire empire at the same time.”
For the first time, I saw something beneath his cold exterior.
Regret.
“Your mother didn’t trust me completely,” he continued. “But she trusted me enough to ask for one thing.”
“What?”
“To keep you alive.”
I stared at him.
“And what did she do to you?”
His expression became unreadable.
“She shot me.”
The room went silent.
“When?”
“The night she disappeared.”
“Why?”
“Because I stopped her from killing someone.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
We found my father downstairs, standing beside the staircase with two armed guards.
“Amelie, go upstairs.”
“No.”
His eyes moved towards Gio.
“This is your fault.”
Gio gave a humourless smile.
“You’ve had eight years to tell her the truth, Daniel.”
My father ignored him.
I stepped forward.
“Did you know Mum tried to kill his father?”
Daniel’s face went pale.
That was when I knew.
He had known everything.
“Father, what happened that night?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he reached into his dressing gown and produced a folded letter.
“Your mother left this.”
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Daniel,
If Amelie ever discovers the truth, don’t let her marry Gio.
He isn’t the greatest danger to our daughter. He may be the only person capable of saving her.
But if he remembers what happened that night, he will know why I had no choice.
And if he tells her what he did, she will never forgive him.
I looked up.
“What did you do, Gio?”
He took the letter from my hand.
“Your mother asked me to kill my father.”
My stomach dropped.
“And you refused?”
“I thought I could stop him without killing him. I was wrong.”
“What happened?”
“Your mother confronted him herself. When I arrived, she was standing over him with a gun.”
“And you stopped her?”
“I stepped between them. She shot me and escaped.”
“Did your father die?”
“Three months later.”
“How?”
“The official report said heart attack.”
His eyes met mine.
“Someone finished what your mother started.”
A chill travelled down my spine.
Before I could ask another question, the security chief rushed into the hallway.
“Mr. Pearce, we’ve identified the woman from the gate.”
Gio turned.
“Who?”
“Rosa Bellini. Former employee of the Locatelli household.”
Something changed in Gio’s expression.
Recognition.
“Where is she?”
“Unknown. But she left something behind.”
The security chief produced an evidence bag.
Inside was a silver bracelet.
My mother’s bracelet.
The clasp was broken, and something dark stained its surface.
I reached for it.
“That’s hers.”
“There’s something else,” the guard said.
He handed Gio another evidence bag.
Inside was a photograph.
A woman sat in a dark room, her wrists tied to a chair. Her hair covered part of her face, but I recognised the scar above her eyebrow.
My mother.
Alive.
A message had been written across the photograph.
YOUR MOTHER IS ALIVE. STOP TRUSTING THE MAN YOU ARE ABOUT TO MARRY.
I reached for it.
Gio caught my hand.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
He turned the photograph over.
Five words were written on the back.
AMELIE, HE KILLED YOUR FATHER.
My breath caught.
I looked at Gio.
Then at Daniel.
My father stood motionless, his face drained of colour.
“Which father?” I whispered.
Neither answered.
Then Gio’s phone rang.
He answered without taking his eyes off me.
A woman’s voice came through the speaker.
“Did she read the photograph?”
Gio’s jaw tightened.
“Where is Amelie’s mother?”
The woman laughed softly.
“Ask Daniel.”
My father suddenly stepped backwards.
The woman continued.
“And Gio, darling, tell your future wife why you buried her real father eight years ago.”
The call ended.
I couldn’t move.
My father wasn’t looking at Gio anymore.
He was looking at me.
And then he said something that shattered the last piece of my childhood.
“Amelie, that man you’re calling your father isn’t your biological father.”
END OF CHAPTER THREE
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THE WEDDING OF DAMNED SOULSThe photograph on Gio’s phone was the last thing I wanted to see.Daniel Pearce was kneeling on a concrete floor, his hands tied behind his back. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.Behind him stood a man I had spent my entire life believing was dead.Vittorio Locatelli.My supposed biological father.And he was holding a gun against Daniel’s head.“Midnight,” I whispered.Gio took back his phone.“We’re not going to that wedding.”“He’ll kill Daniel.”“Then we find him before midnight.”I stared at Gio.“Am I your sister?”He hesitated.“According to the records, yes. But I don’t trust anything we’ve discovered so far.”“And if they’re wrong?”His expression tightened.“Then we have another problem.”I looked away. My father was being held hostage, my mother was missing, and I still didn’t know whether the man standing beside me was someone I could love or someone I was related to.“Let’s find them,” I said.By nine in the morning, Gio’s estate had bec
The Devil’s Only Weakness Chapter nine
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THE PRICE OF HIS RETURNThe message remained on Gio’s phone.THE WEDDING IS BACK ON. THREE DAYS. NO EXCEPTIONS.Beneath it was a photograph of Daniel Pearce being forced into a black vehicle. His hands were tied, and blood marked his forehead.I zoomed in on the photograph.“Wait. That watch.”Gio looked at me. “What about it?”“I’ve seen it before. At my father’s birthday dinner six months ago.”The man wearing it had congratulated me that evening and told me my mother would have been proud of me.Gio immediately called his security chief.“Rafael, I want every photograph and guest record from Daniel Pearce’s birthday dinner. Every name. Every face. Find the man wearing a silver watch with a red line around its edge.”He ended the call.“Your father may have been watched for months.”“By Vittorio?”“Possibly.”I folded my arms. “You really need to find another answer.”“When people keep lying, certainty becomes expensive.”I looked at Daniel’s photograph.“Why does Vittorio want this
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THE HEIR WHO NEVER DIEDFor several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.Gio stood beside me, his phone pressed against his ear, while the corridor filled with the smell of gunpowder and blood.His brother was alive.The boy who had supposedly died in a fire. The child whose funeral had taken place without a body. The man who had apparently been waiting eight years to meet me.“What was his name?” I whispered.Gio lowered his phone.“Luca.”“Did you love him?”His eyes shifted towards the dead man.“He was my brother.”“That wasn’t my question.”Silence.“Yes, Amelie. I loved him.”Something in his voice made my chest tighten. For the first time, I understood that beneath the ruthless reputation of Gio Locatelli was a man who had spent years grieving someone who might never have died.“Where is he?”Gio’s phone rang again.“They found a body outside the city. The identification papers say it’s Luca.”“Then let’s go.”“Amelie, you’re staying here.”I folded my arms.“You really need to le
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