Chapter Thirteen - Blood, Obsession, and Bad News

The cut on my forearm burns — a thin line of heat, barely bleeding now, but unmistakably hers.

Aria Moretti marked me.

I wipe the streak of blood across a white towel and watch it bloom red.

She moved beautifully. Too beautifully.

Most people fight like animals when cornered.

Aria fought like precision personified — sharp, efficient, trained far beyond what any mafia princess should be.

I should be furious she tried to kill me again.

But as I lean back in my office chair and study the fading blood on my skin, what I actually feel is…

alive.

She almost caught me off guard.

Almost landed that hit.

Almost did real damage.

And the worst part?

A dark part of me wanted her to.

I’m still replaying the moment her knife grazed me when a knock hits my office door.

I grit my teeth. “Enter.”

Rocco slips inside, pale and tense. Not a good sign.

“That better not be hesitation on your face,” I say, sitting up.

Rocco clears his throat. “Boss… we’ve got movement.”

I stand immediately.

“Talk.”

“We tracked activity at the Moretti cache in Jersey,” he says, holding out his phone. “Two men entered, grabbed documents, and left. It matches Vito and Luca Moretti.”

Aria’s brothers.

The ones who left her behind.

The ones who were supposed to protect her.

The ones she defended anyway.

My jaw tightens. “Where are they going?”

“North.”

“Toward?”

“New York,” Rocco says. “Straight to the Moretti penthouse.”

So Aria wasn’t lying about that.

Interesting.

I take the phone from him. The surveillance footage is grainy, but the posture, the walk — unmistakably the brothers.

Rocco shifts nervously. “There’s more.”

“There always is,” I mutter. “Say it.”

“Amanda Moretti’s card pinged in Manhattan an hour ago.”

My pulse sharpens.

Aria’s mother.

The real strategist in that family.

Vicious. Calculating. Invisible until she wants to be seen.

“And Vincenzo?” I ask quietly.

“No direct sighting,” Rocco admits. “But if Amanda is active… he’s probably close.”

I stare at the frozen image of Aria’s brothers on the phone screen.

A family disappears overnight.

Then resurfaces together.

That is not a coincidence.

That’s strategy.

I hand the phone back. “Get surveillance on every route into Manhattan. In and out.”

“Yes, boss.”

“And Rocco?”

He straightens. “Boss?”

“Not one whisper of this reaches the rest of the soldiers. Keep it quiet.”

He nods quickly and leaves the room.

The moment the door shuts, the silence shifts.

Heavier.

Loaded.

Aria wasn’t lying.

Not entirely.

Not about the penthouse.

Not about her brothers.

And yet…

Her family is moving without her.

Her father vanishes.

Her mother resurfaces.

Her brothers raid a safehouse.

And she’s chained in my basement.

Her family abandoned her.

Or sacrificed her.

I’m not sure which possibility I hate more.

I glance down and notice a thin smear of Aria’s blood under my fingernail — from where I grabbed her wrist in the fight.

I shouldn’t care.

I definitely shouldn’t notice.

But I do.

Her blood on me.

My blood on her.

A bond forged in violence.

Beautiful in its own twisted way.

I shrug into my jacket and head toward the basement stairs.

I need answers.

Real answers.

And Aria’s the only one with even fragments of the truth.

She probably escaped again by now.

She freed herself once already.

Good.

I want to see what she does next.

I want to see how far she’ll go.

I want to see how far I will.

As I reach the top of the basement steps, a slow, dark thrill curls under my ribs.

Her brothers are moving.

Her mother is active.

Her father is likely hiding in the same city.

And Aria Moretti — the most dangerous weapon in their arsenal — is completely in my hands.

For now.