Chapter Three: A debt of blood

The storm didn’t stop.

By morning, the skies had sunk into an unbroken gray, heavy with rain and silence. Serena sat by the window in her chambers, fingers resting on the old leather ledger. She hadn't slept. Not after what she’d read.

“Matteo owes me a life.”

The words refused to fade from her mind.

They weren’t just ominous. They were personal. Raw. Handwritten by her father. A message never meant for her—but left behind like a ghost. And Matteo… he had lied. Again.

Not directly. But in that carefully controlled way he spoke, always balancing threat and charm, power and restraint. Every answer he gave was an edited truth. Every silence, a blade held to the throat of something deeper.

She needed to confront him.

But not as a girl desperate for answers.

As a woman with a right to know the truth.

---

She found him where she didn’t expect him to be—in the chapel.

The villa’s private cathedral sat on a hill behind the eastern courtyard, veiled in ivy and silence. She’d only seen it from the garden, the old bell tower casting long shadows at dusk. She didn’t even know he used it.

But there he was—kneeling in front of the altar.

No guards. No gun. No mask.

Just Matteo.

She stayed in the doorway, half-hoping he wouldn’t notice.

But of course he did.

“Did you come to pray?” he asked without looking.

His voice echoed faintly against the stained glass and polished stone. She could hear something in it that wasn’t usually there—weariness.

She stepped closer. “I don’t pray. Not anymore.”

He stood slowly, turning toward her.

“No one in this house does,” he said. “We come to remember.”

“Remember what?”

His eyes flicked toward the altar.

“Loss.”

There it was again—that flicker beneath the surface. Pain. Grief.

“Who did you lose?” she asked quietly.

He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was soft, but razor sharp.

“Everyone.”

---

The silence between them felt different this time. Not cold—but heavy. Shared.

Serena stepped forward, her voice steadier than she felt.

“My father wrote a message. In the ledger.”

Matteo’s body went still.

She held his gaze.

“It said you owe him a life.”

Matteo looked away.

“And it wasn’t written like a threat,” she continued. “It was a warning. A request.”

Matteo exhaled through his nose. “I didn’t want you to see that.”

“Too late.”

He walked past her slowly, toward the front pew, and sat down. For a moment, he looked younger. Not in age—but in sorrow.

Serena didn’t move.

“What did he mean?” she asked.

Matteo rested his forearms on his knees, fingers knotted.

“Your father saved me.”

She froze.

“What?”

“It was 2003. I was eighteen. Just a soldier. No name yet. Just De Luca’s son.”

She sat beside him, stunned into stillness.

“I was sent to spy on Valentino’s camp,” he said, his voice lower now. “My father was preparing to eliminate him—he thought Valentino was planning a coup.”

Serena’s stomach twisted.

“Your father found me in the woods. He could’ve had me shot on the spot. Instead, he dragged me out of the mud, half-dead, and sent me back to my side with a warning.”

He looked at her now, and for the first time, she saw shame.

“He said, ‘Remember this, Matteo. Someday, you’ll be the one with the power. And when that day comes, choose mercy.’”

Serena swallowed. Her father—the man she’d never known—had spared a future killer.

“Why did you keep that from me?”

“Because mercy gets people killed in this world.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Lies do.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, the chapel lit only by the faint glow through the stained glass above.

Then Serena whispered, “Did you kill him?”

Matteo didn’t blink.

“No.”

She searched his face. “Swear it.”

“I swear.”

His voice didn’t waver.

Serena let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Then who did?”

Matteo looked away again.

“The council blamed him for leaking intel to the police. A vote was held. Bianchi made the motion. My father signed the kill order. I was the one who delivered the envelope to the hitman.”

Her stomach turned.

“So you didn’t pull the trigger. But you were still the messenger.”

His jaw tightened. “It was my duty.”

Serena rose, anger swirling with grief. “And now you’ve married me. Stolen me. Claimed me as a weapon. What kind of debt repayment is that?”

Matteo stood too. “The kind that keeps you alive. That man you call a father was the last person who showed me mercy. I thought sparing you was returning the favor.”

“But you didn’t spare me,” she snapped. “You locked me in a golden cage and used me to shield yourself from your enemies. That’s not mercy, Matteo. That’s control.”

He stepped closer.

“Would you rather be dead?”

“No,” she said. “But I’d rather be free.”

---

Later that day, Serena sat in the garden, her hands clenched in her lap.

Everything she thought she knew had twisted again. Her father hadn’t been a villain. He had been betrayed. And Matteo… he wasn’t innocent, but he wasn’t the monster she had painted either.

Which made it all worse.

Because hate was easier than confusion.

And what she felt now was no longer simple.

---

That night, someone left a photo at her door.

She found it wrapped in cloth, no note.

Inside: an old black-and-white photograph of her father—young, smiling, holding a baby.

Her.

She stared at it for minutes, unmoving.

Then flipped it over.

“I kept you hidden because I knew the truth would destroy you. But maybe one day you’ll be strong enough to own it. Forgive me. — L.”

Tears stung her eyes before she could stop them.

She clutched the photo to her chest and curled up in bed—angry and grieving and completely, utterly lost.

---

Across the hall, Matteo stood by his own window, watching the rain.

He had seen her in the chapel. Not just her face, but her fire. Her grief.

And something inside him had ached.

He hated it.

Hated that her pain had found a place inside him. That her questions had forced him to look at wounds he thought were buried.

He had married her to control her. To use her.

But now… now he was afraid she would undo him.

Because love wasn’t supposed to look like this.

But he was starting to wonder if he was falling anyway.