VICENZO’S POV
The first thought that came to my head was Rosa. They had followed me here, they knew where she lived. My blood was boiling with rage and I turned to stare at her door. Rosa knew better than to open it. She was safe, the shot had been for me. I took out my gun and walked calmly to my car.
I could still taste the metallic sting of blood in the back of my throat as I gripped the steering wheel, the leather slick against my palm not from sweat, but from the thin line of blood running down my forearm. A graze. Close enough to piss me off.
Close enough to remind me someone out there had finally grown the balls to come for me.
VICENZO’S POVMateo couldn’t be gone. Not after that horrifying night when he took a bullet for me in the shootout with Dante. Not after the fear I’d survived; the fear of losing him. It couldn’t be. Not after everything we’d been through together.I knelt beside his body, my hands slick with his blood, unable to breathe. His eyes were still open, fixed, and distant. There was something unnatural about the way his body had crumpled, as if the weight of the world had finally broken him in two. I pressed a hand against his chest. No rise. No beat. Gone.My throat closed. “No…no, no, no,” I whispered, my voice breaking apart. “You goddamn fool. Always fucking trying to save me!” He’d done it to save me. To save Sofia. I should’ve stopped him. I should’ve been the one to pull the trigger. But instead, it was Mateo always the first to dive into the fire without checking how high the flames were.He’d shot Armano
ROSA’S POVI could still hear Bianca’s voice in my head when I came to. That, and the loud bang that had followed.I tried to sit up but a fire tore through my abdomen, sharp and immediate, so violent it stole the air from my lungs. I fell back against the floor, gasping. Then I saw the blood. It was everywhere, slick and dark, pooling beneath me, soaking the tiles. Bianca had shot me then ran. Left me here. To bleed out. Alone.My hand reached for the counter, but I slipped on my own blood and hit my head. “Fuck!” I screamed. I gritted my teeth and dragged myself up, inch by painful inch, leaving a red trail behind me like a dying animal.I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious. Enzo. My chest tightened.Where was he? Had he found Armano and Salvatore? Was Sofia safe? I spotted the drawer with the first-aid kit. I’d stocked it myself, weeks ago, out of habit. Just in case. I
VICENZO’S POVThe road to the country house twisted like a scar through the hills, every turn cloaked in fog and shadows. Gianni drove fast, the tires skidding slightly on wet gravel, his jaw clenched tight. In the backseat, I loaded my gun in silence. Each metallic click felt like a heartbeat counting down to something final. I hoped I was making the right decision. If not, I would cost my father….cost Mateo everything. “They’ll be expecting us,” Gianni muttered, his voice breaking through my reverie. “I’m counting on it,” I said, my voice clipped. The headlights cut through the mist, slicing into the trees ahead. The countryside was quiet—too quiet. Not even crickets chirped. It was the kind of silence you only heard before something went very wrong.We came to a stop just beyond the clearing. The house stood like a ghost in the woods, its windows blacked out, smoke trailing lazily from the chimney. It w
BIANCA’S POVI used to be the one he called first. When his brothers died. After it all. After her. When he couldn’t find her. When he scouted the entire city searching for her but found she was gone without a trace.When he was drowning in the weight of the name Moretti, it was me he came to. Me he leaned on.And now?Now, I was just a burden. The girl he was marrying out of convenience. And he wouldn’t even treat me with dignity. I sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor of my apartment, a bottle of wine sweating on the coffee table beside me, a stack of old Polaroids scattered like shrapnel around me.There we were—me and Enzo—smiling outside that shitty diner he used to love. Me with his leather jacket slung over my shoulders. Him with his arm around my waist like it meant something.It had meant something.But now? Now she was back.She. Rosa Amato. No. Rosa fucking Pacino. She was there in some of the pictures and in
ARMANO’S POVThere are moments in a man’s life that redefine him. The night my family was slaughtered was one of them. The night my father was burnt alive and my brothers shot.I still remember the heat. The smell of smoke. I was sixteen. Young, angry, stupid. I wanted to fight. Wanted to go back and die with them. But I ran, because my older brother had thrown me into the swamp behind our room and ordered me to run.I ran through fire and bullets and the screams of my bloodline dying around me. The past never left me. It lived beneath my skin, crawled like fire in my blood, whispered like ghosts in the dark. I could still smell the smoke from that night, the iron tang of blood, the ash in the air, the screeching of tires as men screamed and died around me. The massacre of my family hadn’t been swift. It had been a calculated execution.Enzo Moretti. Mateo Moretti. Their soldiers. They came like shadows and
VICENZO’S POVShe didn’t move. Not when I said I’d burn the world for her. Not when I stepped closer. The rain still roared outside, water pooling at the windows and dripping from the edge of the roof in slow, steady beats. Inside, everything was too quiet, like the walls themselves were holding their breath.Rosa stood like a statue in the middle of the room. Her arms wrapped around her chest, her eyes glassy and unreadable. My words hung in the air between us, too heavy to touch. “Say something,” I whispered. Begged. She blinked slowly. Her lips parted, then closed again.“You think you can just say that and fix everything?” Her voice cracked at the edges. “You think love is a fire you can light and everything else just burns away? Enzo, I ran from all this… this is not the life I want for myself…for my daughter.” I swallowed hard. “Then I’ll change. For you. I’ll be the kind of man you deserve.