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CHAPTER FIFTY

Author: Ink Penrose
last update Petsa ng paglalathala: 2026-05-01 15:55:32

CHAPTER FIFTY

CARMELA'S POV

I found the files three days later even though I hadn't been looking for them specifically.

I'd been going through the study adjacent to our bedroom, the one Gabriele had told me I could use as my own workspace, casually checking every drawer and cabinet the way I'd been doing since I arrived in this house.

It was an old habit. You learn every room you're trapped in. You find every exit before you need one.

The false bottom in the third drawer was well constructed —
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  • Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part    CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

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  • Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part    CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

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  • Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part    CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

    CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVENCARMELA’S POVMy father had been away for five days on business in Rome, and he came back to the estate the same way he always did — quietly, without ceremony, like he'd simply stepped out for an hour rather than been gone nearly a week. I stood at the top of the stairs for a moment before descending, taking the time I needed to arrange my face into something that looked like a daughter pleased to see her father.It was getting harder every time."Piccola." He opened his arms when I reached the bottom step and I let him pull me in, breathing in the familiar scent of his cologne, feeling the solid weight of his embrace, and somewhere underneath all of it the cold, quiet knowledge of what his name looked like on a payment record dated three days before my sister's brakes were cut."Papa," I said, pulling back and smiling. "I never knew you were back.""I just came back," he said, waving a hand. "Gabriele called for a meeting." His eyes moved over my face with pract

  • Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part    CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

    GABRIELE'S POVI stepped into the hallway and took in the scene.Alexei's hand was around her wrist. The closeness. The low voices."Carmela." I kept my voice level. "Go inside."She looked at me for a moment and then she went, pulling the door halfway closed behind her.I finally turned to Alexei.He was already watching me with that cool and collected composure, his hands relaxed at his sides now and nothing in his posture suggesting he'd been doing anything worth explaining."What were you discussing?" I asked."Nothing that concerns the business," he said."Everything that happens in this house concerns me.""Of course." He inclined his head slightly. "I was saying goodbye. Your wife was passing through. The conversation was brief.""Brief conversations don't require that kind of proximity."Something moved in his expression. Not guilt. Not confession. It was something harder to name. "I meant no disrespect, Gabriele. You have my word on that.""Your word," I said, "is something I

  • Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part    CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

    CHAPTER FIFTY-THREECARMELA’S POVI'd been avoiding the east hallway for three days. Gabriele’s office in particular.Alexei Volkov had been coming to the estate for the past three days.It wasn't difficult to justify to myself. There were other staircases, other routes to the kitchen, other ways to move through this house that didn't take me anywhere near Gabriele's office while Alexei Volkov was supposedly inside discussing shipping routes or territory or whatever business had brought him back to Naples this time. I told myself I was being efficient. I told myself the note still sitting in my desk drawer had nothing to do with the path I chose to walk every morning.I didn't believe myself, but I kept saying it anyway, because the alternative was admitting that a single folded card had rearranged something fundamental in me, and I wasn't ready to admit that to anyone, least of all myself.Today I needed coffee, and the kitchen was closer through the east hallway than around the long

  • Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part    CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

    CARMELA'S POVI stared at the document for a long moment before I trusted myself to speak.The original record predated the payment by four months, which meant whatever my father had agreed to do hadn't started with a single transaction. It had started with a conversation. A negotiation. Something slow enough that there had been time, somewhere in those four months, for someone to change their mind.But he hadn't."Where did you get this?" I asked.Gabriele watched me carefully. "I've had it for a while. I didn't know what it meant until last night, when I remembered what Elena asked me." He paused. "I should have shown you sooner. I wasn't sure it was relevant.""It's relevant," I said."You're very calm about this."I looked up at him. "What would you like me to do instead?"He didn't answer that. He just watched me with that particular attention he had, the one that missed very little, and I wondered for the first time whether he already suspected something about my father that he

  • Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part    CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

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  • Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part    CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

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  • Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part    CHAPTER SEVEN

    CARMELA'S POV I woke up alone. Gabriele's side of the bed was empty. Last night conversation replayed in my mind as I showered and got dressed. He claimed that Elena was murdered. He had been investigating the murder and he had evidence. He was going to show me “proof” today.This was a manipulat

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