All Chapters of Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The bedroom door slammed shut behind Leya with a cold, unforgiving clang.She leaned back against the hallway her chest thudding in her ears. Her father was in jail. Her life had been bought. Samuel's lies went deeper than she'd known—and Harrison knew them. Not all of them, perhaps, but enough to send him to prison.And now there was another.Someone Samuel had feared.A woman who might very well still be within, even.She hadn't let her fury get the upper hand on her, though. Not yet. She insisted on answers—and her mother was going to provide them to her.But as she spun, turning to ascend the stairs, the stile slid back down the marble behind her. Leya didn't need to turn. She already knew.Eleanor.Particularly, for that so-smooth voice that was finer than had ever uttered. "Entertaining," the voice declared, "when something is amiss in this house, I catch you hanging around."Leya turned on purpose. Eleanor stood like a statue sculpted out of poison and ice. Everything about her

Leya departed in silence from her mother's flat. The Roman streets slumbered half-awake, the sky bruised by the heaviness of a sun yet to rise. Her boots created soft reverberations on the pavement as she walked—no direction, no destination.She needed to think.To breathe.Her father had given his life to protect something. Someone. A woman, a fund, a secret so explosive that it had pushed a man like Samuel Blackwood, a man with the power to kill with words, to fake his own death and conceal the evidence in a wax-sealed document.And now it was hers.Her mother's words reverberated in her mind:"He said to her if the truth came out… it would destroy everything."She looked at the letter again. The burned edges. The cut-off sentence.".If they find out who you are—"Who was she?Not just a wife.Not just a daughter.There was something in her blood—something buried in her family tree—that made everyone either wanting to control her… or murder her.Her hands shook.She needed that miss

Leya did not sleep.Not because she could not.Because she would not.Sleep was for the blissfully ignorant who still believed they were safe.She leaned over her bed desk, reclining in its cozy corner indentation—Samuel's letter, the key, and a full reproduction of the marriage contract spread out before her like war tactics on a battle map.The house was quiet. But her head was at war.She then gripped the truth.But the truth did not rescue people in this family. It rather buried them.And Eleanor?She'd bled.She'd moved first.Leya's fingers followed the stitches of a scar on her wrist. A reminder. Of where things began to go wrong. Of the day she had first refused to let the Blackwoods get their way.---Three Weeks Ago — The Morning It All SnappedIt was an accident.Leya was carrying a water tray down the hallway, attempting to circumvent Eleanor—because Eleanor had this odd sort of talent to find herself in the position where humiliation would sting the hardest.She rounded t

Nathaniel looked down at the burner phone his fingers held.The text cut through him.> "It's time to talk."Leya.He breathed slowly, shoving back from the edge of the bar, pulling on his hair with his fingers. City lights late at night glow in front of the penthouse windows of the high-end club, but he was already lost in his head.She was not afraid.He had once appreciated that. Respect had boundaries, and Leya had gone beyond all of them.He weighed his options.> Don't pull me into this. I warned you once.I owe my family.Deleted the last two lines.Typed them back in.> You're no victim, Leya. You're a gold digger who would put glory on ashes. Your word means nothing to anyone where the Blackwoods hold court.Sent it.Cold. Done.He pushed the phone into his pocket and finished the remainder of his scotch.---Later That Night – Blackwood MansionTentative knock on Leya's apartment door. No.Not tentative at all.Barbaric.She leaped, stood up, and pinched her heart.Not Vivia

The second night was colder than the first.Leya didn't know if it was cold or not, or if her body had just decided to quit trying to manage anything. She was mounded under blankets on the wooden floorboards, her scarf tightened around her, armory-fashion, but it wasn't even in the running for warm enough.Her lips were parched. Her skin was damp.And in the middle of her stomach—nothing.Even the pain had started to fade away.And maybe that was the most lethal splinter of all.Not the hunger. Not the punching. Not the exhaustion.But the numbness.She had started losing herself. The silence, the coldness, the knife, cutting, numbing stinging sharpness in the bones—it had started peeling off layers of self. No longer could she keep track of the days. Hadn't laughed in years. Hadn't felt sunlight on skin. Hadn't wrapped fingers around one that didn't throb to hurt her.There was only a repetition of her name in her head—Leya. Leya. Leya.She'd remind herself every now and then, just t