All Chapters of Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance : Chapter 221 - Chapter 230

The house groaned under the weight of years. Memory dust bubbled up at every move Leya took, as if walls were remembering stories they had heard. She measured the length of her hand on old, crumpled paper, well-worn. The hallway was smaller than she remembered, or perhaps because she had grown up, no longer a barefoot child whose brothers danced along the house, her smiling toes flattened. There was nothing there but stillness. She leaned in the kitchen doorway, exhausted. The table refused to move, wedged into the corner, one leg turned to one side from that afternoon Dalton had sat down on it and splintered it. She smiled gently on recollection, her own heart breaking. How many evenings had they had in this small room, her father's boisterous laughter of camaraderie at good friends as her mother drifted by platters? She was listening to the whispers. Leya wrapped her hand around the arm of the chair in a shaking grip, her eyes going out of focus. She was a child again — rigid a

The taxi screeched along midnight roads, white lines of light on wet asphalt. Leya was balled up in the back of the taxi, fists around her bag until they ached. In it, neatly folded, was the letter, thin and accusatory, like it burned through cloth.Her brain got trapped in a storm — her father's voice, the crackle of her memories, the icy, sharp cackle of fate. She wanted to scream. Wail so loudly that shadows would consume her whole. But all she could do was whisper one name under her breath, repeatedly, like a thread of forgiveness."Shayla… Shayla…As the car finally stopped in front of the Anderson house — that house somehow now belonging to all of them — her chest constricted. She could see the golden glow of the living room, where her family sometimes stayed up late in bed. She wished for a moment to keep it hidden, cover it up as far down as her father had attempted.But the notion of silence had prevailed over everything more than anything else.She threw money up at the driv

Rain buckets had poured, and the roads stank of it, and Leya caught its scent on the air as she came out, splashing, her bag held tightly to her. In its folds, inside, lay the photo, the letter, and the silver key. Rucksack slung over her shoulder on which she'd had all that she'd ever had, but in the bag, step by shaky step. The taxi ride to Shayla’s was long and every turn of the wheels seemed to echo the rhythm of her thoughts and What if Shayla doesn’t believe me? What if I’m only digging graves that were meant to stay closed? But the image of her father’s trembling hand, the unfinished truth he had left behind, pushed her forward. She rested against her sister's door for a moment, summoning inner strength, having just climbed and hesitated with her hand poised to knock. Her breast churned from the climb of the stairs and with the turmoil raging within her. She had left the door open a crack when she'd finally gotten around to knocking. Shayla, her own hair once more styled ba

Storm rode guard before dawn. Golden, smoldering gentleness crept in through the window, warm light spilling over the walls. Leaves quivered in the wet garden outside, and birds were restless, trying to sing again after the awful power of thunder. Air inside was stale, but with something sacred stirring it. Leya on the bed, silk robe shoulder ripped, dark curls down her back. Arm around Leon — little face serene against her own breast — and one around Aurora's curls, tugging on her sleeve, speaking in half-words. "Ma, ma." More of the beautiful eyes like her daddy's — some of the innocence Leya knew she'd never have again. "Yes, baby," she whispered, and cupped her daughter's forehead. "Mama's here." Their own personal rebellions against all that had sought to destroy her, the twins were. Every resentful breath they breathed proved that she'd lived. Leon tossed in her grasp, protest and dream on his lips — a frown of sleep — as the small fist closed tight about hers. She wou

The embrace had been a brief one, but to Harrison it seemed to take an eternity because his father had been smothering — almost strangling — grasping at what he'd almost lost for good. Oakwood aftershave, stale cigar smoke, and an odor of aged leather stuck to Samuel Blackwood's designer business suit like a warning sign on the man who was as much legend as father. As he finally drew away from the other man, Harrison gazed into the face before him. The same straight jaw, the same piercing eyes which had dominated a boardroom in one instant — but now etched with lines where previously there had not been any. Deeper, tired lines cut into the face by power and shame, not age. The curve of his mouth to a shadow of a smile he hadn't smiled in years. "You're different," he told his father, his braggart tone fueled by some other emotion Harrison couldn't quite place in what he was telling him. "The boy who walked away from us isn't the man who stands before me today." Harrison looked at