Semua Bab Bound By Blood: The Step-Brothers' Temptation: Bab 271 - Bab 280

_Matteo’s POV_The first thing I felt was the stiffness in my neck, it was the ache that came from sleeping too long against stone. The second thing I felt was the hollow pit in my chest when my eyes snapped open, expecting to see her gone.But she wasn’t gone.Amelie was wide awake.She laid on the thin mattress, her skin pale but her eyes were opened wide, looking at me. Her lips parted like she was about to speak, though the IV line connected to her arm told me how fragile she still was.For a second, my lungs forgot how to work. I stared, caught between relief so sharp it felt like a blade and the choking weight of guilt pressing down on me.“Amelie,” I breathed, pushing up from the floor so fast my body protested.Her gaze flicked toward me. It wasn’t sharp, it wasn’t cold—it was worse. It was soft. Fragile. And it shattered me because I didn’t deserve it.I moved closer, knees hitting the floor again by instinct, my hand gripping the edge of the bed like it was the only thing k

_Amelie’s POV_The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and blood. Not enough to be a hospital—God, they’d never risk that—but enough to remind me of one. The safehouse was a hollowed-out ruin, patched together with scavenged supplies, but someone had managed to make it into a kind of infirmary. A metal lamp bent awkwardly over the bed, sheets too thin to be clean, the faint drip of water in the corner.Nico lay on the mattress, his skin chalk-white, chest rising and falling unevenly. His lips were cracked, his bandages already stained through with fresh blood. I sat on the wooden chair beside him, both hands clamped around his, afraid that if I let go, he’d vanish.He had passed out again after I had clung unto him, but now he was just sleeping. I still felt guilty for putting him in this condition, but I was happy he was alive. My body still ached. My head throbbed from where it had hit the floor, my arm sore where the IV had been ripped out. But none of it mattered compared to him

_Amelie’s POV_It had been three weeks since we landed in Brazil.Three weeks since I’d become Chiara Bellini. Three weeks since I’d learned how to say speak with a smile that almost felt natural. Three weeks since the brothers and I had slipped into a life that wasn’t ours but was slowly beginning to fit.No mafia. No guns.We had given all those up for a life that was normal. For the first time in years, I was breathing without the weight of fear pressing on my chest.We had a house. A real house, with walls painted soft cream and wide windows that let sunlight pour in every morning. It wasn’t grand like Santiago’s estate, or suffocating like the safehouses I’d known before. It wasn't something that screamed ‘wealth’ with hundreds of rooms for each of their men. It was simple, lived-in, with mismatched furniture Luca had bargained for and Matteo had carried in with clenched teeth. There were plants on the porch, plants I had to beg to keep because Matteo thought I would let them

_Amelie’s POV_The note trembled in my hands.No—my hands trembled around the note. My vision was so blurred I could barely see the words, but they burned into me anyway, branded into my skull with every frantic blink.We’re tired of putting you in danger… you deserve a chance at life without us… don’t look for us… it’s safer this way.My breath hitched.Once. Twice. And then it wouldn’t come at all.I crushed the paper tighter, my nails tearing through the edges. “No,” I whispered. “No, no, no—”I didn’t want a life without them, they couldn’t force it down my throat. I didn’t even complain about anything, what gave them the right to make a choice for me.The silence of the house roared around me, louder than gunfire. I staggered backward, the edges of the note cutting into my palm, my chest tightening until it felt like my ribs were going to snap.This wasn’t real.It couldn’t be real.They wouldn’t leave me.Not after everything.Not after all the blood, all the fire, all the nigh

_Amelie’s POV_It’s strange how two years can pass without you realizing it.One day, you wake up and the grief isn’t sharp anymore. It’s still there, but quieter. Barely noticeable at all.That’s what the last two years felt like for me.A slow, steady hum of memory and survival.The first few months after they left, I thought the silence would kill me.Now, I crave it.Silence became my friend — a kind of peace I built myself. I filled it with new things: soft music, the sound of pages turning, rain tapping against my window.I started from scratch.All the way from the beginning because that was the choice they left me with. It wasn’t dramatic. There was no big moment, no decision that changed everything. I just woke up one morning and realized I had to live.Because if I didn’t, I’d stay frozen in that night forever — the night I found their note, the night I screamed until my voice broke.They had walked away to save me.So I had to honor that by saving myself.School was my fir