Semua Bab A Substitute Bride For The Mafia Boss: Bab 71 - Bab 74

ValentinaThe days had begun to bend.Not pass. Not blur. Bend.Time in this estate didn’t move forward anymore. It curled around us like smoke, folding in on itself, pressing against my throat. I used to count time in weeks. In doctor appointments. In fetal movements. Now I counted it in incidents.Today it was the garden.The rosemary bush I’d replanted two days ago had been dug out. Not destroyed. Moved. Uprooted and placed, gently, on the stone table near the west wall. A message in roots.I didn’t scream.I stared. One hand on the child that twisted inside me like he, too, could feel the shift in the air."Something moved the rosemary," I told Alessandro when he walked in. His eyes narrowed instantly."Something, or someone?""Does it matter anymore?"He stalked past me to the garden, eyes scanning the walls, then the sky, then the trees. I watched him quietly. He wasn’t just checking for cameras.He was looking for ghosts."We need to burn the roots," he said flatly.I blinked.

~Valentina~ I used to believe love was the strongest tether. But fear? Fear moves faster. Cuts deeper. And right now, it’s wrapping its claws around my child’s heartbeat. We didn’t sleep after storming the west compound. We didn’t celebrate. Because in Palermo, every victory hums like a loaded gun — and every silence feels like a setup. Alessandro wanted to press again. Hit harder. But I told him no. Not this time. We needed strategy. Not just rage. So I went alone. Back to the library. Back to the gramophone. And for the first time… I played it. I let it speak. Crackling static gave way to a recording. Lorenzo’s voice — deep, composed, terrifyingly intimate. "Do you remember the dress you wore the night you thought you hated me? It was velvet. You were fire. And I knew, even then, I could burn in you." I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I took the needle off. And I called my mother’s sister in Naples. She ran with witches once. Real ones. If Lorenzo wanted to build a