All Chapters of The Chosen Bride: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

BellaThe car ride to the warehouse was silent. Not awkward, just tense. The kind of silence that made your skin itch and your thoughts spiral.Enzo drove. Matteo sat beside him, eyes forward, fingers tapping a slow, lethal rhythm on his thigh. I sat in the back, gripping the leather seat like it might ground me.The warehouse sat near the river, tucked behind rows of old shipping crates and loading docks long abandoned. It was one of ours. I recognized the markings on the door and the way the men outside didn’t flinch when they saw Matteo step out of the car.I followed them in without a word.The warehouse was anything but empty.Guards lined the walls. They were armed, alert, and stone-faced. The air crackled with restrained violence, the kind that made your skin prickle. I wasn’t afraid. Not anymore. Not after what happened to Aristide.I followed Matteo and Enzo through the warehouse until we reached the center of the room.There he was.Tied to a steel chair, ankles and wrists b

AristideLeaving the hospital felt strange. The air was too loud. Too bright. I’d barely been out of bed for twelve hours, but every second I spent lying there, not acting, made my skin itch.Bella walked beside me, quiet but close… like she knew I was barely holding it together.Enzo waited by the car, and when he opened the back door for me, I shook my head and went for the passenger side. He didn’t argue. Bella slid into the back without a word.“Warehouse was quiet after we left,” he said as he started the engine. I noticed he glanced at Bella in the rearview as if it were her he was talking to. “Luca hasn’t said anything new yet. But we pulled a burner off him. Unwiped.”My jaw clenched as Enzo pulled away from the curb. “She went with you?” I asked, voice low.Enzo glanced at me, then back to the road. “She insisted.”“That’s not what I asked.”He sighed. “You were unconscious. Matteo didn’t want her to go either. But she wouldn’t back down. She said if we didn’t take her, she’d

AristideI woke up with fire in my blood. It’d been days since the explosion, but the edges of it still rang in my skull like an unfinished threat. I couldn’t keep pretending the worst was over… It wasn’t.The safehouse was quiet when I stepped into the kitchen. Mabel was already there, barefoot, making coffee like she’d always belonged to this world. She nodded at me, handed me a mug without speaking. I didn’t say anything either. Not yet.Matteo was already waiting for me in the office. I closed the door behind me.“You ready to stop dancing around this?” I asked.He didn’t look up from the files in front of him. “You think I’ve been dancing?”“You know more than you’re saying.”Finally, he glanced up. “And you’re not ready to hear all of it.”“I just need enough to put a target on whoever ordered the hit. You give me that,” I ran a hand down my face, “I’ll do the rest.”My father exhaled and leaned back in his chair, the lines around his mouth deeper than usual. “When the marriage

BellaI didn’t know what Aristide was planning until I opened the bedroom door and smelled real food. Not takeout or something microwaved from the safehouse pantry.Candlelight flickered in the den. A table had been pulled in front of the fireplace, two place settings, wine, and something that smelled like fresh rosemary and garlic.Aristide stood next to it, sleeves rolled up, hair still damp from a shower. When he saw me, he smiled; slow, soft, like it was just us and the rest of the world didn’t exist.“Is this…?” I blinked, startled. “You cooked?”He raised a brow. “I supervised. Mabel helped. I just bribed Enzo to distract my father and Elena for a few hours.”I walked closer, heart already aching from how thoughtful it was. We’d been so buried in files, phone calls, family politics, and buried lies that I had forgotten what it felt like to be

BellaThe house had gone quiet again, the kind of quiet that only came when everyone was exhausted from planning and pretending not to be afraid.I found Aristide in our room, sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head bowed like he was trying to hold the whole damn world still with just his will. He didn’t look up when I stepped in.“I thought you might be asleep,” he said, voice low and rough.“I couldn’t,” I admitted, closing the door behind me. “Too much noise in my head.”He looked up then, and even in the dim light, I could see the storm behind his eyes. Always calculating, always bracing for what came next. My husband didn’t know how to rest. Not when I was still in danger. Not when someone out there thought they could reach into our lives like this and tear it apart.I crossed to him slowly and slid my hands over his shoulders from behind, feeling the tension that lived there. Always tight. Always coiled. He leaned back just a little, into me, like he needed the