All Chapters of Bride of the Mafia cripple : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

“Before betrayal, there was a moment. A look. A choice.”The rain came back as if it had never truly left.First, it whispered—a shy tapping against the high windows, like fingers too hesitant to knock. Then it grew louder, bold, relentless, drowning the silence with the rhythm of something ancient and mournful. Thunder rolled overhead like a warning too old to matter. Lightning painted skeletal shadows across the estate walls. And inside that fortress of stone and secrets, Leora stood still—rigid, framed by the window like a ghost in a forgotten portrait.Her phone buzzed again in her palm.A single message. Short. But it burned like an ember held too long against skin.“Do you still wear violets, Leora?”That was all.Not a threat. Not a name. Just a memory turned weapon. And it shook her in a way bullets and blackmail never had.Behind her, the quiet snapped like a bone. Allerick’s voice pierced the tension, hard and commanding.“Lock it down,” he barked into his secure line. “Now.

“Love without trust is just a lie waiting to explode.”The storm had passed.But its ghost remained, haunting the air with charged silence—thick, electric, unnatural. The kind of stillness that felt like the world was waiting to exhale. The cracked windows of Allerick’s estate groaned under the weight of the wind, as though the house itself was exhausted from everything it had witnessed and no longer had the strength to keep its secrets.In the bedroom, the quiet was sharper than any sound.Leora sat on the edge of the bed, unmoving. A porcelain figure in a collapsing world. Her silk robe clung to her damp skin, still dewy from the shower she had taken in the hope—futile, naive—that hot water could cleanse away the day. The heat hadn’t touched her bones. The water hadn’t reached her guilt.Her legs were curled slightly, bare toes pressed into the floorboards, grounding herself in something real. Her hair, still damp, trailed over one shoulder like ink spilled across ivory. Droplets li

“Some truths hide in silence. Others wait in flowers.”The streets still wore last night’s rain like a memory. Slick and glistening under the bruised morning sky, puddles stretched across the cobblestones, catching the dim light and tossing it back like shards of a shattered mirror.Leora walked through them without pause.Her hood was pulled low, but not to hide. Not really. There was no one here to recognize her—not in this part of the city, not at this hour. But the hood offered a kind of armor. A thin, fabric-bound silence. And that was enough.She moved like a shadow made flesh—quiet, fluid, purposeful. One alley bled into the next, each more narrow and silent than the last, until the city itself felt like it was holding its breath.Her own breath came slow. Measured.Like she was counting down to something.To confrontation.To confession.To the unraveling of the last lie she hadn’t dared name.But her mind wasn’t racing. It was too late for panic. Too late for second thoughts.

.“It’s not the lies that kill you. It’s the silence between them.”The estate loomed ahead like a beast at rest—its breath held, its eyes closed, but nowhere near asleep. Leora stood at the gates, heart pulsing like war drums under her ribs. The iron arches opened with a mechanical hiss, like an inhale before a scream. Not a single guard challenged her. No dogs barked. No eyes met hers.Still, she felt watched.She wasn’t sneaking in.She was being let in.As if they already knew she was coming.And worse—they were waiting.She didn’t waste time going to her room. There was nothing in that cage of velvet and perfume she needed now. No gown or mask could prepare her for what she intended to do.Her heels clicked across the marble, sharp and purposeful, a deliberate sound that echoed down the hall like a challenge. She passed the chandelier-lit corridors, the cold-eyed portraits of Vortiga ancestors, and the grand staircase—all silent witnesses to countless sins.She stopped outside the

> “Some histories are not written in books. They are kept in bodies.”The taste of the vault lingered in Leora’s mouth like smoke. No matter how much she rinsed or how hot the water ran in the shower, the flavor remained.Dust. Ash. Memory.She’d scrubbed herself raw, fingers trembling as she dragged the towel across her skin. But it wasn’t just grime she wanted to remove—it was something deeper, something coiled in her blood. Something ancient.She stood in her room now, damp hair curling at the ends, eyes locked on the locket she’d tossed carelessly onto the desk earlier. Its chain was twisted, the clasp glinting faintly under the bedside lamp. It looked harmless—innocent even—but it pulsed in her thoughts like a heartbeat she couldn’t ignore.Her reflection in the mirror didn’t help.Same face. Same storm-colored eyes. Same haunted look. She didn’t know Eliora, not truly. She had never spoken to her, never heard her laugh. But somehow, Leora felt like she had met her in a thousand