บททั้งหมดของ BURNING EMPIRE: บทที่ 41 - บทที่ 50

CHAPTER 42 – THE NIGHT HE DIDN’T LEAVEThe room was dim, washed in silver moonlight spilling through the open balcony doors. The scent of antiseptic lingered faintly in the air, but underneath it, there was something warmer. Quieter.Dominic sat at the edge of the bed.Matteo lay still against the pillows, chest rising and falling slowly. A fresh bandage wrapped around his torso, another across his brow. His bottom lip was split. One eye swollen.He hadn’t spoken much since they returned. Just one word: "Thanks."And even that was whispered, barely audible.Dominic hadn’t left his side.He hadn’t even moved more than a few steps away.Not when the doctors came. Not when the bleeding stopped. Not when Matteo dozed off again, clearly fighting pain and exhaustion.He just... stayed.A tray sat untouched on the table beside them. Soup. Bread. Pain meds. Matteo hadn’t eaten. Dominic hadn’t either.A breeze rolled in from the balcony, stirring the curtain. Dominic didn’t look away from Matt

The estate was quieter than usual. Not the calm, soft kind of quiet, but the strained kind. The kind that buzzed beneath the surface like an electrical wire ready to snap.Dominic stood in his office, staring at the large glass windows overlooking the garden. Rain tapped gently against the glass. It had been doing that for hours now, the same rhythm, like a heartbeat he couldn’t ignore.Behind him, the door was closed. Locked. Just the way he needed it.Matteo was still asleep in his bed upstairs.His bed.Dominic had refused to let the staff move him back to the guest quarters. It wasn’t even a debate. Matteo was carried upstairs and placed under thick blankets in Dominic’s own room, while Dominic stood guard at the edge of the bed for the entire night.He hadn’t slept.Not one minute.There were too many thoughts tearing through his mind.The warehouse. The blood. The bruises. The rope burns on Matteo’s wrists.And worse—the silence.The fact that Matteo had never cried out. Never b

The rain hadn't stopped for hours. It bled against the estate windows like the sky itself was grieving. Inside the mansion, candlelight flickered against the library shelves, casting soft shadows across the hardwood floor. Matteo sat curled into the corner of the leather couch, a thick throw draped around his shoulders. He was reading, or pretending to. In truth, he was listening — to the footsteps overhead, to the occasional rustle of Dominic's movement in the study upstairs, to the silence that had grown too loud between them. There had been a shift after the warehouse. Dominic didn’t say much, but Matteo could feel it — the way Dominic looked at him now, slower, longer. Not just with suspicion, but something else. Something cracked and hungry. And Matteo... Matteo had stopped pretending he didn’t want Dominic too. It wasn’t just about Leo anymore. It wasn’t just about the mission. It was about the way Dominic made him feel like the world quieted. Even in the danger, even in the

The safe house wasn’t much.A crooked one-bedroom apartment wedged between a dying barbershop and an abandoned dry cleaner, with peeling paint, a water heater that clanked every few hours, and a broken lamp in the corner that blinked like it had epilepsy. But it had a door that locked, and a window that faced nothing but bricks. No one would look for him here.Matteo slid to the floor once he got inside. He didn’t turn on the lights. Just sat in the dark, listening to the echo of his own breath.It was over.Not just the mission, not just the betrayal.Everything.He’d burned every bridge — with Dominic, with the ones who’d sent him, even with himself.His only anchor now was Leo.And Leo didn’t even know.Matteo leaned his head back against the door, eyes fluttering closed. For the first time in days, he let the tears fall without choking them back. They were quiet, shaking. Exhaustion wrapped around him like chains, and he let it.He slept on the floor that night, curled up like a q

Snow clung to the cuffs of Derek Pendragon’s sleeves as he descended from the private jet like a royal who'd just been inconvenienced by life. His boots landed with a sharp tap against the stairs, and his first words back in Rome were not exactly poetic: "Why does this place still smell like boiled piss and cheap cigars?" The waiting driver flinched. Derek whipped off his sunglasses, eyes narrowing under a mess of dark, perfectly tousled hair. At ten years old, he carried himself like he had a hit list tucked under his coat. A polished, velvet-collared one. He scanned the airport strip, lip curling. "Where the hell is my brother?" "He’s, uh... back at the estate. Urgent matters." Derek rolled his eyes and muttered, "Yeah, urgent matters like forgetting he has a family. Figures." He slid into the black sedan, tossing his luggage at the driver like a royal command. He pulled out his phone, found zero messages from Dominic, and sighed dramatically. "Dead to me," he mumbled. ---