All Chapters of A Deal with the Mafia Lord: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Aurora hadn’t slept in two days.Every time she closed her eyes, she saw flashes—Julian’s eyes burning gold, the mist curling around him, the sound of his voice whispering her name like a promise and a curse. She would wake drenched in sweat, the shard against her chest pulsing like a second heart.Now, standing by the window of Karl’s rented apartment, she could feel it again. A faint pull beneath her ribs, a thread tugging her toward something she couldn’t see.“He’s alive,” she said quietly.Karl looked up from the laptop, his expression tense. “We don’t know that.”Aurora turned sharply. “Then how do you explain this?” She held up the shard, its glow flickering faintly in rhythm with her pulse. “It reacts every time I dream. Every time I hear him.”Karl’s jaw tightened. “You want to believe it’s Julian because the alternative is worse. What if it’s something else using his voice?”Her fingers curled around the shard protectively. “I know his voice, Karl.”Silence stretched between

Julian couldn’t remember how long he’d been walking.Time didn’t move the same way in Country C. The air shimmered between dawn and dusk without ever deciding which it wanted to be. The ground glowed faintly beneath his boots, alive with pulsing veins of light. He could feel it now — the city breathing through him. Every step sent a tremor up his spine, every thought seemed to echo in the walls around him.He didn’t sleep anymore. When he closed his eyes, he saw flashes of her — Aurora standing in the rain, the way her hand fit perfectly in his before everything fell apart. Her name still lived in his chest like a spark that refused to die.He stopped at the edge of what had once been a street. Now it was nothing more than broken stone suspended in a void. Ahead of him, the skyline flickered like a mirage.A voice came from behind. “You’re losing yourself.”Julian turned. Britney Scott stood a few paces away, her pale face glowing faintly in the light. She looked more real this time,

The city didn’t sleep. It whispered.Every step Aurora took made the ground tremble beneath her. Country C pulsed like a living thing, breathing through the cracks in the pavement. The light from the distant tower burned against the strange grey sky, steady and deliberate, like a beacon meant only for her.She moved through streets that weren’t streets anymore. Buildings shifted when she looked away. Roads twisted into stairways, then melted into rivers of light. The air shimmered with faces — people she had known, people she had failed — their mouths moving silently, their eyes following her.Each whisper that reached her ears carried the same name.Julian.Her pulse quickened every time she heard it. She didn’t know if it was fear or longing that kept her moving forward. Maybe both.Halfway across a bridge of glass, the ground beneath her rippled. The reflection staring back wasn’t hers.Julian’s face stared up at her from beneath the surface. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.

The sun rose over a city that didn’t belong to itself anymore.Aurora walked through the streets in silence, every sound too sharp, every color too vivid. New York was standing, but not as she remembered. The skyline had scars. Some buildings gleamed with strange, golden veins that pulsed faintly beneath their surfaces, like remnants of something that had refused to die.People were out again. Alive. Moving. Breathing. Yet, there was something hollow in their faces. Something missing in their eyes.Aurora’s reflection in a shop window made her heart stop. The faintest glow shimmered in her irises. The mark of the coin had not disappeared. It had changed her.She gripped the cracked coin tightly in her hand, hiding it in her coat pocket. Every time her fingers touched it, warmth spread through her palm. Not enough to burn. Just enough to remind her that it was not dead.She whispered into the morning air, “Julian, if you can hear me… please say something.”The city answered with silenc

The world burned gold.Aurora’s body hit the ground hard. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was — only that the air around her hissed and crackled like lightning trapped in a jar. She could taste metal, blood, and dust. Her fingers clawed at the floor, but it wasn’t concrete anymore. It was smooth, almost glass-like, and alive.She opened her eyes.The tunnel was gone.Above her stretched a sky made of fractured mirrors. Below, the city twisted into a warped reflection of itself — buildings bent inward, streets folding like ribbons, and veins of molten gold running through the cracks. New York and Country C had merged into one monstrous landscape.Aurora pushed herself up, coughing. Every movement hurt. Her body burned from the inside, as if the shard she’d grabbed had melted into her veins.Karl lay a few feet away, motionless.She crawled to him, shaking his shoulder. “Karl! Wake up.”He groaned and turned slightly. Blood stained the side of his face, but his eyes fluttered op