All Chapters of In His Shadow, in His Bed: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

(Lorenzo's POV)The war with the Lombardis was a grinding, muddy affair, slowing my vengeance for Amelia to a crawl, but in a strange way, it also tempered me. The white-hot, destructive rage had cooled into something colder, harder, more patient and infinitely more deadly. I stood before the map in the war room, my gaze seeing not the colored zones of territory, but a single, fixed point in the void. My retribution for Amelia had to be perfect, flawless. I could not afford to be sloppy, to let my impatience leave even a single root of the Rossi family alive to sprout again. So, I told myself, this distraction with Lombardi had to be dealt with first, and with finality.It was during this period of cold focus that I began to notice the subtle, almost elegant shifts in the Rossi family's movements. At first, they were minor things, easily dismissed as opportunistic scavenging. A shipping contract we had counted on fell through at the last moment due to a higher, anonymous bid. A minor

(Lorenzo's POV)The silence in the compound after Isabella's removal was different. This new silence was the quiet of a predator finally free of distractions, its entire being focused on a single, identified prey. My grief had been a wild, untamed thing, lashing out blindly. Now, it had been honed into a blade, cold and sharp, its edge pointed unerringly at the Rossis. At her.I stood in the war room, the maps cleared of the Lombardi markers that had cluttered them for weeks. Only the Rossi territories remained, highlighted in an angry, aggressive red that matched the pulse of vengeance beating in my temples. Marco stood beside me, a statue of waiting loyalty."It's time," I said, my voice echoing in the spacious, sterile room. It sounded flat, devoid of the ragged emotion that had characterized it for so long. "Pull all assets from the Lombardi fronts. I want every available man, every weapon, every ounce of our focus directed at the Rossis. This is no longer a skirmish. This is eradi

(Lorenzo's POV)The drive back from the gala was a blur of cold fury and a strange, hollow ache. The image of Amelia—Eva—was burned into my mind. The emerald dress, the elegant twist of her hair, the cool, dismissive gaze that held none of the warmth I had spent months mourning. She wasn't just alive; she was thriving. And she had looked at me as if I were a stranger. A troublesome one at that.Sofia didn't speak a word during the ride home. The tension between us was a physical presence in the back of the Maybach, thick and suffocating. When the car pulled into the compound, she got out and walked inside without a backward glance. The divide was now a chasm, and I knew with chilling certainty that my sister had chosen her side. She had chosen her.I went straight to my study, the silence of the room a welcome contrast to the noisy chaos in my head. I poured a whiskey, the amber liquid doing nothing to burn away the cold knot in my gut. She had called our past a "country she had no des

(Lorenzo's POV)The humiliation of that night in the alley burned hotter than any anger I had ever known. Lying on the wet concrete, the taste of blood and defeat in my mouth, as Amelia—Eva—stood over me with a gun... it was a nadir I had never imagined possible. She hadn't just rejected me; she had physically dominated me, disarmed me, and left me broken on the ground. The memory was a brand on my pride, a scar that throbbed with every beat of my heart.For days, I was a storm contained within the walls of my penthouse. I broke things—a priceless vase she had once admired, the crystal glasses we had toasted with, the monitor displaying the financial reports that testified to her continued success. I roared at shadows, at Marco's cautious presence, at the silent, judging walls that seemed to echo with her final words: "The next time you come for me, I won't miss."The cold, calculating Don was gone, replaced by a raw, wounded animal. Marco knew better than to approach me with anythin

(Amelia's POV)The sound of the Valenti cars fading into the distance was the only eulogy the old world would get. I stood in the vast, silent factory, the smell of gunpowder and blood thick in my throat, the folded resignation paper feeling like a lead weight in my hand."Consider it my resignation from your life."His words echoed in the emptiness he left behind. There had been no plea in his eyes, no final attempt at possession. Only a profound, weary finality. He had looked at me, and for the first time, he had truly seen me—not as his Amelia, not as his ghost, not even as his enemy—but as a separate, autonomous entity. And he had let me go.The victory felt hollow. Matteo was wounded and captured, his ambition broken. The man I had once loved had just surrendered his entire world and walked away. Sofia was gone, back to the brother she, despite everything, still loved. I was alone, standing atop a pyramid of ashes.In the days that followed, the Rossi family descended into chaos.