All Chapters of Scars of Silence(MxM): Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The drive back to Geneva felt like driving through a dream. The world outside the car was too sharp, too bright, but it felt unreal. The conversation with Katerina replayed in my head, every word, every carefully placed pause. The offer. The threat. The cold, clean efficiency of their plan. Legally erase him. Make him disappear behind hospital walls.By the time I got back to the apartment, I was hollowed out. Drained. I let myself in. The silence was worse than before. A tomb-like quiet.Alessia was in the living room. She saw me, and her face crumpled. "Ethan? What's wrong? What did they say?" She hurried over, her eyes wide with fear. The sight of her, so genuinely worried, cracked the icy shell I’d built around myself.I didn't have to pretend. The tears that came were real. I sank onto the sofa, and she sat beside me, wrapping her arms around me. "It's bad, Alessia. It's so much worse than I thought.""Tell me," she whispered, her voice fierce. "Please. I can't just sit here and

Dawn came, gray and cold. The safe house felt more like a bunker than a home. Lorenzo was already up, on the phone in the living room, his voice a low, tense murmur. I could hear Matteo’s voice from the kitchen, talking to someone about logistics, security.I got up, my body aching with a deep, bone-weary exhaustion that sleep hadn’t touched. I pulled on clothes and went to the living room. Lorenzo glanced at me, his eyes shadowed but alert. He held up a finger, listening to whoever was on the other end of the line.“...understood. Yes, keep me posted.” He hung up. “That was Durand. The restraining orders have been served. To the courts, to the Rossi family offices in Milan and Geneva, and to my father’s personal lawyer. The asset freeze is in effect. His passport suspension is being processed with border control.”“And?” I asked, my heart pounding.“And he’s not taking it well.” A grim, satisfied smile touched Lorenzo’s lips. “According to Durand’s sources, he was at his hotel when h

The morning of the hearing dawned clear and cold, the sky a hard, pale blue. The rain had washed the city clean, but the air felt charged, brittle. We dressed in silence—dark, serious suits, armor for the battle ahead. Alessia wore a simple black dress, her face pale but composed. She looked older. Matteo and Anton would stay with her at the safe house. We couldn’t risk bringing her to the courthouse, not with Sebastian’s threat hanging in the air.Lorenzo checked his phone one last time. A text from Durand: All set. Meet you at the side entrance. Press is thick at the front.We took a car with tinted windows. The drive to the courthouse was short, tense. We didn’t speak. The bond was a tight, vibrating wire between us, humming with a shared, focused intensity. This was it. The first real clash. Not in shadows, not through proxies. In a courtroom, under the law.The car pulled into a restricted area. Durand was waiting, a slim briefcase in her hand. She looked sharp, unflappable. “Rea

The next two weeks were a war fought in whispers and paperwork. The safe house became our world. The police detail outside was a constant, grim reminder of the threat. The news cycle chewed over the "Rossi Family Murder Scandal" for a few days, then moved on to the next outrage, but the legal machinery ground on, slow and inexorable.Durand was a force of nature. She filed motions, answered lawsuits, coordinated with Italian lawyers. The defamation case was a monster, but she attacked it with cold fury, using the restraining order and the recording of the threat as a shield. "He's suing you for calling him a murderer, after he threatened to have you committed and your daughter hurt? A jury will eat him alive," she said, but it would be months, maybe years, before it saw a jury.The criminal complaint in Italy was trickier. It hung over Lorenzo like a shadow. An Interpol notice, however unlikely, was a possibility. Travel was now a risk. We were effectively trapped in Switzerland.Seba

I spent the night on the sofa. The safe house felt like two separate prisons divided by a thin wall. I could feel the low, angry hum of Lorenzo’s thoughts through the bond, a bitter counterpoint to the cold dread knotting my own stomach. The book still sat on the coffee table. I finally picked it up, stuffed it in a drawer, and slammed it shut. Out of sight, but not out of mind.Alessia found me there in the morning, wrapped in a blanket, staring at the blank television screen. She sat beside me, not speaking for a long time. “You fought,” she said finally, not a question.“Yeah.”“About the… insurance thing? The vase?”I nodded, surprised she knew. “He told you?”“He came out of the study after you left. He was… agitated. He needed to talk. To someone who understood the family. The history.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “He thinks it’s the only way. The final move. He says it’s like surgery. You have to cut out the whole tumor, or it just grows back.”“And what do you think?” I