All Chapters of His Sinful Empire : Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

Nina’s POV The rope around my wrists felt painfully hot, but it wasn’t a sharp sting… more like a slow, unrelenting ache that kept reminding me I wasn’t in control anymore. Giulia was tied up a few feet away from me, her chair turned just enough so I could see her face if I turned my head. Her jaw was clenched tight, and her eyes still burned with that fierce fire. Even like this, she looked unbreakable. I, on the other hand, didn’t feel the same strength. Suddenly, the door opened. I heard boots on the concrete… more than one pair, heavy and purposeful. I lifted my head and immediately, everything inside me froze. It was Luca. For a split second, my mind refused to accept it. It was like my eyes had glitched, or like this was some cruel hallucination stitched together by fear. But no. It was him. The same Luca who always smiled too easily. The one who had laughed with Giulia. And now, he looked at us like we were already ghosts. "Luca?” Giulia’s voice cracked the

He turned and walked slowly along the edge of the pool, his reflection moving across the dark water below him. “A liability,” he repeated. “Is that what she is.” He stopped at the far end and turned back to look at me with that expression that hadn’t changed once since he walked in. Relaxed. “Bring her out,” he said. I heard a door. Footsteps. More than one set. Then she came into my peripheral vision and I made myself not look immediately. Made myself keep my eyes on Santoro, keep my face completely still, keep everything locked down the way I’d trained it to be locked down for situations exactly like this one. Then I looked. Nina. Her hands were tied in front of her. Her dress from the club was still on, the green one, creased now and wrong in this setting. Her hair was loose. There was a mark on her wrist from the rope. Her face. Her face was the thing. She looked at me and I knew immediately that she’d heard. Not everything, maybe, but enough. The word I’d

“Enzo.” Her voice came out small. Barely above a whisper. “I…” She stopped. Started again. “I didn’t know how to—” “Why didn’t you tell me.” The words came out harder than I intended. I couldn’t stop them. “For fuck’s sake Nina you should have told me something. Anything.” She opened her mouth. Then the cough came. Not delicate. Violent, wrenching, her whole body bending forward with it, one hand going to her chest. She’d been breathing wrong since the chemical they’d used to knock her out, I’d seen it, the shallow careful breaths of someone whose lungs were still clearing it. “Nina.” I stepped forward. The chain caught. “Nina—” She was bent double now, coughing so hard she couldn’t stand straight, her face going from pale to grey in the space of seconds. I pulled against the chain until the metal bit into my wrists. “Get her water,” I said to the guard by the door. “Now.” He looked at me with the particular expression of a man who enjoyed having power over p

Nina’s POV “Irina?” The name hit me wrong. “That’s not my name,” I said immediately. The words came out sharp, defensive, automatic. “Don’t call me that.” Luca didn’t move. He stayed on one knee in front of me, the pendant gripped so tightly in his fist his knuckles had gone white. His eyes searched my face with an intensity that made my skin chill, like he was looking for someone else beneath my features. Someone he expected to see if he stared hard enough. “That’s not possible,” he murmured. “She was eight.” “She was called Nina,” he said slowly. “Most of the time. But that wasn’t the name she was born with.” My chest tightened. “You’re wrong.” “You stopped answering to Irina when you were little,” he continued, voice low, strained. “By the time you were four, everyone called you Nina. Even you did.” Four. “That doesn’t mean anything, I don’t know who she is,” I snapped. My head was starting to ache again, a dull pressure building behind my eyes. “You don’t know

NINA's POV “Mom… slow down.” I heard a voice from the front seat. Older, steadier. She sounded like she knew more than me, like she had to be the one in control. “Seatbelt, Gabriella, now!” Mom snapped, her hands gripping the wheel tight. I fumbled with mine, tiny fingers trembling. “Mom… I’m scared,” I whispered from the back, voice shaking. “It’s alright, baby,” Mom said softly, her hand reaching back to brush my hair. “We just need to go… as far as we can.” My stomach knotted. Far. How far? Were we running from someone? Something? The tires squealed. A horn blared. “Mom, watch out!” Gabriella shouted, panic lacing her words. And then… everything happened at once. A truck appeared from the other side. Bright headlights. Screeching metal. Shouts. “Mom!” I screamed. The crash threw me forward. Pain exploded in my body. The car twisted. Glass shattered. Smoke burned my eyes. “Gabriella!” Mom cried. The world flipped upside down, fire and noise and heat overwhel