All Chapters of The Ricci Heir: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

The voices down the hall rose and fell like waves sharp, low, angry, then muffled again behind the conference room door. I couldn’t make out the words, but I knew the tone. My father. My brothers. Salvatore. Luca. Talking about the truce. Talking about Hector. Talking about Sean. Talking about Isolde. Talking about everything except the one thing I needed most. Matteo still hadn’t woken up. I sat beside him, fingers laced with his, my thumb brushing over his knuckles in slow circles. His skin was warm. His breathing steady. Stitch said it was normal, the blood loss, the trauma, the exhaustion. His body would wake when it was ready.But every hour felt like a lifetime.“I know you can hear me,” I whispered. “You always hear me.”The monitor beeped softly, steady and stubborn, just like him.“They’re talking about the truce,” I murmured. “Juan called Salvatore. He wants to hand Hector over. Says he didn’t approve any of it.”My voice tightened. “I don’t trust him. None of us do.”I lean

The room felt too still once everyone left. The laughter faded down the hall, the door clicked shut, and suddenly it was just us, Matteo lying weak but awake, and me sitting beside him with my heart still racing like it hadn’t gotten the message that he was alive.Alive. I kept repeating the word in my head, but it didn’t settle. Not yet. Not after the last twenty‑four hours of fear and waiting and imagining the worst. Matteo watched me with that soft, steady gaze that always made me feel like he could see every thought I tried to hide.“You’re overthinking,” he murmured.“I’m not,” I said too quickly.His eyebrow lifted that slow, skeptical Ricci eyebrow that said he knew better.I looked down at my hands, twisting them in my lap. “I just… I wasn’t there. I didn’t know if you were going to...” My voice cracked. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you open your eyes again.”Matteo’s expression softened, the kind of softness he only ever showed me. He shifted his hand toward mine, slow and

Kat issued our assignments, GreenLee prepped the coffee, and Mama Red mapped out a plan of attack, none of us even in the first dress yet. We weren't just a group of women out for a shopping adventure; we were family, blood or chosen, sisters in all but name. GreenLee, my best friend since college, moved with her usual effortless energy; Kat, my cousin and eternal organizer, made sure we stayed on task; and Mama Red, our honorary aunt and clan matriarch, guided us with that special kind of authority only she could wield. From the very start, this was a mission, not some lazy Saturday shopping trip. Dress shopping should have been fun, and it was… mostly. Koda had started the day strong, marching beside me like a tiny bodyguard, chin up, curls bouncing, telling every saleswoman, “No touch Zia CiCi. I protect her.” Three hours later? He was over it. He sat in the middle of the boutique floor, arms crossed, glaring at a mannequin as if it personally offended him. “I'm done,” he announced

Matteo sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, watching me with that quiet intensity that always made me feel like the only person in the room. His breathing was still a little uneven, his ribs still wrapped, but his eyes were clear now. Focused. Present.And for the first time since the chaos outside, he wasn’t gearing up.He was listening.“Okay,” he said softly. “Tell me what you think we should do.”I took a breath, wiping the last of the tears from my cheeks. “You’re asking me?”“I should’ve asked you from the start,” he admitted. “I jumped the gun. I didn’t think about how it would hit you. I didn’t think about… us.”My chest tightened, but not in the painful way from earlier. This was different. Warmer. Real.I sat beside him, close enough that our knees touched. “I know we have to get Hector. And Isolde. And Sean. I’m not saying we don’t go after them.”He nodded slowly. “But?”“But this MC,” I said. “We don’t know them. We don’t know their numbers, their alliances, t

Sean’s voice was still ringing in my ears. Shaky, broken, terrified in a way I hadn’t heard since we were kids. And now I had to figure out how to tell everyone else. How do you walk into a room full of men who want your twin dead and say, Hey, he called me. You don’t. You just… do it anyway. Because if I waited, if I hesitated, Sean wouldn’t survive long enough for any of this to matter.I found them in the common room—all of them. Matteo, Wolf, Salvatore, Luca, my brothers, and Da, thank God. He was having a good day, sitting upright, clear‑eyed, steady. Shamrock and the two others had already left to scout the ranch. The room was tense, but focused.Da saw me first. His eyes narrowed. “Aiden? What’s wrong?” My throat tightened. This was it. I swallowed hard. “Sean called me.” The room froze. Every head snapped toward me. Matteo stood straighter. Wolf’s jaw clenched. Cormac muttered a curse. Cedric’s fists balled. Liam and Finn exchanged a look that said, " This better be good.Wolf