All Chapters of Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

59 Chapters

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-ONEUNKNOWN POVThe house felt different.It was not louder. If anything, it was quieter. But it wasn’t the kind of quiet that meant peace. It was the kind that pressed in on you, sat heavy in your chest, made every small sound feel too sharp.Like something was about to break.Good. That meant it was working.I stood at the sink, letting the water run over my hands longer than necessary, watching it spiral down the drain.If anyone walked in right now, they'll see nothing out of place.A faint smile pulled at my lips before I could stop it.This was too easy.That was the only thing that bothered me.It was not the poison, not the risk, hell…not even him.Just how easy it had been.Slipping into the pantry. Taking what I needed. Leaving without anyone questioning it. No hesitation, no resistance—just another face moving through the house like I belonged there.And I did.That was the trick.You don’t hide. You don’t sneak around like you have something to hide. You just

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-TWOGABRIELE’S POVTwo days had passed, but the house still felt like it was holding its breath.No one moved unless they were told to. No one spoke unless it was necessary. Even the guards had that tight, alert look in their eyes, like they were waiting for something to snap.Carmela had not woken up.They kept saying she was stable, that her body was holding on, that the worst had passed…but every time I looked at her, lying there too still, too quiet, it didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like a loss. Like something unfinished.I stood outside the medical room for a moment, watching her through the glass. The steady rise and fall of her chest should have been enough to calm me, but it wasn’t. It didn’t erase the memory of how close she’d come to dying. It didn’t erase the fact that someone had done this inside my house.“Don.”Angelo’s voice came from behind me, careful but firm.I didn’t turn immediately. “She hasn’t moved.”“She’s stable,” he repeated, as if that w

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CARMELA’S POVThe first thing I became aware of was the weight in my body.It wasn’t pain at first. It was just heaviness, like every part of me had been pressed down and left there for too long. Then the ache followed, slow and deep, settling into my chest and spreading outward until even breathing felt like effort.I tried to move my fingers. It took more energy than it should have, but they twitched slightly, and that alone told me I wasn’t dreaming.My eyes opened slowly, the light was too bright at first, forcing me to squint as everything blurred together before gradually coming into focus. The ceiling came first, plain and white, unfamiliar for a moment until memory began to surface in fragments.The tea.The way everything inside me had started shutting down.My breath caught, and I pushed myself up slightly on instinct, only for a sharp wave of pain to hit my chest and force a weak sound from my throat.“Easy, Mrs. Conti.”The voice was familiar enough to ground me.I turned

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FOURCARMELA’S POVBy the time my father arrived, I already knew.Not because anyone told me. But because the house shifted again.I was sitting up this time, propped against the pillows despite the dull ache still lingering in my chest, when the door opened.He walked in like nothing had changed.Like I hadn’t spent five days unconscious.Like someone hadn’t tried to kill me.“Carmela.”His voice softened when he saw me awake, and for a moment…just a moment…it almost felt genuine.He crossed the room quickly, stopping at my bedside, his eyes scanning me in a way that was meant to look concerned.“Grazie a Dio sei sveglio,” he said, relief threading through his tone. Thank God you're awake.I watched him carefully, saying nothing at first.He reached for my hand, squeezing it lightly. “I came back as soon as I heard. They told me it was serious.”“It was,” I replied evenly.Something flickered in his expression, but it was gone too quickly to hold onto.“You should be re

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVECARMELA'S POVSleep had been avoiding me for hours by the time I heard the door.It wasn't a dramatic sound… just the soft click of the handle turning, the quiet push of wood against the frame — but my body tensed anyway. I didn't reach for anything. I just lay still and waited.Gabriele stepped inside, and I knew it was him before my eyes had fully adjusted to the slice of light he let in. The shape of him was familiar in a way I resented. He stopped when he saw me watching him, which told me he'd expected me to be asleep."I wasn't sleeping," I said, so he wouldn't pretend otherwise.He didn't apologize for coming in. He never apologized for things like that. Instead he moved further into the room, pulled the chair from the corner and sat beside the bed with the slow, careful weight of someone who had been carrying something heavy all day and was only just allowing himself to put it down. For a while, neither of us said anything."You should be sleeping," he said

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SIXGABRIELE'S POVI hadn't planned to go to her room.That was the thing I kept coming back to afterwards. I'd told myself I was checking the hallway, making sure the new guards were positioned correctly, that the house was secure in the way it needed to be now that someone had gotten close enough to poison her inside these walls. I'd told myself that, and then somehow I'd ended up outside her door, and then inside it, and there she was… awake, watching me, completely unsurprised."I wasn't sleeping," she said, and the flatness in her voice was so like her that something in my chest loosened slightly, some tension I'd been carrying since the moment they'd told me she'd been poisoned and I'd stood in that hallway and felt the world tilt in a way I hadn't expected.I pulled the chair from the corner and sat beside her bed. She watched me settle with those careful, measuring eyes that never quite switched off, even now, even in the middle of the night. I'd always known C

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CARMELA'S POVThe next morning was exactly as awkward as I'd expected it to be.Gabriele was already gone when I woke up, which should have been a relief.I dressed carefully, took longer than necessary, and finally headed downstairs.I found him in the kitchen, which was becoming a pattern neither of us had acknowledged.He was already pouring a second mug when I walked in, which meant he'd heard me coming, which also meant the awareness was mutual and equally inconvenient for both of us. I sat at the island and accepted the coffee without comment and we stood on opposite sides of the counter in silence.It was Gabriele who spoke first."You were poisoned inside this house," he said, setting his mug down, his voice even and direct in the way it got when he'd already decided where a conversation was going. "Whoever did it had access, which means it wasn't random and it wasn't an opportunity or mere luck. Someone specifically wanted you dead.""I'm aware," I said."The same person who

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

LCARMELA'S POVI dressed carefully for dinner.Not elaborately — that would have looked like effort, and effort would have looked like nerves, and I wasn't going to give anyone at that table the satisfaction of my nerves. I chose something simple and dark, fixed my hair, and stood in front of the mirror long enough to make sure the face looking back at me gave nothing away. Then I went downstairs.The dining room was already occupied when I arrived. Enzo Conti, Gabriele's uncle, was a broad man in his sixties with the particular gravity of someone who had spent decades being the most important person in every room he entered. He was standing near the head of the table talking to Gabriele in low, rapid Italian when I walked in, and he paused when he saw me, spreading his hands in a gesture of welcome that managed to be both warm and slightly performative."Carmela." He came forward and kissed both my cheeks. "Che bello vederti in piedi. Ci hai fatto preoccupare tutti." How wonderful to

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY-NINECARMELA'S POVThe morning after the dinner, I found Gabriele already in his office.He didn't look like a man who had slept, which told me he'd been at this since before dawn. The desk was spread with papers, his coffee had gone cold beside him, and he had the particular focused stillness of someone who had stopped noticing the world around them hours ago. He looked up when I came in and gestured at the chair across from him without preamble, which I appreciated. I didn't want pleasantries this morning. I wanted to work."Marco spoke to you alone last night," he said, before I'd even fully settled. "At the door, after dinner. What exactly did he say?"I'd been turning the conversation over since it happened, deciding how much to give and in what order. "He mentioned Elena," I said. "Framed it as a cautionary tale. He said she was smart but pointed her intelligence somewhere it didn't belong." I watched Gabriele's jaw tighten almost imperceptibly. "He wanted me to k

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTYCARMELA'S POVI found the files three days later even though I hadn't been looking for them specifically.I'd been going through the study adjacent to our bedroom, the one Gabriele had told me I could use as my own workspace, casually checking every drawer and cabinet the way I'd been doing since I arrived in this house. It was an old habit. You learn every room you're trapped in. You find every exit before you need one.The false bottom in the third drawer was well constructed — flush with the wood, no visible seam unless you knew the particular pressure point that released it. I found it by accident, pressing too hard when the drawer stuck, and felt the panel shift beneath my hand. I stood there for a moment before I lifted it.The files underneath were not Gabriele's. The handwriting on the tabs was different and the paper had the particular quality of documents that had been handled carefully and stored with intention. Someone had put these here deliberately, whic

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