Vows of Ruin: Til vengeance do us part のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 50

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-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-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

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 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