BREATHE

We didn’t go back inside right away.After Matteo handed the phone back and pulled me hard against him on the rooftop, we just stood there for a long time. The city moved below us like nothing had changed. The wind stayed cold and sharp. His heart kept hammering under my ear while the bond carried everything raw and unfiltered... the rage at his father, the crushing guilt, the grief for a man he had never even met, and that fierce new edge that said he had already chosen me over blood. I held onto him just as tight. For the first time since I found the first email between Dante and Voss, I wasn’t carrying the full weight of the truth alone.When we finally went downstairs, the penthouse was still dark and quiet. Nico was asleep down the hall. Neither of us spoke. Matteo led me straight to his room instead of the one the three of us usually shared. He closed the door, locked it with a soft click, and turned to face me in the dim light coming through the windows.The look in his eyes st

NO MORE HIDING

It was four in the morning when we ended up in the kitchen.Neither of us had really slept. After everything on the rooftop... the kill order, Matteo’s rage and grief and the way he had broken and rebuilt in front of me... and after everything that followed in his room, sleep felt impossible. The truth was too big in my chest. The choice we still had to make was even bigger. So we got up quietly, pulled on whatever clothes were closest, and went downstairs in the dark without turning on any of the main lights.The penthouse was completely silent. Nico was still asleep down the hall, breathing deep and even the last time I had checked. Maria wouldn’t arrive for hours. It was just the two of us and the low, constant hum of the city far below the windows.Matteo filled the kettle without asking if I wanted coffee. I got two mugs down from the cupboard and set them on the counter. We moved around each other in the dim under-cabinet lighting like we had done it a hundred ordinary mornings,

POWER GRID

We told him the next night, exactly the way Matteo and I had planned in the kitchen at four in the morning. Dinner was quiet in a way that already felt wrong. Maria had made something simple and left early, like she could sense the tension even if she didn’t know the cause. The three of us sat at the table and ate like it was any other evening, but the weight between Matteo and me was obvious if you knew how to look. Nico noticed. Of course he did. His eyes moved between us more than once during the meal, that sharp, practiced awareness already picking up that something was sitting under the surface. He didn’t ask while we were eating. He waited. That was his way. Let the pressure build until someone else broke first. After the plates were cleared and the penthouse had settled into its usual nighttime quiet, Matteo looked at me across the living room and gave a small, deliberate nod. My stomach tightened. I stood up. “Nico. Can we talk to you in the study?” He studied my face for

QUIET

Nico went quiet.Not the usual kind of quiet I had gotten used to from him... the focused silence when he was working through a complicated problem, or the controlled stillness he wore like armor in meetings. This was something total. Something that lived in the empty space where the bond used to be.The morning after we showed him the kill order, he was already dressed and gone from the bedroom when I woke up. Matteo was still there, one arm heavy over my waist, breathing slow and deep, but the other side of the bed was cold and neatly abandoned. I lay still for a long minute and reached for the bond out of pure habit, the way I had every morning since it first formed.Nothing.No low hum of his presence. No residual tension or warmth or even the sharp edge of anger. Just a blank place where he used to live in my chest. The absence was so complete it made my stomach drop and my fingers tighten in the sheets.I found him in the kitchen. Coffee already made. Phone in his hand. Laptop o

All Chapters of CONTRACTED TO THE DON...AND HIS TWIN: Chapter 71 - Chapter 74

BREATHE

NO MORE HIDING

POWER GRID

QUIET