All Chapters of The Wrong Bernardi: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

128 Chapters

danger recognized danger

I stepped back inside with the box in my hands.I didn’t make a sound that might wake Elma on the sofa or Aiden upstairs. I closed the door, turned the lock, then slid the second deadbolt into place. Then the chain.After that, I stared at the doorknob for two seconds, because something that small suddenly seemed far too simple for a job as big as keeping the rest of the world outside.I set the white box on the console table.Red lipstick.White card.The same handwriting.I pulled out my phone and photographed everything.One shot from above. One close-up of the card. One close-up of the lipstick. One photo of the box exactly where I’d placed it on the table. Then one of the front door, the fallen planter outside, the dirt scattered across the porch tile, the red ribbon resting at the bottom of the box.My left hand was cold.My right hand was steady.My body always knew when it was time to become an event planner.Crisis?Document it. Preserve the evidence. Touch as little as possi

smash the lamp later

I laughed. “No.”“Maya. My house has a perimeter, a panic room, private security, thermal cameras, access control, and a team that’s already active.”“Congratulations on owning Fort Knox with better landscaping.” I rolled my eyes.“This isn’t a joke.”“I know. I’m making jokes so I don’t pick up that table lamp and smash it over your head.”“Smash it later. Move now.”“No.”We stood close enough to argue without raising our voices. The stairs behind me. Aiden upstairs. Elma on the sofa. The horror movie was still playing silently on the TV, the blood on-screen now looking like cheap decor compared to the white box in Rhysand’s hand.“You don’t understand,” he said, very quietly.I smiled. “A man’s favorite sentence since humanity invented doors.”“This person knows your house.”“Thank you. I somehow missed that tiny detail while reading the vintage stalker card.”“He knows the blind spot in my perimeter.”“That’s your perimeter.”“It covers the road leading to your house.”“And now yo

one late anomaly

The first set of headlights turned into my driveway.Two black SUVs pulled up in front of the house with an almost insulting amount of precision. Doors opened. Three men stepped out.Dark polos. Small earpieces. Gloves. Eyes that didn’t look at my house like a house, but like a list of possible failures.Álvaro Rivas stepped out of the second SUV.His hair was gray at the temples, his dark suit immaculate, his face calm in the particular way that made everyone around him instinctively stand a little straighter. Rivas had worked for Papa since I was small enough to think bodyguards were men who knew where the ice cream was hidden. He had once pulled Saba out of a pool when she was three, once restrained Xavier from punching a senator’s son, and once told me, when I was seventeen and came home far too late, that lipstick was not an alibi.He approached after one of his men checked the porch.“Señorita,” he said.“Rivas.”His eyes dropped briefly to my face.Then they moved to Rhysand. “

black coffee, black t-shirts, bad timing

My house, which after eleven usually contained nothing but the hum of the refrigerator, Aiden’s breathing through the baby monitor, and Elma half-asleep complaining if I was still working, was now filled with the low voices of grown men discussing perimeters, shifts, thermal sweeps, and blind spots like my home had recently registered itself as a small embassy.I made coffee.Of course I made coffee.There were things sane women did when their house was surrounded by security and an old stalker decided to get nostalgic with red lipstick. Some people cried. Some called their families.I ground coffee beans, pulled out ceramic mugs, and asked Rivas whether his men drank their coffee black or possessed human weaknesses like oat milk.Rivas looked at me.“I’m genuinely asking,” I said.“Black coffee, Señorita.”“See? Everyone in this house has their own trauma.”I made one tray of coffee for Rivas and his team, another for the two Bernadi men standing outside the back door like expensive

he fit where he shouldn’t

I turned back toward the TV, which suddenly became extremely helpful because a man on-screen was currently losing an arm and still had more emotional stability than I did.“Asshole,” I said.“Been that way for a while.”“You should find another doctor.”“I like doctors who don’t cure me.”“That’s the kind of thing that gets a podcast named after you.”“You’d listen.”“I’d host.”His mouth tipped slightly. “Even better.”Damn it.And then footsteps sounded from upstairs.Rhysand’s head turned toward the staircase immediately. Every trace of teasing disappeared from his face so quickly it felt like the room had switched modes.From the man sitting beside me to the man calculating distance.I set my lasagna bowl on the table. “Aiden?”My son appeared at the top of the stairs with his hair sticking up like a premium bird’s nest. His dinosaur pajamas had slipped crookedly off one shoulder. Black bangs covered half his forehead. In his arms was a car-shaped plushie, an absurd thing Saba had

the wrong safe place

Rhysand carried Aiden upstairs with a calm that felt almost ridiculous on a man his size.I walked beside him with one hand resting on the stair railing, not because I needed something to hold on to.Obviously not.I was simply a woman appreciating the architecture of her own home at midnight, after a stalker package, a security perimeter, and my former one-night disaster carrying my son like that little body had always belonged somewhere in his arms.Aiden was already half asleep again by the time we reached the hallway.His head rested against Rhysand’s shoulder, his car plushie wedged between their chests. His dinosaur pajamas were rumpled. Black bangs had fallen into his eyes, and his little mouth hung slightly open as he mumbled something that might have been “water” or “tractor” or a brand-new legal theory regarding Elma’s snoring.Rhysand didn’t ask.He just adjusted Aiden slightly so his head wouldn’t droop too far, then stepped into the bedroom after I pushed the door open wi

five years folded badly (21+)

The air in my lungs stopped cooperating.I looked out at the ocean.There was no part of what Rhysand had just said that I could hit without hitting myself too. And he didn’t take it back. Didn’t soften it. Didn’t reshape it into something easier for me to swallow.Damn this man.“Don’t use that as a way in,” I said.“I’m not.”“It sounds like you are.”“Because you hear everything like it’s a door that needs locking.”I turned to him sharply. “And you hear everything like it’s a house you can buy.”He took that without flinching, still looking at me with something far more honest than I had asked for.“I looked for you all the way to Bali,” he said.I gave a small, humorless laugh. “Are we changing the subject?”“No.”“You’re mixing two different things.”“I’m not.” He moved half a step closer. “I’m telling you I know what it feels like to look for someone and not find them. And now someone else knows how to find your house.”“Don’t.”“I’m also telling you I’ve been stopping myself f

how to ruin a wedding before it happens

I forgot the order of the alphabet.Worse, I almost didn’t care.Rhysand’s hand on my waist felt hot, his palm against my skin in a way that was far too simple for something capable of ruining several lives at once. There was no grand gesture. No cheap drama involving rain, music, or thunder suddenly deciding it needed to participate.Just his hand under my shirt, his skin against mine, his breath at my neck, and my body very rudely deciding that morality was a topic for people who got enough sleep.Rhysand kissed the spot beneath my jaw, where my skin had apparently been storing every bad decision I’d made since Hawaii, and my body moved toward him like an idiot who had just spotted the exit and still chose the emergency staircase straight to hell.“Rhys,” I said, my voice coming out too low.He stopped for half a second. Only half. Enough to give me room. Enough to prove that this man, even with his heat pressed against my body and his breathing unsteady, still had that deeply irrit

he is ruining my hatred

Rhysand didn’t move back. His hand was still under my shirt, his palm on my waist, completely still now like it had just realized it was sitting at a crime scene.His eyes dropped to my mouth, then lifted again, and the corner of his mouth twitched. He let out a quiet laugh, his breath brushing my lips.“You can’t use that to make me stop.”I stiffened. “Excuse me?”“That’s not a stop word,” he said, his voice still low, still too close, still obnoxious with a face that should’ve been banned under international law. “That’s a name.”“Your fiancée’s name, in case you need a flashcard.”“I know who she is.”“Good. Basic memory function is intact. Let’s celebrate with distance.”I pressed both hands against his chest.He didn’t move. The man’s chest was basically a Swiss bank vault with a heartbeat. I pushed again, harder, and he was still right in front of me, not holding me there roughly, not forcing me to stay close, just refusing to give me the visual satisfaction of stumbling backwa

one foot from disaster

I found Aiden half-sitting in bed with his eyes still closed, his black hair sticking up in every direction except one that made sense, and his car plushie wedged under one armpit like the thing had just failed its overnight security duties.“Mami,” he mumbled again.“Yeah, baby. Mami’s here.”I sat on the edge of the bed and barely had time to fix the blanket before his little body immediately shifted toward me, not fully awake, just following warmth with the instincts of a four-year-old who considered his mother part of the room amenities. Both arms wrapped around my waist, his cheek pressed to my stomach, and then he sighed.“Why are you awake?” I whispered, brushing his bangs out of his eyes.Aiden didn’t answer.He was already asleep again.I looked down at the top of his head for a few seconds, then across the bed, where Elma was still sleeping on her side with one hand tucked under her cheek and the blanket nearly slipping off her waist. A tiny snore came out through her nose,

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