All Chapters of Entangled with the mafia boss : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Chapter 22: The Board MeetingAuroraThe De Luca Group headquarters looked different at eleven o'clock at night—the lobby lights dimmed to half power, the security desk manned by a single guard who barely looked up as I badged through, the elevators eerily quiet compared to the chaos I imagined was unfolding somewhere above me.I rode up to the executive floor with my heart hammering against my ribs, rehearsing what I'd say, though I already knew none of it would matter the moment I actually walked into that room.The boardroom doors were closed when I arrived, but I could hear voices through them, raised enough to carry into the hallway. I recognized my father's voice first, tight and defensive. Then an unfamiliar tone, calm and deliberate in a way that made my skin crawl before I even placed it.Marcus.I pushed the doors open without knocking.Every head in the room turned toward me at once. My father stood at the head of the table, his face flushed with anger and something that lo

Aurora Damian's building was newer than the one he'd owned during our marriage, all glass and sharp angles, the kind of place that announced its price before you ever stepped inside. It made sense, I supposed. He'd never been able to resist a symbol of success, even when the success itself was built on borrowed foundations. I sat outside in my car for a long moment before going in, gathering whatever composure I had left after a night that had already stripped most of it away. The doorman buzzed me up without question when I gave Damian's name, and I rode the elevator to the twelfth floor with my heart pounding, rehearsing nothing, because I'd learned by now that nothing I planned to say ever survived contact with the people I actually had to say it to. He opened the door in a robe, clearly not expecting anyone, surprise flickering across his face before he arranged it into something more practiced. "Aurora." He leaned against the doorframe, some of his old smugness sliding back

Aurora The drive to Elena's apartment felt longer than it should have, every red light an agony, my phone clutched in my hand as I tried calling her again and again, each attempt going straight to voicemail. "She's not answering," I said, my voice tight with panic. "We're almost there." Lucian's hands were steady on the wheel, but I could see the tension in his jaw, the same controlled intensity I'd seen in him outside Damian's building an hour earlier. "Try texting instead. If her phone is on silent, a text notification might still get through." I typed with shaking hands. ME: We're coming. Are you safe? Please answer. No response came back. "What does he even want with her," I said, more to myself than to Lucian. "She's not the one holding the documents. I am." "Maybe he doesn't know that." "He implied he did. Outside his apartment, he specifically mentioned her name." "Implying and confirming aren't the same thing." Lucian took a sharp turn, the city blurring

Aurora Lucian didn't take me home that afternoon. Instead, he took me to his penthouse, insisting, with a firmness that left no real room for argument, that I stay somewhere he could personally guarantee was secure until he understood exactly what Salvatore Caruso was planning. "This isn't about control," he said, when I hesitated at the door, some old instinct still bristling at the idea of being managed, protected, decided for. "This is about the fact that whoever sent that photograph knows where you live. I'd rather you be somewhere unfamiliar to him." "For how long?" "Until I know more." I didn't have the energy to argue, not after the morning I'd had, so I followed him inside, past the olive tree in the corner that had made this place feel, once, like somewhere I could imagine belonging. It didn't feel that way today. Today it felt like a fortress, every window suddenly significant, every quiet sound in the hallway outside a potential threat. Marco arrived withi

Aurora I woke to the sound of raised voices somewhere beyond the guest room door, low and urgent, the particular tone that meant something had gone wrong while I slept. For a moment I lay still, caught in that disoriented space between sleep and waking, my body registering the unfamiliar softness of a bed that wasn't mine, the unfamiliar quality of light filtering through curtains I didn't recognize. Then the events of the previous night came rushing back all at once—the photographs, my mother's garden, Salvatore Caruso's name spoken like a curse—and I sat up so quickly the room tilted briefly around me. I pulled on the robe draped over the chair beside the bed, my fingers fumbling with the tie, and hurried toward the sound of Lucian's voice. He stood near the window, phone pressed to his ear, his back to me, the line of his shoulders rigid with a tension I recognized immediately as bad news, the kind of stillness that meant he was holding something back, controlling his rea