All Chapters of The Devil’s Only Weakness : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

THE WOMAN WHO SHOULD BE DEAD“Amelie, your mother is alive. And she’s the reason I agreed to marry you.”For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.Rain hammered against my bedroom windows as I stared at Gio Locatelli, waiting for him to take back those words.He didn’t.“My mother is dead.”“That’s what you were told.”“I buried her.”“No. You buried an empty coffin.”My stomach twisted.Suddenly, I remembered the funeral. The white flowers, my black dress and my father’s hand gripping my shoulder when I begged to see her face.You don’t need that memory, sweetheart.Eight years later, those words sounded less like comfort and more like a warning.“Why would he lie to me?”“Because your mother needed to disappear.”“From whom?”Gio’s jaw tightened.“Ask your father.”I threw a cushion at him.“Stop treating my life like some bloody secret! You appear in my house, tell me my dead mother is alive, and expect me to remain calm?”“I’m trying to keep you alive.”“Then perhaps you shoul

THE BLOOD THAT LIES“Which father?”My question hung in the hallway.I stared at Daniel Pearce, the man who had raised me, while Gio stood beside me, his expression unreadable.For twenty-four years, I’d believed I knew my family. Apparently, I’d been living inside somebody else’s carefully constructed lie.“Look at me, Dad.”He did.“Did you kill Gio’s father?”Silence.Gio stepped forward. “Daniel, she deserves the truth.”My father laughed bitterly.“And you think you’re qualified to give it?”“I’m certainly more qualified than the man who buried his daughter’s childhood beneath eight years of lies.”My father’s face hardened.“Amelie, go upstairs.”I almost laughed.“You’re still giving orders? My mother is alive, you might have murdered Gio’s father, and now I’m apparently not even your daughter. What exactly do you expect me to do? Make you another cup of coffee?”His expression briefly softened.“Everything I did was to protect you.”“Then why does being your daughter feel like

A BRIDE FOR THE DEVIL“If my brother has your mother, then this wedding isn’t an alliance.”Gio stared at the photograph.“It’s a ransom.”I wanted to believe him wrong. I wanted an explanation that didn’t involve dead men, missing children and families built on twenty-four years of lies.But my mother was alive, and she was standing beside a man everyone believed was dead.“Call him back.”“Amelie—”“Call your brother!”“He used an untraceable number.”I laughed bitterly.“Your family has money, weapons and enough influence to frighten half of New York, but apparently finding one missing man is impossible.”His jaw tightened.“We’re leaving.”Back at the Locatelli estate, Gio led me into his father’s study.Something was missing.The photograph of his father and my mother had disappeared, along with the black folder we’d discovered earlier.Beneath the bookshelf, I noticed a gold locket.Inside was a photograph of me as a little girl.On its reverse were six words.TO MY DAUGHTER, WH

THE PRICE OF HIS RETURNThe message remained on Gio’s phone.THE WEDDING IS BACK ON. THREE DAYS. NO EXCEPTIONS.Beneath it was a photograph of Daniel Pearce being forced into a black vehicle. His hands were tied, and blood marked his forehead.I zoomed in on the photograph.“Wait. That watch.”Gio looked at me. “What about it?”“I’ve seen it before. At my father’s birthday dinner six months ago.”The man wearing it had congratulated me that evening and told me my mother would have been proud of me.Gio immediately called his security chief.“Rafael, I want every photograph and guest record from Daniel Pearce’s birthday dinner. Every name. Every face. Find the man wearing a silver watch with a red line around its edge.”He ended the call.“Your father may have been watched for months.”“By Vittorio?”“Possibly.”I folded my arms. “You really need to find another answer.”“When people keep lying, certainty becomes expensive.”I looked at Daniel’s photograph.“Why does Vittorio want this

THE WEDDING OF DAMNED SOULSThe photograph on Gio’s phone was the last thing I wanted to see.Daniel Pearce was kneeling on a concrete floor, his hands tied behind his back. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.Behind him stood a man I had spent my entire life believing was dead.Vittorio Locatelli.My supposed biological father.And he was holding a gun against Daniel’s head.“Midnight,” I whispered.Gio took back his phone.“We’re not going to that wedding.”“He’ll kill Daniel.”“Then we find him before midnight.”I stared at Gio.“Am I your sister?”He hesitated.“According to the records, yes. But I don’t trust anything we’ve discovered so far.”“And if they’re wrong?”His expression tightened.“Then we have another problem.”I looked away. My father was being held hostage, my mother was missing, and I still didn’t know whether the man standing beside me was someone I could love or someone I was related to.“Let’s find them,” I said.By nine in the morning, Gio’s estate had bec