Chapter 78
Chapter 78
Dominic’s POV
She was weightless in my arms.
Completely still. No sound. No breath. Nothing but the thud of my own heart slamming against my ribs like it was trying to punch through.
“Aria,” I said again, softer this time. Begging.
No response. My hands were shaking as I stared at her. Her body was still warm but this…it felt like death.
I didn’t think any longer.
I moved.
“Get the medic!” I barked at the surrounding guards as I rushed out of the hallway. “Now!”
The guards scattered. I didn’t care. I just kept going. Past the parlor. Up the stairs. Into my room where the lighting was better, where the air didn’t feel like it was collapsing around us.
I laid her gently on the bed, brushing the hair away from her face. Her lips were pale. Her skin, cold.
“Don’t do this,” I whispered, kneeling beside the bed. My voice was shaking now. “Don’t shut down on me, Aria.”
She wasn’t dead. I knew that. Her pulse was there faint, but steady.
But something inside her had broken.
And I couldn’t fix it.
A medic finally rushed in, bag slung over his shoulder, panic on his face.
“She fainted,” I growled, stepping back but not far. “Make sure that’s all it is.”
The medic worked quickly. Took her vitals. Checked her breathing. Did whatever the hell he needed to do. I barely heard any of it. My mind was somewhere else.
Florence. Blood.
Aria’s parents were dead while they were under my protection.
I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve known Mikael would get that desperate. What was his end goal? For me to grovel and hand him everything I own?
Or was it Victoria?
She had a hate for Aria because Aria sat somewhere close to my heart that Victoria would never seat.
She didn’t go for Aria.
She went for them.
She went for Aria’s heart.
“Sir?” The medic’s voice pulled me back. “She’s stable. Just shock and emotional trauma. She needs rest, hydration, time. I‘ Il leave some sedatives in case she wakes up panicked.”
“Get out,” I said.
He hesitated.
“Now.”
He obeyed.
I sank into the chair by her bed, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands.
I’d built empires. Burned entire networks to the ground. I had buried men twice my age and outplayed enemies I hadn’t even seen coming.
But I hadn’t protected her.
Not enough.
Not like I promised.
And now…
She had nothing.
No family. No roots. Just me.
Successfully unlocked!
And I was the last thing she needed in her life. A bitter controlling soul that want to protect her but hurt her in the process.
I looked up at her–her chest rising and falling slowly, her face tight with pain even in unconsciousness–and I felt it.
1/4
Chapter 78
That thing.
The thing I spent years burying under concrete and gunpowder.
Guilt.
Love.
Fucking love.
I didn’t just care. I needed her. Without her, I felt like I would never find me again.
My phone buzzed on the side table. I snatched it up.
Julian.
I answered. “What?”
“They hit the Florence house and left a trail,” he said, tone clipped. “We traced one of the shooters to a hotel in Beldova. He s still alive. Bleeding out, but breathing.”
My grip on the phone tightened. “Keep him that way. I’m on my way.”
“You sure? Aria-”
“Keep. Him. Alive.”
I ended the call.
I leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Aria’s forehead. She didn’t stir.
“I’ll be back,” I murmured. “And when I am… this city’s going to feel what I feel right now.”
I stood, straightened my jacket, and walked out.
The king of Beldova was no longer playing defense.
He was going to end them all.
****
The warehouse reeked of blood and piss.
The kind of place we only used when we wanted someone to know they weren’t leaving alive.
The man tied to the chair was a mess–shirt soaked in dried blood, one eye swollen shut, lip split. He was breathing hard, but still breathing. That was the important part.
Julian was leaning against the wall, flipping a knife like he was bored. “Didn’t say much before you got here. But I figured you’d want the honors.”
I nodded once, my eyes never leaving the man.
He looked like nothing. Just another hired gun with too much testosterone and not enough brains. But he’d pulled the trigger. He’d shattered Aria’s family.
He’d been among the people that made her scream like the world had ended–because it had.
I stepped forward.
The man tensed.
“Name,” I said.
He didn’t answer.
I backhanded him. Hard. His face moved to the left, a cracking sound heard in the room.
He grunted, blood flying from his mouth.
“I said, name.”
He laughed. Fucking laughed.
The bastard.
That was his first mistake.
“Fucking mafia,” he spat. “You think you scare me?”
“No,” I said calmly, pulling the silencer from my jacket and screwing it onto the pistol. “But I’m not trying to scare you. I’m trying to decide whether to shoot your kneecap or your dick.”
He stopped laughing.
“Last chance,” I said, cocking the gun. “Who hired you?”
He hesitated. One glance at Julian’s knife spinning in his hand, and then–he cracked.
2/4
Chapter 78
“Romanov,” he wheezed.
“Mikael?” I asked.
He nodded. “Didn’t see him. I swear. It was through a guy. Real slick. Expensive suit. Italian accent. Said she was leverage. Said the girl was the key. Break her. Break him and he would have an empire and would be rich.”
My eyes narrowed. “Italian accent?”
The man coughed. “Yeah. Called her Sinclair.”
My blood froze.
I turned slowly to Julian. “He used her real name.”
Julian’s face went blank. “Then someone gave it to him.”
Which meant someone knew Aria’s true identity–and leaked it.
My jaw clenched. “Did the man mention a woman? A partner?”
The sniper nodded weakly. “Yeah. Said the lady was in charge. That she hated the girl. Said she wanted to ruin her. Called her a homewrecker.”
Only one person had that fish brain to think that way.
Victoria.
That fucking snake.
She hadn’t just gone rogue–she’d exposed Aria’s entire history. Her bloodline. Everything.
Question is how did she know Aria true self?
“Where’s the drop?” I asked.
The man blinked. “W–what?”
“The payment drop. Where were you supposed to meet your contact after the hit?”
He hesitated.
I raised the gun.
“Warehouse at the east docks. Tonight. By midnight.”
I stepped back and holstered the pistol.
Then I turned to Julian. “He doesn’t leave this building.”
“Alive?” Julian asked.
I looked over my shoulder. “What do you think?”
Julian grinned. “On it.”
I stepped into the night air, my pulse still pounding.
Victoria and Mikael crossed a line they don’t come back from. They went after Aria’s family, after her name. Which meant they knew.
And if they knew…
They were planning something worse.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Alessio.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Put eyes on every known associate of Victoria Romano. Her lawyers. Her family. Anyone she speaks to more than once.”
“Understood.”
“And Alessio?”
“Yeah?”
“If you find her before I do… don’t touch her.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Because you want to?”
“No,” I said coldly. “Because I want to break her myself.”
I ended the call.
