The rain started sometime after midnight, pounding against the windows like the echo of her heartbeat. Aria lay awake in the guest room, staring at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. She hadn’t slept a second since walking out of Luca’s study. His words replayed endlessly, i already knew who you are.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face, the raw desperation in his steel-gray eyes, the way his voice had cracked as if he were bleeding inside. But none of it erased the betrayal. He had kept the most important truth of her life hidden from her, and that wound cut deeper than any knife.
She didn’t hear the footsteps until they stopped outside her door. A faint knock followed.
"Aria." His voice was low, gravelly from drink, or maybe from pain.
She clenched her fists against the bedsheets. "Go away."
The door handle turned anyway. He stepped inside, dressed not in his usual armor of sharp suits but in a simple black shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows. He looked human, vulnerable, and it almost made her hate him more.
"You shouldn’t be here," she said, her tone cold.
"I couldn’t sleep." He leaned against the doorframe, eyes locked on her. "Not when you’re down the hall thinking I’m the enemy."
Her laugh was sharp, humorless. "Enemy? That implies I ever knew what side you were on to begin with."
He flinched, then pushed off the door and crossed the room slowly, like approaching a wounded animal. "You think I wanted to lie to you? You think it didn’t tear me apart, keeping the truth from the one person I swore I’d never deceive?" ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩⁂𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾⁂𝔫𝔢𝔱
"You swore a lot of things," she cut in. "You swore I wasn’t just a pawn. You swore you wanted to protect me. And yet here we are, me, broken, because the man I trusted most decided I wasn’t strong enough to handle my own life."
His jaw tightened. "I wasn’t protecting you because I thought you were weak. I was protecting you because I knew the second you learned the truth, the weight of it would crush you. You don’t understand how dangerous your bloodline makes you. You don’t understand how many families would kill to control you."
Her eyes filled, but she refused to let the tears fall. "Then you should have given me the choice to face it. Instead, you decided for me. You played God with my life, Luca. And I don’t know if I can forgive you for that."
The silence stretched between them like a noose.
Finally, he stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Do you hate me that much?"
She swallowed hard. "I don’t hate you. That’s the problem."
His expression shifted, something fierce and pained flashing in his eyes. "Then what do you feel?"
Her lips trembled. "Lost. Betrayed. And still, God help me drawn to you. Even now, when I want to run, all I can think about is how much I need you."
He closed the distance in two strides, standing inches from her. The heat of him surrounded her, his scent, dark and masculine, tinged with whiskey, making her dizzy. His hand hovered near her cheek but didn’t touch.
"Aria," he whispered, voice breaking, "I don’t deserve you. But I can’t let you go."
Her breath shuddered. "You already did."
"No." His hand finally touched her cheek, rough thumb brushing away the tear she hadn’t realized fell. "I’ll fight every day to win you back. I’ll burn this entire empire to the ground if that’s what it takes to prove you mean more to me than power, than secrets, than blood."
Her resolve cracked like glass. "Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because I can’t lose you," he said, voice raw. "Because I’d rather die than live without you."
The room spun, the storm outside matching the one inside her chest. She wanted to shove him away, scream at him, curse him for the pain he’d caused. But instead, she whispered, "Then stop lying to me."
He cupped her face with both hands, desperate. "No more lies. Not ever again. I promise this time around."
Her lips parted, a protest on her tongue but then his mouth crashed onto hers.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful. It was fire meeting fire, pain meeting passion, two souls colliding in a storm neither could control. His kiss was punishment and apology, hunger and surrender. She gasped into him, fists clenching in his shirt as if holding on for dear life.
"Luca," she breathed when they finally tore apart, lips swollen, breaths ragged.
"I can’t resist you," he confessed, forehead pressed to hers. "I’ve tried, Aria. God knows I’ve tried. But every time you walk into a room, every time you look at me with those eyes that see too much, I lose myself. I’m the Don to everyone else but with you, I’m just a man who’s terrified of losing the only thing he’s ever loved."
Her chest ached. "You love me?"
His eyes burned with unspoken truth. "I think I’ve loved you from the first night you cursed me in my own office. I just didn’t know what to call it."
Tears spilled freely now, hot trails down her cheeks. "Then why does it hurt so much?"
"Because love is war in our world," he whispered, kissing her again, slower this time, tender. "And war always leaves scars."
For the first time since the lie unraveled, she let herself melt into him. Let herself believe, just for that moment, that they could survive this. That maybe, despite the betrayal, despite the bloodlines and secrets, their hearts could still find a way back to each other.
The storm raged on outside, but inside, two broken souls clung to each other as if the world might end, but in Aria on the other hand had a lot on her mind, wishing and praying all this dreams ends once and for all.
And maybe, just maybe, it already had.