"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to call off your campaign, delete every file, retract every statement. And you're going to do it publicly, in front of your guards, in front of witnesses."
"I won't?—"
"Or I send everything to your father. And to the press. And to every family you've ever done business with. I'll destroy you so completely that the Bellandi name becomes a joke. Your father will disown you. Your family will exile you. And you'll spend the rest of your life knowing you lost everything because you couldn't accept that I chose someone else."
The threat hangs in the air between us.
Caterina looks around—at her guards who won't meet her eyes, at Enzo and Rafe and my men positioned at every exit, at Adrian's body growing cold on the concrete, at Bianca standing beside me, alive and free and mine.
"This isn't over," Caterina whispers.
"Yes," I say. "It is."
She tries to hold my gaze, tries to salvage some dignity from this disaster she created, but we both know the truth. She lost.
One of her guards steps forward, older and more experienced than the others. "Miss Bellandi. We should leave. Now."
She nods, stiff and defeated, and they retreat to the jet. Within minutes they're gone and the warehouse falls silent except for groans from injured guards and the crackle of Enzo's radio.
Rafe approaches. "Clean up?"
"Make it disappear, brother. All of it." I look at Adrian's body. "Especially him."
"Consider it done."
I turn back to Bianca. She's still standing where I left her, shaking but upright, processing everything that just happened.
"It's over," I tell her. "Really over."
"You killed him." Not an accusation—just a fact she's trying to process.
"Yes."
"For me."
"Yes."
"And Caterina?—"
"Won't bother us again. I made sure of it."
“How did you find me?”
“Your ring––it has a GPS tracking system in it,” I say.
She looks at me, really looks at me, seeing all of it—the blood on my hands, Adrian's and mine mixed together, the violence I'm capable of when someone threatens what's mine, the darkness that lives under the suits and strategy and careful control, the man I really am underneath everything I show the world.
"You chose me," she whispers. "Against Caterina. Against the scandal. Against your father. Against your position. Against everyone who said I wasn't worth it."
"I'll always choose you." I pull her close, ignore the pain in my ribs where Adrian cut me, ignore the blood soaking through my shirt. "Even if it costs me everything—my position, my reputation, my family name. You're worth more than all of it combined."
She presses her face into my chest and starts crying, but not from fear or pain or trauma or the weight of everything that just happened. From relief. From knowing she's finally, truly safe.
The war isn't over—Caterina will regroup eventually, my father will continue his campaign against us, the article will have consequences we haven't even begun to see.
But this battle is won.
And Bianca is safe, in my arms, where she belongs.
