Hours blurred into a storm of dead ends and near-misses. I stood at the edge of the room, staring at the feeds without seeing them, when a rare quiet moment settled. Leo approached, handing me a glass of whiskey. I took it but didn’t drink.
We stepped out onto the shadowed balcony overlooking the cliffs. The sea crashed far below, restless and black under the moon. For a long minute, neither of us spoke.
Leo broke the silence first, voice low. “I never enjoyed it, you know. What happened to Angelo.”
I stiffened, the old wound tearing open. Snakes. Blood. My twin’s body on cold concrete. I said nothing, letting the rage simmer.
Leo continued, staring out at the water. “It was war. He was coming for my family. For Chiara. I did what I had to do to protect what was mine.”
He paused, exhaling slowly. “But you understand, don’t you? I did it for my wife. You’d do the same for Aurora in a heartbeat.”
I didn’t deny it. The truth sat heavy between us. For Aurora, for our child, I would slaughter anyone.
Even blood. Even family.
Leo sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Does she feel the same way? Or is she still fighting the cage you put her in?”
The question hit deeper than I expected. Aurora’s fire, her defiance, the way she had run even while carrying my child. The way she melted under my touch at night but pulled away by morning. I stared at the waves.
“She’s mine,” I said roughly. “And I’m hers. Even if she hates me for it right now.”
Before Leo could respond, the door behind us slammed open. Marco strode out, expression grim but eyes sharp with purpose.
“We have a location,” he said. “One of Sergio’s loyalists broke. An abandoned house deep in the northern woods. He’s there. With her.”
The glass shattered in my hand. Blood mixed with whiskey on the stone floor.
I was already moving, the devil fully unleashed.
Sergio’s time was up.
Thenorthernwoodsswallowedus whole. Trees clawed at the sides of the SUVs as we roared down the narrow, overgrown path, headlights slicing through fog and darkness. My heart hammered like a war drum.
Every second without Aurora felt like a knife twisting deeper in my chest. She was pregnant. Carrying my child. And that broken ghost had her.
The abandoned house appeared like a cancer on the landscape, all rotting wood, ivy strangling the walls, shattered windows like empty eye sockets. Dim, flickering light glowed from within. We killed the engines and moved in fast.
Leo’s men struck first. The Serpent was merciless efficiency incarnate.
Two of Sergio’s guards stepped out from the shadows near the porch. Leo dropped the first with a suppressed shot to the throat before the man could raise his rifle. The second tried to shout a warning, but Leo was on him in a blur, knife flashing across the jugular in one clean slice. Blood sprayed across dead leaves as the man crumpled.
More gunfire erupted from inside. Leo’s team cleared the perimeter with ruthless precision, short, controlled bursts that cut down Sergio’s remaining loyalists. Bodies hit the ground with wet thuds. I didn’t stop to count them. I kicked in the front door, wood splintering violently, and stormed inside.
The interior reeked of damp rot, mildew, and the copper tang of old blood. Flickering candles cast grotesque, dancing shadows across peeling wallpaper and dust-covered furniture. A broken, off-key wedding march hummed from somewhere deeper in the house.
I moved through the hallway like death itself, gun raised. Then I found him.
Sergio stood at the far end of a dim sitting room, a nightmare made flesh.
The left side of his face was a horror show, thick, puckered scar tissue twisting his mouth into a permanent snarl, one eye milky and blind, the other burning with unhinged madness. Fresh claw marks bled down the ruined cheek. He looked like something that should have died months ago but refused to stay in the grave.
Horror slammed into me. This was what I had created. One bullet at an altar had turned a cold, controlled man into this demented, disfigured shell.
“Where is she?” I growled, stepping forward.
Sergio’s ruined mouth twisted into something resembling a smile. “My bride? She’s waiting for our wedding night, Devil.”
He lunged without warning.
