Page 87 of The Ruin I Chose

I felt myself slipping again. Back into the hole. Back into the dark. Because even survival leaves scars. I shut my eyes tight, pressed my palms against them.

“Devo vederla,” I whispered.

Santino sighed. “Wheels roll up at 7 a.m. tomorrow.”

The rock on my chest lifted, but the ache didn’t leave. I turned my head towards the window. The sky outside was bruised—grey, heavy and indifferent.

Roxanne was alive. She was okay. But for a moment, she wasn’t. And in that moment, I shattered. I broke in places I didn’t know existed. The man who never flinched had cracked. The edge I lived on had dulled. And I didn’t know who I was without it.

My world collapsed inward. My body followed. I’d touched the edge of death, not because I was dying, but because I thought she had. And that changed everything.

I wasn’t the same man I was before her. I was wreckage now—splintered, raw. And all I wanted was to see her breathe.

CHAPTER 34

MARCELLO

I stood at the tarmac, the wind slicing through my coat.

Antonio and Santino stood beside me, grim-faced, silent. The kind of silence that comes before war.

Lorenzo had sent men to Palma to scope out the Leopardi estate. Lucky for us, only Antonio and a few of his men were there. We intercepted Lorenzo’s pathetic attempt before it could unfold.

I knew he’d come for my family—the one I had, and the one I hadn’t built yet. The one I hadn’t even earned.

My mother, Alessia, and the kids were already on an ‘impromptu’ holiday—sent to our allies in Scotland under the guise of school break.

I told Santino to stay back and help the Leopardi’s. Protect what mattered. Santino made sure they were far from the fire. Safe and settled. Then he came back to help me finish what Lorenzo started.

The stupid carogna made it easy. He was sloppy and predictable, like all of Lorenzo’s men—bought, not built. They were caught, interrogated and now at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

“Don’t forget your pills,” Antonio muttered. “You’re no good when you look like you’re about to lose your shit.”

I grunted, nearly smacking him in the head. He deserved it—for mocking my panic attack.

“And yeah, breathe 1, 2, 3, 4. Hold…” Santino’s voice was calm. Too calm.

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. Don’t mother me,” I snapped.

Martin was flying with me—only till Mumbai. He’d received intel that Lorenzo was hiding somewhere in Southeast Asia—Thailand or maybe Cambodia. The Triads had helped him before. Maybe they were helping him again.

Martin had reached out to his old mercenary contacts—men who owed him favours, men who didn’t ask questions. They were already triangulating Lorenzo’s movements through encrypted channels and black-market chatter.

He’d surface soon. And when he did, I’d be waiting. I wasn’t going to play his game. I’d face him head-on, not lurk in shadows like the figghiu di puttana he is.

Lorenzo was a coward. Always sending others to do his dirty work. Men who could be bought. Men who didn’t matter. Bloody finocchio.

He never bled for his empire. I’d make sure he did now. And I’d watch him drown in it.

I landed in Mumbai on a Friday, early evening.

The city was loud. Alive. Too alive for the dead weight I carried. My body ached in places I didn’t know had feelings.

And sleep? It was a stranger I couldn’t trust.

Every time I tried, I was pulled back into the same cold, stone room, staring down at Roxanne’s lifeless body. It haunted me. Even when I knew it wasn’t real. I knew she was okay. I’d seen the surveillance Santino arranged—discreet, efficient. I tracked her movements like a man possessed.

I carried her letter with me, the one she wrote just before she left. Thanks to Santino’s extensive research, I knew everything I had to know about Roxanne and her life. Her work. Her family. Every thread she’d woven into the world.