I stand under the scalding spray of the shower, scrubbing my skin raw with a loofah until it’s red and angry.
But no amount of soap can wash away the phantom memory of Marco’s hands on my skin.
It meant nothing.
I repeat the lie like a mantra as I towel off. Just sex. Just a moment of weakness. Just my pregnant hormones making me stupid and sentimental.
But when I catch sight of myself and the bite mark he left on my collarbone, the faint bruises on my hips where his fingers gripped me, my stomach clenches with dangerous longing.
My hands shake as I get dressed. This is exactly what he wanted. To get under my skin. To make me doubt myself, my mission, my resolve.
Well, fuck him.
And fuck me for falling for it.
I make myself some coffee. Today’s an important day. The start of the end.
I can do this. I can compartmentalize. I can forget Marco Bianchi.
But instinctively, my hand drifts to my stomach. Soon, I’ll be staring at a face that’ll never let me forget Marco.
I wonder what I’ll tell my child. Will he or she grow up knowing their grandfather was a monster? That he turned his back on justice to shield those who never deserved mercy?
I feel an unexpected wave of sadness that I quickly shove down.
The front door clicks open, and I don’t even turn around. Only one other person has the key code.
“You look like hell,” Chiara says by way of greeting, dropping her purse on the kitchen island with a thud.
“Good morning to you, too, sunshine.” I pour coffee into two mugs, noting the dark circles under my sister’s eyes. She’s been having nightmares again. Learning the truth about our parents’ murder has reopened old wounds.
She accepts the mug and studies me like she knows I’ve been up to something. Chiara has always been better at reading people.
“Why didn’t you call me last night?” she asks. “You usually do.”
“I got tired after the gala.” The lie rolls off my tongue easily, but Chiara’s expression doesn’t change.
“Right.” Her voice is flat, disbelieving.
“I had a lot of hands to shake last night, conversation to make.”
“Busy building connections, huh? You’re really ready to go to war with Marco? With your husband?” She sets down her coffee and crosses her arms.
“The marriage died the night I learned he lied to me,” I hiss.
“Maybe. But he loves you, Aria.”
“Too bad,” I say, anger brimming in my veins. All our lives, we’ve been lied to. Deprived. His family was behind it.
A beat of silence stretches between us.
“Does he know you’re pregnant?”
“Yes. But it doesn’t change anything.”
“It does,” she says, her voice low, urgent. “Whether you admit it or not, it changes everything.”
I look away, jaw tight.
“Wars have consequences, Aria.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?” She steps closer, and I see fear flickering in her eyes. “Because you look like a woman who’s been thoroughly fucked, not like a general preparing for battle.”
And then, her eyes flicker over to the bite marks on my neck.
Heat floods my cheeks, and I quickly tug up my top. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t.” Her voice cracks like a whip. “Don’t lie to me. We’ve never lied to each other, not once in twenty-five years. Don’t start now.”
The truth sits on my tongue like poison, begging to be spit out. But admitting what happened last night feels like admitting weakness, and I can’t afford weakness.
Not now.
“He was here,” I say finally. “Marco. He found me.”
Chiara’s face goes white. “Jesus Christ, Aria. Are you hurt?”
“He didn’t hurt me.” The words come out rougher than intended. “We talked. About the baby. About… everything.”
“And?”
“And nothing changed.” Another lie, but this one I need to believe.
Chiara searches my face, and I know she sees through me. She’s always been able to see through me.
“You still love him,” she says quietly.
“I hate him.”
“You can do both.” Her voice softens. “But you can’t let love make you stupid, Aria. Not when so many people are counting on you.”
Before I can respond, my phone buzzes with a text from Ettore: Emergency meeting. One hour. Bring Chiara.
I show her the message, and something cold settles in my chest.
“We need to go,” I tell her.
An hour later, we’re in the same smoky room where I first claimed my birthright as a DeLuca. But the atmosphere has changed. Where before there was cautious optimism, now there’s urgency bordering on panic.
Ettore stands at the head of the table. The seven family heads cluster around the mahogany table, their faces grim.
“What’s the emergency?” I ask, taking my seat at Ettore’s right hand. Chiara slides in beside me.
“Salvatore knows,” Lorenzo Venucci says. The elderly patriarch’s voice carries the weight of his eighty years. “About you. About the baby. About everything.”
My blood turns to ice water. “How?”
“The newspaper article.” Franco Rossi pushes a folded paper across the table. “It made the front page of every major publication in the city. Your emergence wasn’t as subtle as we hoped.”
I scan the article quickly, my heart sinking with each line. They have everything—my identity, my marriage to Marco, even speculation about my “condition.” The photograph shows me at the gala, radiant and defiant, surrounded by my new allies.
“It gets worse,” Ettore says, his hazel eyes dark with worry. “Our sources say Salvatore went into a rage when he saw it. He’s mobilizing everything—every soldier, every weapon, every dirty cop on his payroll. He wants you dead, Aria.”
“And Marco?” The question slips out before I can stop it.
Ettore’s expression shifts, becomes carefully neutral. “Our intel suggests he’s… resistant to his father’s plans.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he’s protecting you,” one of the twin brothers says, his tone sharp enough to cut. “Even now, after everything you’ve done to his operations, he won’t move against you.”
I should feel relief. Instead, I feel a complicated knot of emotions I don’t have time to untangle.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, forcing steel into my voice. “Marco’s loyalties don’t change our mission. If anything, this confirms what we already knew—Salvatore Bianchi is a monster who needs to be stopped.”
“The question is how,” says the bearded man missing an ear. “He’s built like a fortress—manpower, money, everything.”
“Then we don’t give him time to use them,” I interrupt, an idea crystallizing in my mind. “We strike first. While he’s still mobilizing, before he can coordinate a proper assault.”
The room falls silent. Seven pairs of eyes stare at me, weighing my words.
“That’s suicide,” Franco says finally. “We’re not ready for a full-scale war.”
“We’re never going to be ready,” I counter, rising to my feet. The movement draws every eye in the room. “Salvatore has had twenty-five years to build his empire. We’ve had weeks. Time isn’t on our side.”
“What are you proposing?” Ettore asks, though I can see in his eyes that he already knows.
“We end this. Within the week. We take out Salvatore Bianchi and anyone who stands with him.” I place my hands flat on the table, leaning forward. “Every weapons cache we’ve acquired, every man we’ve recruited, every favor we’re owed—we use it all. We hit them so hard and so fast that they don’t have time to regroup.”
“And if Marco stands with his father?” Lorenzo asks quietly.
The question hangs in the air like smoke, thick and choking. I think of last night, of the way Marco’s hands trembled when he touched my stomach, of the raw pain in his voice when he spoke about our child.
But then I think of my parents, of the blood debt that can never be repaid, of the child growing inside me who deserves a world free from the Bianchi legacy of violence.
I close my eyes for a beat, just long enough to silence the part of me that still sees the man, not the enemy.
But then I think of my parents, of the blood debt that can never be repaid, of the child growing inside me who deserves a world free from the Bianchi legacy of violence.
“Then Marco goes down too,” I say, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “We leave him alive, but with nothing.”
Chiara inhales sharply beside me, but I don’t look at her. Can’t look at her. If I see the worry in her eyes, the fear for what I’m becoming, I might lose my nerve.
“You’re talking about declaring open war on the most powerful family in the city,” Franco says. “Win or lose, there will be casualties. Innocent people will die.”
“Innocent people have been dying for twenty-five years under Bianchi rule,” I counter. “At least now they’ll die for something meaningful.”
Ettore stands. “I’ve been waiting my entire adult life for this moment,” he says quietly. “For the chance to avenge your parents, to restore honor to the DeLuca name.”
He meets my gaze, and I see steel there. “If you’re truly ready for this, Aria, then so are we.”
One by one, the other men nod their agreement.
“Then it’s decided,” I say, feeling something fundamental shift inside me. “We gather every resource, every weapon, every ally. We make our final preparations.”
“And the target?” Lorenzo asks.
“The Bianchi compound.” The words come out steady, certain. “We hit them where they live. Where they feel safest. We make sure there’s nowhere left for them to hide.”
As the meeting breaks up, I catch my reflection in the window. The woman staring back at me looks like a stranger—beautiful and cold.
Merciless.
A queen prepared to burn the world down to claim her throne.
Chiara lingers as the others file out, her face pale with worry. “Are you sure about this?” she asks when we’re alone.
I rest my hand on my stomach. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. And if war is the only way to protect what’s mine, then let it come.
