My heart splintered.“B-but...Alessandro...don’t do this.”
Tears streamed freely now, my chest heaving with quiet sobs I couldn’t hold back anymore.He didn’t move.Didn’t blink.Didn’t care.
“Leave,” he said again, this time turning his face away like I was something dirty on his shoe.
“Alessandro, please—please talk to me,” I begged.“I need you to talk to me!”
But instead, he moved — fast.
He grabbed me by the wrists, his grip rough and hot.I gasped as he dragged me forward, his hand closing tighter the more I tried to pull away.My mind spun too fast to process what was happening.
After all these years apart, after everything...the first time he touched me again, it was to drag me.
The Alessandro standing before me now wasn’t the boy I once loved.He was a man built from scars, rage, and silence.
And as he pulled me deeper into the mansion, one thought screamed in my head —
I didn’t escape death three years ago.I just postponed it.
While he dragged me through the hallway, the sound of our footsteps echoed against the marble, sharp and hollow like gunfire.His grip was iron around my wrists, and the more I tried to pull away, the tighter he held on.My breath caught in my throat — not because of the pain, but because I could feel how much he hated even touching me.
When we reached the bottom of the staircase, he finally let go.The force sent me stumbling forward, my knees hitting the cold floor as I lost balance.My palms smacked the tile, and a strangled sob broke out of me before I could stop it.
Around us, his men stood watching.Silent.Expressionless.Like statues carved out of violence.Their eyes burned holes into my back, their presence enough to make my entire body tremble.
Alessandro didn’t even look at me.
“I’ve got places to be,” he said flatly, voice cutting through the silence like a blade.“Deal with this.”He turned to Bruno and Salvatore, who stood at the foot of the stairs, their eyes darting between us.“I want her gone by the time I’m back.”
The words hit harder than any slap.
Gone.
That was all I was to him now.Something to dispose of.
He turned away, his shoes clicking against the marble as he walked off without a single glance back.Not once.Not even a flicker of hesitation.
I stared after him, tears falling fast, my heart tightening until I couldn’t breathe.Watching his back disappear down the corridor felt like watching the last piece of me die all over again.
My body shook as quiet sobs escaped my lips.I didn’t even care about the men watching me — their cold glares, their disgust, their readiness to throw me out like trash.I kept my eyes on the empty hallway where he’d vanished, hoping maybe, just maybe, he’d turn around.
He didn’t.
The silence that followed was deafening.My chest ached, my pulse pounding in my ears.
This was worse than anything Nicola ever did to me.At least with Nicola, I expected cruelty.I expected pain.But Alessandro...
I had once called him home.
Now, standing here bruised and broken on his floor, I realized that home didn’t exist anymore.
I’d spent years preparing for the moment I’d see him again — imagined a hundred different ways it could go, rehearsed every word I wanted to say, every apology, every truth.But I never imagined this.
I’d wished to meet Alessandro again, prayed for it even — but not like this.Not as a stranger.Not as his enemy.
As his footsteps faded, something inside me broke in a way it never had before.
And right then, I knew.
