And then Alessandro moved.
He leaned toward Salvatore, muttered something low enough that I couldn’t hear, and both Salvatore and Bruno turned toward the door.Bruno gave a reluctant nod before they left the room.
Leaving me alone with him.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
I could hear my own breathing — shallow, uneven — as Alessandro’s footsteps came closer.I didn’t dare look up, but from the corner of my eye I saw him — hands buried in his pockets, chest rising and falling with measured restraint.
“What happened?”
His growl cut through the quiet like a blade, and I flinched at the sound.The urge to speak tangled in my throat.I knew what he wanted to hear, but I couldn’t say it — couldn’t tell him that my father had been killed by my mother.
Would he even believe me?
“You know, donna,” he said, his tone low and rough, “I could pull every record, every move your father’s made over the past decade, right in front of you — if you don’t start talking right now.”
I froze.The realization hit like a brick — Alessandro had been keeping tabs on me.On my father.On everything.
My pulse raced as I lifted my eyes to him.“Do it,” I whispered.
He was already close — close enough for me to see the faint scars that marked his perfect face, the ones time hadn’t erased.His deep blue eyes, once warm and teasing, now looked like cold steel.Those were the same eyes that used to see only me — that once carried love.
Now they looked through me like I was nothing.
Alessandro studied me in silence, standing just inches away, invading my space until my breath caught.Once, that closeness would have made my heart flutter.Now it only made me tremble.I searched for the spark I used to feel — that pull that could erase everything else — but it wasn’t there.It hadn’t been there since the moment he stopped being mine.
He wasn’t the man I loved anymore.
“Why did you come back, gattina?”
The question stunned me.His voice wasn’t angry now — just tired, hollow.
I stared at him, unable to answer.I hadn’t come back by choice.Hell, I didn’t even know why I was here.
He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing.“You were supposed to be dead,” he said quietly.“How do people come back from the dead?”
I swallowed hard, his words hanging in the air between us like a curse.He moved closer, the bed sinking slightly under his weight as he sat beside me.Every inch between us vanished.My heartbeat thundered in my ears.
“They don’t,” I whispered finally.
My voice cracked, but I forced the words out anyway.
“I was never dead.”
