I sat at my desk, staring down at my phone, my thumb hovering just above the screen like it held the trigger to everything unraveling. My mind felt like a fogged-up mirror, everything hazy, unclear. For weeks, I’d been off. Distant. Sloppy. And the reason was lighting up my screen right now.
“I’m going to marry Elio tonight. You better come to the chapel and stop the marriage, or I’ll be gone forever.”
My chest tightened. I could feel it — that lump in my throat, thick and dry, like something was caught there. She was really going through with it. She was going to marry that smug, lying bastard. Not because she wanted to. Because she thought I wouldn’t come.
My fingers trembled slightly. I should’ve gone to her. I should’ve been there to take her away. But I didn’t. I kept my distance, too scared of what Lucian would say, too afraid of what I might bring down on her by being close.
And now, she was slipping through my fingers.
The thought of her walking down that aisle — for someone else — made me sick. Not just anyone. Elio. That self-serving coward who’d used her, betrayed her, humiliated her. The idea of him even standing next to her made my blood boil.
I wanted to scream. To run. To grab her and drag her away from all of this, consequences be damned. I wanted to tell the world she was mine. That no one — no family, no alliance, no past — was going to stand in the way of that.
But I also knew what it meant. I’d already dragged her too far into my world. A world full of blood and knives and betrayal. Every time I got close, I saw the fear in her eyes. Not of me — but of what being with me would cost.
I sighed and leaned back in the chair, dragging my hand down my face. I hadn’t been sharp lately. Ever since Isabella, my edge had dulled. I’d missed things. Lost track of details. Made mistakes I wouldn’t have made a year ago. And Lucian — he’d noticed. They all had. To them, I was slipping.
But how could I explain what she did to me? How she made me want things I wasn’t allowed to want? A future. Peace. A fucking life.
The screen blurred with my own damn hesitation. I should have been gone already — out the door, on my way to stop her — but instead, I just sat there.
Then I heard him. That voice that never needed to be loud to be threatening.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going, Leandro?”
I didn’t look up. I didn’t need to. Lucian’s voice hit like the snap of a whip — cold, sharp, final. I could feel him behind me, his presence like a shadow I could never shake.
His footsteps echoed across the marble as he approached. I didn’t have to see his face to know the look he was giving me — that mix of suspicion and disappointment he reserved just for me.
“I asked you a question.”
I still didn’t move. Didn’t blink. “I have a job to finish,” I said, voice flat. “Something I need to take care of.”
A lie. At least, half of one.
Lucian stepped closer, and now I could feel the heat of his stare burning into the side of my head. “You’re slipping,” he said. “You’ve been off for days. Unfocused. Distracted. You think I haven’t noticed?”
He wasn’t wrong. And that made it worse. I clenched my fists at my sides, jaw tight. I could hear her voice in my head, her laugh, see the way she looked at me when she wasn’t trying to pretend she didn’t care. Isabella had crept into every part of me. I couldn’t shut her out. I didn’t want to.
“I’m focused,” I ground out, still not looking at him. “Just let me do what I need to do.”
Lucian didn’t buy it. “You’re not going anywhere until this is over,” he snapped. “You’re my heir. You don’t get to go chasing after girls like some hormone-drunk teenager. We’re at war. You think this is a game?”
No. I knew exactly what it was. And I knew how fast it could turn on both of us.
I swallowed down the fury rising in my throat. I wanted to punch something — him, the wall, myself. “I said I’ll handle it,” I repeated, quieter this time.
Lucian didn’t wait for more. “You’re staying here,” he said. “And if you try to leave, there will be consequences. Real ones. You know that i’m not bluffing”
He turned and left me there, rage boiling under my skin.
I stared at the phone again. At her words. I could feel my heart pounding, fast and furious in my chest. I knew what I had to do.
I had to get to her.
But not yet.
Not without paying the price.