Aurora

The clinic smells like antiseptic and slow death. I spend the night watching my mother’s chest rise and fall, wondering how we ended up here. She barely opens her eyes. The nurses speak in whispers. Her condition’s getting worse—they’re just not saying it out loud.

By morning, I slip out to grab a coffee, but the bitterness in the paper cup feels empty. It doesn’t taste like Morning Ember. It doesn’t taste like home.

I wait until noon before I drive to the warehouse Mr. Rizzoto told me about. The streets are tight with traffic, but the warehouse sits in a pocket of the city that time forgot—silent, cracked pavement, dust swirling in patches of light that slip through broken windows.

I park the car and step inside.

He’s already there. My stepfather. Calm. Waiting. Like he’s holding all the cards.

"You look just like her," he says without a greeting. “Your mother. Back when she had spirit.”

I stay silent.

He stands from the metal chair, brushing off imaginary dust. “Do you want the truth about your father?”

My jaw tightens. I nod once.

“He was murdered,” he says flatly. “Not some random robbery. Not a hit-and-run like we told the press.”

I feel my blood go cold.

“Who?” I ask. My voice is hoarse.

He walks slowly, deliberately. “Damiano Lombardi.”

The name means nothing. Not yet. But the look on his face—that smug, satisfied cruelty—says he wants it to matter.

“He pulled the trigger himself,” Mr. Rizzoto continues. “Over a territory dispute. Your father said no. So he died.”

I press my nails into my palms. I want to scream. I want to run. I want to undo time. But I do none of those things.

He lights a cigar, like the conversation is over.

But it isn’t.

"Why tell me now?" I ask. “After all this time?”

He exhales smoke. “Because you’ve been getting too comfortable in that little town of yours. And because you deserve to know who you're really dealing with.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

He just smiles.

“You’ll find out. Sooner or later.”

The air outside the warehouse is heavy. Damp. I can still hear the echo of Mr. Rizzoto’s voice in my ears. Damiano Lombardi killed your father.

I step out into the blinding daylight, my boots crunching gravel. I just want to get away from here. From everything.

But before I can take more than a few steps, I hear it—the slow clap of hands.

“Well, well… look who finally decided to come back,” a voice drawls behind me, sticky like oil.

I stop dead in my tracks. My stomach turns.

Luca.

I whirl around just as he grabs my wrist, hard enough to make me gasp. I try to pull away, but his grip only tightens.

“Let go of me!” I snap, struggling, but it’s useless.

Then I feel it.

Something cold and metallic pressed against my side.

A gun.

He leans in close, and I feel his breath against my ear. “You don’t want to make a scene, little sister. Not out here.”

My pulse thunders in my ears. “What do you want, Luca?”

“I’m just delivering you to Damiano Lombardi the man you belong to,” he says with a mocking smile. “Like I should’ve done the first time.”

He yanks me forward, dragging me through a side alley and around the back of the warehouse. I dig my heels into the dirt, heart hammering, but he doesn’t stop. His grip bruises. The pain is sharp. Real. And it tells me this is happening. I’m being taken—again.

We stop by a sleek black car.

Two men are standing guard. One of them opens the back door. My blood runs cold.

Sitting inside, with his legs crossed and his fingers steepled, is the man I’ve seen in flashes of fear and confusion. His presence is commanding. Calm. Colder than before.

Damiano Lombardi.

He steps out slowly, towering over me like a living nightmare. His dark eyes don’t blink. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t speak. I don’t even know what to do with that. The name means nothing to me at first… just an empty title. But then my thoughts spiral—dark suits, dark eyes, broad shoulders. The man from the café. The man at the club. The man who somehow made me feel protected, only to now feel like a trap I walked straight into.

He just looks at me.

And I know.

I know exactly who he is now. I know what he’s done. I know why I was brought to him once like cattle, and why he’s back.

My knees go weak, but I refuse to show fear.

“She’s yours now,” Luca says, and before I can react, he shoves me forward.

I stumble hard, falling at Damiano’s feet. My palms scrape the pavement. I can taste metal in my mouth. Rage. Humiliation.

I push myself up slowly, standing face-to-face with the man who ruined my life.

My voice shakes, but the words come sharp, venom-laced. “You.”

His jaw clenches. Still, he says nothing.

“You killed my father,” I say louder. “You knew who I was. You came to my town. My café. You followed me. Watched me. You acted like you didn’t know, but the whole time—you were playing with me.”

He stares at me, unreadable.

“I trusted you, even for a second. And I hate myself for it,” I whisper.

Silence stretches.

Behind me, Luca’s laugh scrapes at my spine like nails on glass. “You don’t get it, sweetheart. You belong to him now. You always did. You just forgot.”

“I don’t belong to anyone!” I scream, spinning to face him, my fists shaking.

But I don’t get a reply from Luca.

I turn back to Damiano.

His expression hasn’t changed, but something flickers in his eyes. Something dangerous. Possessive. As if I’m a puzzle he finally has all the pieces to.

“I hate you,” I whisper, every syllable a dagger.

Still, no words.

I want him to deny it. To say I’m wrong. But he doesn’t.

And that’s the worst part.

Because the silence means it’s all true.

And I’m not sure which part of me is breaking more—the one that’s terrified of him…

…or the one that once felt something close to safe in his presence.

Damiano

She falls at my feet like the ending of a prayer I’ve waited years to hear.

Aurora.

The name that has haunted my nights, the girl who ran like wildfire through the walls of my empire and then vanished without a trace. And now she’s here. Alive. Fierce. Cursing me with the fire in her eyes that I once thought I’d tamed.

Luca’s voice is just noise behind her—“She’s yours now.” Yes, she always was. But now she’s standing in front of me like a storm that remembers how it was caged.

I don’t move when she stumbles to her feet. She’s angry. Good. She should be. But I see past it. Past the tremble in her hands and the hatred she’s aiming at me like it might be enough to kill me.

“You killed my father,” she says, and it lands like a gunshot between us.

No. I don’t flinch. I don’t deny it.

Because she doesn’t know the truth. Not all of it. Not the layers I’ve kept buried under blood and silence. She doesn’t know that her father wasn’t the man she believed he was. And she sure as hell doesn’t know why I let her go the first time.

She calls me a liar with her eyes. Says she hates me. I almost want to laugh. If she really knew what I’ve done in her name, she’d be right to hate me even more.

But instead, I just look at her.

God, she hasn’t changed.

Same fire. Same mouth that doesn’t back down. Same goddamn flamingo chain resting at the base of her throat—the one I gave her when she was barely eighteen, too young to understand the weight of a name like mine.

Her skin is flushed. Her chest rises and falls too fast. Her hands are clenched into fists and I know—she wants to hit me. Scream. Run.

But she doesn’t.

Because some part of her remembers. Maybe not everything. But enough.

I take a step forward.

She doesn’t move.

I reach out, just once, and brush my knuckles against her cheek.

She jerks away like I’ve burned her.

I should stop.

I should let her walk away and believe whatever truth she’s been fed.

But I’m not a good man.

Not when it comes to her.

Because even now, with blood in her voice and fury in her spine… all I want is to drag her back into my world and make her mine again. Properly. Permanently.

The urge is primal. My body responds before my mind does. I’m hard beneath my tailored slacks, and it’s almost humiliating—but I don’t hide it. I never hide from her.

She steps back and I almost reach for her wrist, but I don’t. Not yet.

“You don’t get to hate me,” I say quietly, finally.

She freezes.

“I didn’t come back to play games, Aurora. I came back to collect what’s mine.”

Her eyes burn. “I’m not yours.”

Wrong.

She always was.

And she will be again.

Even if I have to tear down the entire city to prove it.

Damiano

I watch her shake.

She doesn’t understand the weight of what’s happening. Not fully. She’s still trying to put the pieces together with trembling hands and that stubborn fire in her eyes.

But I’m done playing nice.

I step toward her—slow, precise. Her breath hitches. I see her instinctively glance toward the door behind her, as if she’s measuring her chances. She should know better.

In one fluid motion, I pull my gun from the holster under my jacket. Not to hurt her. Just to make her understand.

I grip her arm and press the barrel lightly—very lightly—to the side of her head. Her breath stops.

Now she’s listening.

“Shhh,” I whisper, soft as silk but sharp as broken glass. “Don’t move. Don’t speak. Just listen.”

Her lips part, her body stiff beneath my touch, but she doesn’t cry. She doesn’t scream. That’s what I’ve always admired about her—she never breaks first.

“You’ve been hiding,” I murmur at her ear, the metal cold between us. “You ran. Changed your name. Buried yourself in a town that doesn’t even show up on half the maps. Thought that would be enough to make you disappear?”

I lean in. “It wasn’t.”

I lower the gun slowly. Let her breathe. Let her panic catch up.

She jerks back, rubbing her temple where the barrel kissed her skin. Her eyes snap to mine—wide, furious, afraid. She’s shaking her head like she refuses to believe it.

But I see it. The recognition. The truth crawling up her spine like ice.

“You,” she whispers. “You’re the one.”

“Yes,” I say, calmly. “I’m the one your stepbrother delivered you to like a fucking business deal. The man you were promised to. The one you escaped from a year ago.”

I watch her soul crack in real time.

“You’ve been running from me all this time, Aurora,” I say, savoring her name. “And now look where you’ve landed. Right back at my feet.”

Her mouth opens to argue, to deny—but I cut her off.

“You were given to me,” I continue coldly. “Signed over like property. And I didn’t ask for that, but I accepted it. You think the world you ran to is any cleaner than mine? You think those soft pancakes and friendly baristas can keep you safe from what you really are?”

I step closer, and she doesn't back away this time.

“You belong to me.”

Her eyes fill—not with tears. Not yet. Just rage. Shame. A betrayal she doesn’t know how to swallow.

She slaps me.

Hard. The sound echoes in the empty warehouse.

I let it land. Let it sting.

Then I smile.

Because that fire?

It means she’s still mine.

Even if she doesn’t want to be.

Yet.