Page 135 of The Serpent's Bride
Lorenzo went rigid in the hospital bed. “You touch my children and I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” I asked calmly. “Die angrily?”
Rage exploded across his face. I continued speaking into the phone. “I want Aurora, Matteo, and Sienna removed tonight.
Lorenzo tried to sit up so violently the heart monitor screamed. “No!”
“Use the west entrance,” I continued coolly. “Minimal staff interaction. Quiet extraction.”
“You son of a bitch!” he cried out. I ignored him.
“Bring them to the Silverlake property.” Sergio understood. The safe house. Hidden. Guarded. Untouchable.
“And Lorenzo’s staff?” Sergio asked.
“Anyone loyal to Ventura gets removed,” I said plainly. Lorenzo looked genuinely panicked now. Good.
“You can’t do this!” he roared weakly. “They belong to me!”
The word echoed violently through the room. Belong. I slowly looked back at him. And understood why Chiara flinched every time a man tried to control her.
“They were never yours,” I said quietly.
Then I ended the call. Lorenzo’s chest heaved violently while fury and fear battled across his face. The poison was accelerating faster now under the stress. Sweat rolled down his temples. His hands shook uncontrollably.
“You think they’ll love you for this?” he rasped.
No. Probably not. Chiara would likely hate me even more once she discovered what I’d done. But hatred was survivable. Edoardo Moretti wasn’t. Neither were the bratva. Neither was Lorenzo Ventura.
“I don’t need them to love me,” I said. “I need them to forget you ever existed.”
BythetimeIgot back to the tower, the city looked drowned. Rain hammered the streets hard enough to blur headlights into smeared ribbons of gold and white beneath the black sky. Water raced down the windows of the Rolls-Royce while traffic crawled below like something exhausted and dying.
The city looked ugly tonight. Or maybe I did.
I loosened my tie slightly as the driver pulled beneath the private entrance of my building. The marble awning overhead reflected silver from the storm while bodyguards stationed outside straightened when they saw me.
“Boss.”
I barely acknowledged them. My mind was still trapped inside that hospital room with Lorenzo Ventura. With his words.
She’s already terrified of you.
The elevator swallowed me whole moments later. Quiet jazz drifted softly through hidden speakers while mirrored walls reflected my own exhausted face back at me from every angle. Dark suit. Wet hair. Tattooed hands still streaked faintly with blood from smashing the antidote beneath my heel. Monster. Funny.
Chiara’s voice haunted me even when she wasn’t there.
The elevator climbed silently toward the penthouse while I stared at my reflection and thought about the way she looked in silk sheets. Angry even half asleep. Beautiful even while glaring at me like she wanted to put a knife through my throat.
A strange ache settled low in my chest. I’d left the hospital furious. Now all I wanted was to see her. Maybe she’d still be awake. Curled in one of the oversized armchairs pretending to read while secretly waiting for me to come home.
Or pacing barefoot through the penthouse in one of the silk robes my staff left for her, furious and restless and plotting escape routes she wasn’t clever enough to pull off yet. The thought almost made me smile. Almost.
The elevator doors slid open. Silence greeted me. Not normal silence. Wrong silence. The penthouse usually breathed at night. Soft piano music. The distant clink of glassware from the kitchen. Muted footsteps from staff moving carefully through the massive space. Tonight… Nothing.
The stillness hit me. Cold and unnatural. My stomach tightened. “Chiara?”
No answer came. Rain battered softly against the endless floor-to-ceiling windows surrounding the skyline. Lightning flickered somewhere far beyond the Hudson River, briefly illuminating the black marble floors in silver. I stepped farther inside.
