Page 114 of His Wife To Keep
Zara’s hand tightened around mine. I glanced at her—she stared out the window, jaw set, eyes steady. She was scared; I could feel the tremor in her fingers. But she didn’t break. She didn’t look away.
And I realized in that moment that she wasn’t just my anchor. She was my weapon. My reason for fighting. My reason to kill.
The SUV sped through the darkness, and I felt the last shreds of my old life fall away. The man who had wanted peace, who had dreamed of a quiet life with the woman beside him—that man died in that villa, with his parents’ blood still wet on the ground.
In his place was something darker. Something that had been waiting in the shadows all along, biding its time, sharpening its claws.
The last Falcone.
I closed my eyes and saw it—the life I had wanted. A house by the sea. Children laughing. Zara’s face in the morning light.
Then I opened my eyes and saw the road ahead. Dark. Winding. Leading into the heart of a war I had never wanted.
But I would fight. For her, I would find a way through.
Even if it meant losing myself in the process.
The car disappeared into the night, and the villa burned behind us, a pyre for everything I had ever been.
The man who wanted peace was dead.
And something far more dangerous had taken his place.
