Chapter 31

ALESSANDRA

I woke up startled by an eerie presence. A darkness that entered the room and was now trapped by the clicking sound of the door shutting. The large crystal drops from above were on the lowest setting I'd left them on, making it hard for its light to reveal who it was.

But I knew.

Massimo.

As he stepped deeper inside, light caught his state.

I sat up quickly, wide awake and stunned by the massacre his white shirt exposed. So much red, some dried, some remained wet. Alarms set off, worried about his well-being and warning me to remain quiet, pleading for me to ignore his state. Because if his shirt showed such carnage, he was still lost and taken by its bloodbath.

Massimo was at its merciless point. Depraved and immoral.

I've seen it many times but on him. On him it was petrifying.

"Are you hurt?" I asked in a mere whisper.

The response was cold and hard.

"No."

"Was anyone killed?"

Massimo abruptly stopped midway through the room. My heart bounced; then it yelled for my body to awaken to the threat of his eyes on mine.

"I meant one of ours."

Ours? His eyes narrowed.

"Go to bed," Massimo ordered and continued on the path to the bathroom.

Aldo had warned me, but the truth was smeared and smoldered in Massimo's eyes.

The war had begun, and a part of me worried for his safety.

Fast streams of water hit the shower tile, revealing Massimo's movements, and as I lay back on the bed, my heart stung anxiously with an unsettling weight in my chest.

I had to fight Massimo harder. I had to find a way to win small battles between us because I was running out of time, and I felt powerless in this home as danger roared behind its doors. It seemed vulnerability was the only move I had left to regain the ability to protect myself from such. It meant I had to be honest and open when he was around. To show a part of me even I was a stranger to. It could work, but I struggled because vulnerability was the opposite of power. Yet, I lied to myself.

Because the moment I left myself exposed, he would break me.

He'd warned me himself.

It was a risk I had to take. A risk that promised knives, training, and the sliver of freedom. Now, without any of them, I have learned my weaknesses.

"Weaknesses are the door to death."

My grandfather's words recited in my head. Without them, I was weak.

The bathroom door opened, and Massimo slipped through silently. His mood hadn't changed, and I carefully watched him. The strong lines of his muscles, to the towel that wrapped around his hips. Too soon, his strong inked back disappeared into the closet but quickly returned in only a black pair of boxers covering his taunting body.

I gripped the covers a bit tighter, rolling their soft texture against my fingertips. He wasn't fully dressed. In fact, it didn't seem as if he had any plans for leaving the room.

The dim light disappeared, and my body stilled beneath the sheets. My eardrums thudded as they followed each tap his bare feet made against the floor. As my bottled nerves melted through my body with the unfamiliarity of his actions, quick breaths escaped silently, and my eyes remained open in the darkness as if I could see through the night.

The bed shifted, dipping inches away from me. His scent wrapped around our short distance as the covers bunched in ruffles and the weight of his body spread evenly.

I couldn't move.

Instead, our bodies lay in silence.

We were so close, sharing the same bed, and yet we were divided.

Only the falls and rises of my chest and our breathing blended in one.

There was something about the darkness. The kind that allowed you to hide behind it. The kind that eased. The kind that enticed you to relax. A veil so thin and yet too obscure to resist. Just like Massimo's darkness, it compelled me to it. As much as I fought darkness, the urge never left, and I wanted all its kinds.

I knew sleep hadn't claimed him, and I wanted a glimpse of his thoughts. Massimo had once promised he would always be honest when it came to my questions, but he had also warned me of his answers.

But as he'd walked bathed in blood, and a spring of concern for him had appeared, it made my decision to allow glimpses of vulnerability to slip easier.

So I asked in Italian, disrupting the silence in a soft murmur and allowing our tongue to take away the bitterness of words.

"What's on your mind?"

"You really want to know?"

His Italian attracted my body to turn, even as his slow and rough tone warned. I shouldn't want to. I knew that. At least not while death grasped him tightly.

"Yes."

I waited and waited, and when I realized he wouldn't reply, Massimo spoke in raw honesty.

"Your jade greens." My mouth shut as he paused, and his voice deepened. "Opened. Lifeless." I held onto the cover. "Dead."

My eyes closed, defeated. There was a burst of emotion inside me bubbling up. Quickly, I suppressed it. It was one thing for him to detest me, hate me even, but did he really wish me dead?

"Is that what you wish?"

Massimo took too long to reply. With every second that passed, the deeper my heart sank.

I would be married to a man who longed for my cold body.

Eventually a reserved, "No," fell from his lips. My eyes opened as if I could see his reaction, and instead, I met the murderous timbre of his words. "It's what others wish."

"And yet, it's not a new threat."

It wasn't. A title in the Mafia came with a bounty. Even before being given to Massimo, I was aware of who I was. A principessa, a daughter of a mob boss. If anything, my head had much more value as a wife of one. A curse I was born with. One that kept me attentive to threats, and one that reminded me why I had to learn to protect myself.

"Perhaps." He too knew. There was more he didn't say. More he wouldn't disclose.

A thought swept through our conversation. An opportunity I couldn't waste as I spoke in the darkness. It was a wild thought to his menacing aura, and it could break the sensitive and slim composure he held.

But I took the chance with a fickle heart.

"If you could just allow my-"

"Not now, Alessandra," Venom spat, cutting out any ideas and possibilities.

I ignored his wrathful tone, a dumb decision, but now that I could practically feel the cold blade of my missing knives, I dared.

"You know it's safer for me to carry."

"Sleep, Alessandra."

"I won't bring it to our bed."

Silence.

"Just. One."

The stiff air held me in a chokehold, and my chest heaved as it fought from its bitter smother. Losing control and urging for a win.

"Please, Massimo." Vulnerable. Raw.

And I felt gutted by my own blades.

"Don't make me regret it."

I could practically cry in screams of triumph. I swallowed them all, and instead bit my smile as my shoulders caved in victory.

Without thinking, my arm stretched blindly until it met his stiff body. His muscles tensed beneath my fingers, but I allowed his warmth to resist from pulling back. A reaction so unintentional and yet so sincere.