Page 87 of Marriage of Revenge

Hearing my mother's name from those lips - lips I was just claiming, lips that still look swollen from my kisses - drives a knife straight through my chest. Each syllable twists deeper, butwhen I look at Isabella, naked and marked and still smelling like us... fuck. Something dangerous unfurls in my gut. A weakness I can't afford - this need to believe whatever truth she's about to offer. Even knowing better.

I need to get my shit together.

My mother deserves justice. Her laugh still echoes in my head - bright and real when I played piano for her, breaking when I chose Isabella's father's power over her warnings. When I let myself be seduced by money, by danger, by everything she tried to protect me from.

By feeling seen and heard….by a man I thought actually cared for me.

When I put that monster first and my own mother second.

Isabella tilts her head, reading me like she used to read music. Always so fucking perceptive. Always knowing exactly how to use what she sees.

"Put this on." I throw her my shirt because I can't think straight with her naked in my bed. But watching her slip it on might be worse - miles of bare leg, my mark visible above the collar, the fabric barely skimming her thighs. My cock apparently doesn't care about revenge, hardening instantly at the sight. Her eyes drop to where I'm straining against my jeans, and that flush spreading down her neck makes me want to trace it with my tongue.

Want to see how far down that blush goes.

Want to remind us both who she belongs to now.

Fucking hell. I need to focus on why I'm here.

Need to remember whose blood stains her hands.

She shakes her head, barely perceptible, but I understand. Because I want to do the same - want to deny how she still affects me, how last night carved something open that needs to stay buried.

No matter what pretty lies she's about to spin, her hands are stained with my mother's blood.

And so are mine.

My mother tried to warn me. Tried to show me how the mafia world would poison everything it touched. She watched me changing - watched Isabella's father molding me into something harder, something cruel. Watched the violence seeping into my bones like ink into water. And she fucking hated what I was becoming.

She knew me better than anyone. Knew getting far away, changing everything about who we were, was the only chance of saving what was left of my soul. But I was too busy trying to prove myself to Isabella's father. Too eager to show him our connection could be stronger than blood. More useful. I broke my mother's heart proving my loyalty to a monster.

I'll never forgive myself for that.

But she had a way out. A chance at freedom. At saving us both.

Until Isabella cut that chance - and my mother's life - short.

"Say something," I command, my voice rough as gravel. "Come on, Bella Ballerina, tell me your lies. You can't dance your stories anymore, but you can still move that pretty mouth for deception. That's all you've been doing all your life. That's why your mother..."

"Don't." Her voice carries steel I wasn't expecting, and the fire in her eyes hits me like a physical blow. Here I am, about to shatter everything she hoped for, and yet her tears crawl under my skin. I want to hate her for those tears, but they move something inside me that makes me want to build fortress walls between us. Because this weakness? This need to comfort instead of destroy? It's more dangerous than any weapon.

"Listen to me. And listen carefully." I have to pause, dragging air into lungs that feel too tight. Need to get control before I slam her against the wall and claim that mouth that's about to lie tome. "If you feed me bullshit now, all bets are off. Naomi goes to the highest bidder. You'll never see anyone you care about again. You'll never—"

"You're right." Her voice breaks, but her eyes hold mine. "I'm the reason your mother is gone. I thought—god, I thought she was still breathing somewhere. That she just couldn't come back. That she disappeared to keep you safe. To keep me safe." Something between a whimper and a moan tears from her throat, raw and primal. "But you're saying she's dead. So you're right again. I'm the reason she's dead."

Her words don't just sucker punch me—they're a sledgehammer to the skull, pounding and pounding until everything else disappears. The ocean's roar, the morning light, even the air in my lungs—it all fades to nothing, leaving just us and this confession.

Heat floods my system, my pulse thundering with rage and something worse. Because some fucking idiot part of me was hoping she'd prove me wrong. That same part that remembers how she used to look at me - like she saw past the masks, past the violence, straight to whatever soul I had left. Like I was worth more than the monster her father was crafting.

But now it's crystal clear - without her, my mother would be breathing.

Her admission rings in my ears, unleashing something deadly in my chest. It's not just fury, not just pain. It's despair coiled like a venomous snake, ready to strike. But instead of exploding, instead of letting her see how deeply she's cut, I force myself to turn to ice. To become something her tears can't melt.

She sees the change - those delicate hands trembling give her away. "Continue," I order, my voice as cold as the grave she helped dig.

She complies, each word stoking the inferno in my chest. "That day. That letter. I'm not the one who got it. Not atfirst." Her voice trembles despite the deep breath she takes. "I remember asking my father where you were." A wince. "You know I had more than a crush on you back then. You were... everything. It was you and dancing."

I knew. Of course I fucking knew.

---