Page 86 of Marriage of Revenge

Con Tutto Il mio Amore,

Simona."

Antonio rips the letter from my hands before I finish the last word. His mother's final message - her hope for us, her belief in love. My tears won't stop no matter how hard I blink, each one a confession I can't take back.

He moves closer. Closer. Closer.

Until he breathes my name, and it sounds like both prayer and damnation. Like everything we could have been, everything we destroyed.

"Isabella."

His mouth crashes into mine - all teeth and rage, nothing like last night's tenderness. The taste of espresso and mint floods my senses, and god help me, my body betrays me again. Melts into him like it can't tell the difference between the lover who worshipped me hours ago and this avenging angel. His fingers dig into my shoulders hard enough to bruise, dragging me against him before shoving me back onto sheets that still smell like our passion. Like hope I was stupid enough to believe in.

"And at 10 a.m. in that very spot, my mother disappeared. Three days later. After everything, I found her. Barely alive. She took her last breath with me. Do not tell me I don’t know what happened to her. You happened to her." His voice carries winter's edge. "You want to tell me you had nothing to do with this?"

The truth claws up my throat like bile. I almost reach for him - muscle memory from last night. Because his mother would have wanted me to protect him for as long as I could. Because she knew what knowing would do to him.

I just didn't know it then.

And when I realized... god, when I finally understood... I couldn't bear to believe it myself.

I… couldn’t.

Because even though I didn’t know she was dead. I did think I casted her into the abyss. To a place where fear and love would have dictated her to stay away.

To save him. To save me.

In one way, I am guilty.

CHAPTER 45-ANTONIO

"I... I want totell you the truth," she whispers, and fuck if her voice doesn't still hit me like a blade between ribs. Her hands clench the sheet that barely covers her marked skin, face going pale as marble. "Tonio, please." My old name on her lips is a siren song I can't afford to hear. One that could shatter me like waves breaking ships against rocks.

That kiss burns my mouth like poison. It was meant to be punishment - claiming, brutal, a reminder that the Beast owns this dance.

But the way she responded, her tongue meeting mine without surrender... Christ. I have to move back before I forget why I hate her. Her taste lingers like Henrik's venom, seeping through my defenses, threatening to drown my rage in memories of last night. Of years ago. Of everything we could have been.

Every breath fills my lungs with honeysuckle and sin. Every glimpse of her skin - still flushed from my touch, still bearing my marks - tests my control like those endless training sessionsthat forged the Beast. But this? This is worse. Because she makes me remember how to laugh. How to feel. How to want things I burned away years ago.

I survived the poison.

I won't survive her.

Because the real fucking problem isn't her betrayal - it's how much I still want her. Want to consume her. Possess her. Break her and rebuild her until she's only mine.

I'm towering over her again, and christ - she's still naked on my bed, skin marked from my teeth, from my need. The sheet barely covers what I claimed last night, and my hands itch to grab my belt, to bind those delicate wrists above her head. Want to make her come apart under my mouth, my fingers, my cock until she screams the truth. Until she begs. Until this hunger that's eating me alive finally burns out and I can remember why I'm really here.

She licks her lips - probably unconscious, but it hits me like a shot of pure sin. The tears are gone, replaced by something darker in those eyes. Something that mirrors the need clawing through my chest. The want. The...

No. Fucking no.

She's Moretti's daughter. Incapable of anything but calculation, of plays for power dressed up as surrender. That's why my mother's gone. That's why I'm still burning.

Isabella clears her throat, the sound cutting through tension thick enough to choke on. "Simona, your mother, she..."

"Don't." The roar tears from my chest like something feral. I need space. Need air that doesn't taste like her.

Need a fucking century to forget how perfectly she fits in my bed.

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