Page 136 of King Of Order

‘Why does this mean more, now?’ I asked.

He gave me no answer, only his hand whirling through the air, urging me to continue.

So I did.

Sinking back to sit on my legs, I went on.

‘For some reason, when I left the warehouse, I couldn’t erase him from my mind. He was defiant, although his family was about to be killed, which was plain to see, but also profoundly desperate. So I hung around to see what would happen. I followed my father’s capos in my shit auto as they drove him away. They dumped him in a rough, isolated neighborhood. When I was sure he was alone, I checked on him. He was bleeding bad and wouldn’t have made it alive til morning.’

Rio made a noise, a guttural grunt in his throat. A vein had appeared on his temple, and it throbbed as he stared at me with an intensity that scared the shit out of me. His arms crossed over his chest, muscles bulging. ‘Go on,’ he rasped.

‘I somehow shoved him into my car and transported him to a private clinic. Dumping him at emergency and pinning the money my father had given me on him so he’d have a way to pay for his care. I left him because I was high and didn’t want to want the cops to find me. I never learned who he was, never got a name, and never found out what happened to him. But I was forced to clean my filth up because I had no cash to buy new drugs. Seeing a man almost losing his life in front of me jolted me outta my shit.’

Rio’s eyes closed for an instant, and his broad chest heaved. He threw his head back, revealing the ink on his throat as he cursed.

I fell silent until he thrust his eyes back on me. ‘Bella, I need all of it.’

His hoarse, impatient command allowed for no disobedience.

So I went on. ‘I humbled myself, went back to Olivio, and asked him to put me in rehab. When he refused, I told him I’d share all the sordid fucked up mess he’d done to me with our community and family. He relented because his reputation was freakin’ important to him. I enrolled in a facility in Switzerland and cleaned up. I rediscovered art and used it to keep my mind in check and, in time, set up the gallery in my mother’s name. The rest, you know.’

I stopped speaking, deep breathing from the effort of baring myself.

That’s when I tagged Rio, eyes on me, fixed, the expression on his face unlike any I’d ever seen.

‘Dolce metà,’ I called. ‘What’s wrong?’

He raised a hand to stay me.

VALERIO

I stood frozen, my thoughts racing to catch up with what I’d heard.

Chiara saved my life all those years ago.

The words kept repeating in my head, echoing on repeat until they became too immense to contain. I stared at her, my heart pounding, trying to understand everything.

I swallowed hard, the memory from years past rushing back with more clarity than I expected.

It hit me—the significance of what she’d done, the sacrifice, the effort. She’d gone out of her way, risking herself to get me to that private clinic to ensure I had the best care.

I fuckin’ never knew.

All these years, I’d lived my life without realizing that she had been present, keeping me alive when I was too weak to look after myself.

Hearing that she had pulled me from the brink, it was like the ground had been ripped from under me.

I owed her more than I could ever repay—not only for saving my life.

But for all the years we’d lost, for all the time I’d been living in the dark about who she was to me.

It wasn’t limited to fate or coincidence that had brought us together now. It had started years ago when she’d seen mebroken, bleeding, on the edge of death and had refused to let me slip away.

Whether we realized it then or not, our destinies were linked from that moment. Now, standing in front of her, everything inside me shifted.

My feelings for her, the love growing steadily since we’d been attached, deepened into something more profound.

It was as though my heart had been waiting for this occasion—for the truth to come out—to understand what she meant to me.

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