Page 37 of The Forbidden Husband

The look of utter captivation.

Chapter Twelve

Enzo Rissi

I hadn’t seen the woman since I was too young to remember, but I recognized her all the same.

The long ringlets of auburn curls hung down her shoulders, and her tanned skin glowed as if she had spent an entire season outside. Her eyes and mine were identical, and I could only stare at her as she walked through the doors to my bedroom. She lingered there as if checking on a young child before closing the door for the night.

“You’ve grown so much,” she said happily.

I had only ever heard her voice once in my adolescence, and it had been in the video of my birth—the video where she pulled me into her arms and cooed my name down at me. I had been eleven, and I had watched the video a dozen times before my father had caught me.

It had been the first time I had asked about her, and he explained to me why she had left and why Lia was now considered my mother. That was the day all dreams of my biological mother had vanished.

She spoke with that same nurturing voice. It was the only tone my mind could create for her.

“It’s been such a long time, baby,” she said as she approached my bedside.

I sat up slowly, watching as she walked toward me.

How was it possible to hate someone so fiercely? She was long dead. My mother had not been around since I was little more than a baby, yet the fury that bloomed in my chest as I stared at her was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

She had betrayed us.

She had betrayedme.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“I need you to forgive me, baby. It will kill me knowing that you’ll hate me forever. Killing her wasn’t what I had planned.”

Killing her.

I tried to think back to the people who had died because of her betrayal, but none of them were women. Her words had my mind reeling.

“Who did you kill?”

My voice sounded both like mine and nothing like it. I felt like I needed to whisper the words, but I wasn’t sure why. Whatever was happening didn’t feel right. She shouldn’t have been here.

“Your wife, Aria. It was an honest mistake. I was working for her father, and she wasn’t supposed to be caught in the middle of it. She was supposed to be kept safe and out of the line of fire…”

Her words trailed as she sat beside me on the bed, placing a hand on my thigh.

The words took a moment to process, but when they did, the world fell out from under me. Aria wasn’t dead, was she? She had been with me just last night. I vividly recalled our shower together and the sweet taste of her on my lips. Her addicting noises and the way she felt around me. She wasmine. She was better than me in every way, and I would never deserve her.

If I were a better man, maybe I would have let her go. I would have let her escape the danger of this life, but I hadn’t done that.

I had held onto her.

And now she wasdead.

I couldn’t get a grip on my thoughts as they whirled. Dead.Dead. How could she be dead?

I had promised myself I wouldn’t let her get hurt, but here we were.

“No,” I shouted, my voice echoing in both my mind and around me in a jarring way. I grabbed my mother and flipped her viciously onto the bed, wrapping my hand around her throat. “What did you do?” I shouted.

She coughed and sputtered, and I felt her nails dig into my wrists. It should have anchored me, but it brought me further out of my body. Myangerbrought me further from my body.

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