Page 2 of Bound By Honor

A muscle ticks in his jaw as he glances at his phone, the screen casting an eerie glow on his face. Whatever he sees makes him exchange a loaded look with Luciano, who’s materialized again in the doorway. The tension in the room thickens, and I catch fragments of their silent communication—something’s wrong, something immediate and dangerous enough to put both men on edge.

“Enough.” He stands, napkin falling to his plate. “This discussion is over. You will attend the next gala, Aurora. That’s not a request.”

I push back from the table, chair scraping against marble. “I need air.”

The words come out choked, the weight of their secrets and control pressing against my chest like a physical force. The scrape of my chair against marble echoes my racing heartbeat as I flee, each step carrying me further from their suffocating protection and closer to dangerous truths.

“Aurora—” Marco starts, but I’m already moving.

“Let her go,” I hear Enzo say as I flee. “She needs to cool off.”

The garden feels like a prison with prettier walls, but at least out here, the air isn’t oppressive with cigar smoke and my brothers’ demands. Spring moonlight bathes the roses in silver, their thorns casting jagged shadows across the path. I inhale deeply, letting the floral-scented breeze wash away the dining room’s suffocation.

Movement catches my eye—a window left open on the second floor, voices drifting down. I edge closer, keeping to the shadows.

“—can’t keep her in the dark forever,” Enzo’s voice carries clearly.

“We have to,” Dominic responds. “If she knew about Mamma—about what really happened that night, about who—” He cuts himself off, frustration evident in his tone.

“The Rossis are getting bold,” Marco interjects. “If they start digging into old wounds...”

“Shh!” Marco’s harsh whisper cuts him off. “Windows.”

My heart pounds against my ribs. They’re talking about Mamma’s death—a topic that’s been strictly forbidden since it happened. I strain to hear more, but they’ve moved away from the window. Their hushed voices echo in my mind, dragging me back six years to that terrible night.

I was fifteen when they told me she was dead. The memory hits me with brutal clarity—the heavy silence that fell over the house, the grief etched into my brothers’ faces, and Dominic’s stern mask as he delivered the news. My lungs forgot how to breathe, and my knees hit the marble floor as my world shattered around me.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Marco had whispered to Enzo in the study, thinking I was asleep. “The brake lines?—”

“Enough,” Dominic cut in sharply. “She doesn’t need to know. None of this leaves this room.”

The scent of Mamma’s Chanel No. 5 still clung to her silk scarves that night, each breath I took of it a knife to my chest. My fingers trembled against the silk, desperate to memorize its texture while her scent still lived in the threads while my brothers discussed ‘cleaning up’ downstairs. The perfume bottle slipped from my shaking hands, shattering like my world.Now, standing in the moonlit garden, that same floral scent drifts past on the breeze, and my throat tightens. They never told me the truth about her death, just fed me platitudes about car accidents and fate.

I shake off the memory, but the questions remain.What really happened to Mamma? What secrets died with her?

I feel him before I see him—a presence so controlled it feels like gravity itself has shifted. Turning slowly, I find Luciano Vitale watching me from the garden’s edge.

The family’s consigliere and my brother’s best friend cuts an imposing figure in his tailored suit, moonlight highlighting the sharp planes of his face. Power radiates from him in quiet waves—not the brute force of my brothers, but something subtler, more dangerous.

His reputation within the family is legendary; he’s the man they send when situations require a delicate touch rather than a show of force. The whispers about him paint a picture of brilliant brutality wrapped in elegant restraint. Yet when he looks at me, I see something else entirely, something that makes my pulse race and my skin prickle with awareness.

He was there that night too, I remember suddenly. Standing like a shadow behind Dominic, his eyes full of something that looked almost like regret.

“Eavesdropping, Principessa?” His voice is low, smooth as aged whiskey.

Heat creeps up my neck. “I was just getting some air.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?” The ghost of a smile plays at his lips.

“Why? Are you going to report me to my brothers?”

He takes a step closer, and my pulse jumps. “That depends. What did you hear?”

“Nothing useful,” I admit. “Just another reminder that I’m the only one in this family kept in the dark.”

“Sometimes darkness is safer than light.” His eyes lock with mine, intense enough to steal my breath. “Some truths burn, Aurora.”

“I’d rather burn than suffocate.”

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