Page 33 of Bound By Honor

Another scream, followed by Alessandro’s laugh echoing off metal walls. “Coming,fratello? Yourprincipessa’sgetting impatient.”

Every muscle in my body screams to charge forward, but years of training force me to wait. To think. To remember how Alessandro always loved his traps.

“Marco, status on those snipers?”

“In position. But the angles are shit through these windows.”

I gesture to the team, using hand signals to split our approach. The warehouse’s main floor opens before us—a killing ground of rusted equipment and twisted shadows. Perfect for an ambush.

“Well, well.” Alessandro’s voice bounces off steel beams. “The cavalry finally arrives.”

He appears on a catwalk above, bathed in harsh fluorescent light. Below him, Aurora sits bound to a metal chair, her face bruised but her spine straight as steel. Even from here, I see the defiance burning in her eyes.

“Quite the family reunion,” Alessandro continues, pacing above Aurora like a shark. “Though we’re missing a few key players, aren’t we? Maria sends her regards from the grave.”

Ice slides down my spine as Aurora’s eyes lock with mine. In them, I see a desperate warning—one I’m too late to heed.

Gunfire erupts from multiple positions. The trap springs, but not how Alessandro planned. Marco’s men had already taken out his snipers, leaving only the ground force to deal with.

“Luciano!” Aurora’s warning comes just as a shooter emerges from behind a pillar. I drop and roll, returning fire in one fluid motion. The man falls, but others take his place.

“Push forward!” Dominic’s command cuts through the chaos. “Enzo, take the left flank!”

I catch Enzo’s slight nod as he moves—the same signal we’ve used since we were kids running ops together. Dominic appears at my right, his shoulder brushing mine in silent support. Despite our recent tensions, in this moment we’re united by blood and purpose. Aurora isn’t just my heart at stake—she’s their baby sister. The look that passes between us carries years of shared battles and unwavering loyalty.

I advance through the firefight, every sense hyperaware of Aurora’s position above. Alessandro watches the chaos with that same damn smirk, like this is all some game he’s already won.

“Let’s give them something to really fight about, shall we?” His voice carries even over the gunfire. “Tell me,fratello, did you ever wonder why Maria visited the Rossi compound so often?”

“Shut up,” I snarl, taking out another shooter.

“She was quite the actress, you know.” He strokes Aurora’s hair, making my blood boil. “Had you completely fooled. Had us all fooled, really.”

“He’s trying to get in your head,” Enzo warns through the comm. “Stay focused.”

But Alessandro’s next words stop me cold. “Show them,piccola.” He forces Aurora’s head up, pressing the gun harder against her temple. “You have the same look in your eyes thatMaria had when she realized I knew about her betrayal. That same stubborn defiance right before I pulled the trigger.”

The warehouse tilts sideways as the truth slams into me. Every detail of that day crystallizes—Maria’s car found at the Rossi compound, the single bullet wound, the phone clutched in her hand with a half-typed message to me. I’d always blamed myself for not being there, but Alessandro... he’d orchestrated everything. And now history threatens to repeat itself as I watch him hold another woman I love at gunpoint.

“She begged me to spare her,” Alessandro continues, his voice carrying an edge of madness. “Swore she’d keep our secret. But love made her weak—just like it’s made you weak,fratello.”

“She was mine first,” Alessandro continues, his voice carrying genuine pain now. “We planned it all together—her meeting you, her careful seduction. The perfect spy in the perfect position.”

“You’re lying.” But even as I say it, memories flash like strobe lights—unexplained absences, hushed phone calls, the way she’d sometimes look at me with something like guilt.

Each word peels back years of grief, replacing sorrow with bitter understanding. But Aurora’s eyes hold mine steady, anchoring me to now, to her. I won’t lose another woman I love to Alessandro’s obsession.

“Am I?” He pulls out a phone, tossing it down. Photos spill across the screen—Maria and Alessandro, intimately wrapped around each other. Dates I recognize. Times I was away on business. “She played her part beautifully. Until she actually fell in love with you.”

My throat constricts as memories assault me—Maria’s nervous glances at her phone, the way she’d startle when I entered a room, all the signs I’d buried beneath my grief. Bile rises as I realize how perfectly she’d played me, how completely I’d fallen for the performance. But worse is the razor-sharpknowledge that Alessandro had been right—she did fall in love with me in the end. Enough to die for it. Now, watching him press a gun to Aurora’s head, history threatens to repeat itself in the cruelest way possible.

“Luciano.” Aurora’s voice cuts through my rage. “Don’t listen to him. He’s trying to?—“

Alessandro backhands her, the crack echoing off metal walls. Before any of us can move, his gun appears at her temple again.

“That was her mistake, you see.” His voice breaks slightly. “Choosing you. Always you. Even when I loved her first.”

“So you killed her.” The words taste like poison.

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