Page 8 of Bound By Honor

His sharp intake of breath tells me I’ve hit a nerve. “That’s not?—“

“What? Not my business? Not something I’m ready to hear?” I move closer, refusing to let him retreat. “I heard Dominic and Marco talking about her death. About loose ends and evidence. It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

“Aurora, stop.”

“Why? Because you’re all so busy protecting me that you can’t see I’m suffocating under all these secrets?”

His hands come up to grip my shoulders, the touch electric even through my sweater. “Because some knowledge comes with a price I’m not willing to let you pay.”

We stand frozen, too close for propriety, his breath warm against my face. His cologne wraps around me—spice and leather and something darker that makes my pulse race.

“That’s not your choice to make,” I whisper.

Something flashes in his eyes. Before I can decipher it, he releases me, stepping back into shadow.

“Go inside,” he says, his voice rough. “It’s not safe out here.”

“Is it safe anywhere?”

He doesn’t answer, but his silence speaks volumes.

I turn away, wrapping my arms around myself against the sudden chill. Alessandro’s earlier words echo in my mind:Every family has its secrets.Behind me, I feel Luciano’s presence like a physical weight, full of unspoken warnings and impossible wants.

The walk to my room feels endless. Each step on the marble floors echoes through empty hallways, past oil paintings of stern-faced ancestors who seem to watch my progress with judging eyes. Their secrets are buried with them, but ours... ours are very much alive.

My bedroom offers little comfort tonight. I stand before the full-length mirror, studying my reflection in the dim light. The girl staring back looks different somehow—harder, more determined. My mother’s necklace glints at my throat, catching moonlight like captured stars.

Moving to my desk, I pull out the leather-bound journal hidden beneath a false bottom drawer. Its pages hold scattered pieces of truth I’ve collected over years—whisperedconversations, odd coincidences, fragments of a puzzle I’m only beginning to understand.

Tonight’s entry flows from my pen.

Alessandro’s return raises more questions than answers. Dates don’t align—Milan vs. Rome. His emotions feel calculated, too precise. The way he watches Luciano...

And Luciano... the photograph Alessandro mentioned. Maria’s death. How does it connect to Mamma? What evidence were they hiding?

Something bigger is happening. Alessandro didn’t come back for family. He came back for...

I pause, pen hovering over the page.For what? Revenge? Answers? Power?

A shadow passes my window—one of Dominic’s guards making their rounds. Their presence feels less protective now, more like bars on a gilded cage.

I close the journal, sliding it back into its hiding place. The girl in the mirror catches my eye again, and this time I recognize the expression on her face. It’s the same one I saw in Alessandro’s reflection in the library window—the look of someone with a purpose.

“No more secrets,” I whisper to my reflection.

The words feel like a vow, like shattered glass that can’t be unbroken. Outside, clouds drift across the moon, casting my room in deeper shadow. Somewhere in this house, Alessandro and Luciano circle each other like wolves, while my brothers guard their secrets like crown jewels.

But they forget—I am a Salvatore too. And if they won’t give me the truth, I’ll find it myself.

I touch my mother’s necklace, finding comfort its familiar weight. Tomorrow, I’ll start digging. Into Alessandro’s lost years, into Maria’s death, into whatever darkness lies at the heart of our family’s carefully constructed facade.

Let them think their silence can protect me. They’re about to learn that some cages can’t hold their prisoners forever.

And some truths refuse to stay buried.

4

LUCIANO POV

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