Page 56 of Forbidden Vengeance

Mario hovers behind me, his usual dangerous grace replaced by awkward concern. It’s almost endearing, seeing New York’s most feared exiled son looking so uncertain, like he’s facing an enemy he can’t shoot or threaten into submission.

His hands are gentle as they hold my hair, and I catch his reflection in the mirror—jaw tight with helpless frustration, those piercing eyes dark with worry.

“I’m fine,” I manage, wiping my mouth with trembling hands. The taste of bile burns my throat, making my eyes water.“The doctor said this was normal. It should go away in a few weeks.”

He doesn’t look convinced. One of his hands moves to my back, rubbing slow circles that ease some of the tension. It’s these moments that undo me—when the calculated killer transforms into something almost tender.

When I forget that this isn’t real, that I’m carrying another man’s child while playing a game that could get us both killed.

Before he can argue, my burner phone rings. The number belongs to Kate, my assistant of three years who handles the children’s hospital account.

Sweet, efficient Kate, who probably thinks I’ve lost my mind.

The charity gala was supposed to be my masterpiece—reimagining their annual fundraiser to double donations through meticulously planned silent auctions and strategic seating arrangements. Over three hundred sick kids depending on my ability to squeeze every possible dollar from Manhattan’s elite.

Even in exile, even in hiding, that responsibility weighs on me like a stone in my chest.

“Let it go to voicemail,” Mario says, his voice rough with concern, but I’m already answering. Three weeks before everything imploded, I’d promised the hospital director we’d break fundraising records this year.

Some promises should be kept, even when your whole world is burning down.

“Kate? What’s the emergency?” I ask urgently.

The silence on the other end makes my skin prickle. Then:

“How long?”

My heart stops. Bella’s voice is soft, controlled—more dangerous than if she were shouting. Ice spreads through my veins as Mario goes perfectly still behind me, no doubt reading the change in my expression.

His hand tightens on my shoulder, and I catch our reflection in the mirror—both of us frozen like prey in the moment before the predator strikes.

“Bella—” My fingers grip the phone so hard the plastic creaks. The taste of bile rises again, but this time it has nothing to do with morning sickness.

“How long have you been sleeping with the man who tried to kill me?”

Mario goes still behind me, his body vibrating as if he’s checking for violence. But there’s no enemy to fight here, no threat he can eliminate with practiced expertise.

This is emotional shrapnel, and all his protection is useless against it.

“It’s not what you think,” I whisper, though we both know that’s a lie. The words taste like ash in my mouth.

“Really?” Her laugh holds no warmth—it’s all ice and steel, the sound of the donna she was always meant to become. “Because what I think is that my best friend—the woman I trusted with everything—has been fucking the monster who held my stepdaughter at gunpoint. The man who tried to destroy my family. Who tried to kill me, remember?”

My burner phone chimes with an incoming message. Photos fill the screen, each one a knife to the heart: Mario and me at the clinic, his hand protective on my stomach as if he has any right to that tenderness. Our kiss in the parking garage, desperate and raw. Us on the boat, Mario’s jacket around my shoulders like some twisted fairytale.

Every betrayal captured in high-resolution clarity.

“Did you help him?” Her voice cracks, and the sound breaks something in my chest. “Have you been with him this whole time? When he tried to kill me? God, Elena—he threatened my babies. And you’ve been feeding him information this whole time?”

“No!” The denial bursts out, tasting like desperation. “Bella, I swear, I would never?—”

“Don’t.” The word slices through me like a blade made of ice. Gone is my sweet, artistic friend. In her place is Matteo DeLuca’s wife, the donna of New York’s most powerful family. Her voice holds all the authority of her position, all the cold fury of a woman betrayed. “Don’t you dare lie to me. Not after everything we’ve been through. Johnny, the nights you held me while I cried about losing my father and mother—was any of it real? Or was I just another mark in your game?”

Tears blur my vision, hot and unstoppable. This was inevitable, wasn’t it? You can’t live in two worlds without one of them burning. And now everything is going up in flames.

“Of course it was real. You’re my best friend—” My voice breaks on the words, memories flooding in: holding Bella through panic attacks, helping her plan her wedding, the way she squeezed my hand when she first showed me her twins on the ultrasound.

A thousand moments of genuine love and friendship, now tainted by betrayal.

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