Page 60 of Forbidden Vengeance

I close my eyes, but the images come anyway. Bianca tied to that chair, her small wrists raw from fighting. She’d tried so hard to be brave, just like Matteo taught her.“Uncle Mario,”she’d whispered,“why are we playing this game?”

“I made sure to smile when I pressed the gun to her head,” I continue. “Made sure the camera caught every detail—the rope burns, her tears, my finger on the trigger. I wanted Matteo to see exactly what his perfect life had cost. What hisbastardbrother was capable of.”

The confession burns like acid. “I became exactly what Giuseppe always said I was. A monster wearing a DeLuca face. But when I saw her there, so small, so afraid of disappointing everyone…she looked just like I used to, after Giuseppe’s ‘lessons.’ And I realized I’d become him. The thing I hated most.”

Elena’s silence feels like a physical weight. I can’t bear to look at her, to see disgust or worse—pity—in those clever eyes.

“Why Bella?” she asks finally. “After five years of exile, why come after her?”

The laugh that tears from my throat sounds unhinged even to my ears. “How do you not see it? Perfect Matteo got everything. Again. A loving wife, a baby on the way, the fairy tale ending he never deserved.” My voice cracks on the words. “He took a girl who wasn’t even his own child and made her his heir. Builthimself the perfect family while I rotted in Boston, dancing to O’Connor’s tune.”

I don’t tell her about those first months after the failed attempt on Bella. How O’Connor’s men held me down in that basement while Seamus reminded me what happens to dogs who bite the wrong hand. Three days in that cold room, chains biting into my wrists while O’Connor systematically broke every promise of protection he’d made.

The scars on my back still ache in cold weather—a gift from his favorite brass knuckles.

“You think exile was my only punishment?” The words taste like copper. “A year of absolute loyalty. Taking the jobs even O’Connor’s most hardened men wouldn’t touch. Building my worth back piece by bloody piece until he trusted me to breathe without permission.”

The bitterness I’ve carried for years pours out like poison. “Meanwhile, my brother, the great Matteo DeLuca, who claims to value chosen family over blood—where was that sentiment when Giuseppe cast me out? When I needed a brother instead of an heir?”

My hands shake as memories surface—Matteo teaching Bianca to shoot, the way he looks at Bella like she hung the moon, how tenderly he touched her stomach when they announced the twins.

All the soft moments a monster like me doesn’t deserve.

“So yes,” I continue, the words bitter as ash. “I came for his wife. His unborn children. Everything he loves, just like he took everything from me. And I had the backing of the Irish mob to do it.”

I finally turn to face Elena, letting her see exactly what kind of creature she’s gotten involved with. “Giuseppe always said I was born wrong. Twisted. A monster.” My laugh holds no humor. “Guess fathers do know best after all.”

“You’re not a monster.” Elena’s voice carries quiet conviction as she struggles to sit up. The movement makes the monitors beep in protest, but her eyes never leave my face. “Damaged, yes. Dangerous, absolutely. But monsters don’t change. They don’t grow. They don’t care for complicated women carrying another man’s child.”

The last words hang between us like smoke, heavy with implication. Something in my chest cracks open at her steady gaze, her complete lack of horror at my confessions.

I turn back to her slowly, waiting for the other shoe to drop—for the disgust to surface, for her to realize exactly what kind of creature she’s let into her bed. Into her life.

But there’s no judgment in those clever eyes. No fear. No rejection. Only understanding, wrapped in something that looks terrifyingly like love.

The acceptance hits harder than any of O’Connor’s punishments, than any of Giuseppe’s lessons.

“How—” My voice breaks. I clear my throat and try again. “How can you look at me like that? After everything I just told you?”

She reaches for my hand, and I move back to her bedside. I let her take it, marveling at how steady her grip is. How sure.

“I’ll never forgive myself for that night,” I admit roughly, the words scraping my throat raw. Each syllable feels like confessing to a priest, like laying my sins bare before something holy. “For becoming everything I hated about our father. For letting revenge poison everything.”

My hand finds her stomach where Anthony’s daughter grows, and the contact burns like confession, like possibility. Like everything I never thought I could have. “But this? You? It’s changing everything.”

“I know,” she whispers, pulling me down into a kiss that tastes like redemption. Like forgiveness I never thought I deserved.

When we break apart, her eyes hold assurance beneath the softness. “So let’s make sure our choices moving forward are better than our choices in the past.”

The words hit like absolution. Like a chance at something more than revenge and violence and living up to Giuseppe’s worst expectations.

She pulls me down for another kiss, this one harder, hungrier. Her fingers tangle in my hair as she arches up from the bed, making the heart monitor spike erratically.

“Elena,” I warn against her mouth, even as my body responds to her need. “You need to be careful. The monitors?—”

“Shut up,” she hisses, nipping at my lower lip. “Help me get these damn things off.”

Her hands are already moving to the electrodes on her chest. I catch her wrists gently. “Let me.”

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