Page 129 of Hidden Memories

Santi lunges before he can think, before he can stop himself. “Get your fucking hands off her!” His voice is thunder, a split-second from breaking into a storm. His whole body coils like he’s about to tear Nic apart with his bare hands.

Nic barely flinches, but his grip on me tightens like he’s testing him. Like he enjoys knowing Santi can’t act. “Or what?"

Tears sting my eyes, not from fear but from the raw, unbearable rage building inside me. My thoughts blur, Theo’s face flashing in my mind. His bright eyes, his shy laugh, the way he clings to me when he’s scared. If Nic takes him—or if I’m gone—what kind of life will he have? Would Nic hurt him? Use him? Strip away the light and innocence I’ve fought so hard to protect?

No. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.

“I’ll get you the drives.” I force the words out, the weight of them dragging against my throat like chains. “But if you so much as lay a finger on Theo, you’ll burn…”

“Burn?” Nic’s indifference is chilling. “Isn’t that cute?”

The world tilts, a tidal wave of helpless fury crashing over me. I shake with the force of my emotions.

Nic stalls. Considering. It scares me what he might be thinking about—hurting Theo, taking him from me… but I don’t relent.

“Nic…” His name leaves me like a loaded threat. “If you harm Theo, I’ll tear through every dark corner you crawl into. I will find you.”

“Assuming I let you live,” he snarls. “The problem with you, Katinka, is that you just had to snoop around. Andnow, you’ve put me in a tight spot.” Nic’s jaw tightens, his grip on my shirt slackening slightly.

Santi’s gaze hasn’t left me, it’s a silent support, grounding me even as my legs threaten to give out. But my son’s life is on the line. I don’t have the luxury of breaking.

Nic shrugs as if it’s all a minor detail. “You forced us into a corner, Kat. You’re a liability.” His gaze is of the Devil, and I know he isn’t above killing me. “But we can’t exactly let Theo go now. Can we?”

“Yes you can,” Santi cuts in. “And if you don’t, you won’t be escaping either.”

“Enough!” A woman’s voice slices through the air as smooth as a scalpel. Footsteps echo from the shadows, and the room seems to shrink. Her silver hair is pulled back into a severe knot, her posture straight and imposing.

“My mother, Marta,” Nic says, his tone almost reverent. “Mother, meet my wife.”

“You… the woman from the photographs,” I mutter.

She isn’t just some Mafia matriarch. She is the weight in Nic’s spine. The ice in his blood. The reason he exists at all.

And she is looking at me like I am something minor and inconvenient.

Her lips curl into a thin smile. “Observant. I can see why Nic found you… tolerable.”

Santi hardly moves but still prowls, stalks, like he’s waiting to go in for the kill. “You’ve done enough. Take your money, take your miserable lives, and crawl back into the filth you came from.” His promise is ironclad, dark and unyielding. “Because if you don’t? I swear to God, Marta… I’ll make sure you and your son die slow.”

For the first time, Marta hesitates.

It’s brief—a flicker of something behindher gaze, a muscle in her jaw tightening, her breath just the slightest bit shallower.

Then, as if the moment never happened, she smooths her hands over her crisp silk sleeve. Lifts her chin, but she doesn’t dare make eye contact with Santi.

“And why would we do that?” she says, cool as glass. “Theo’s our legacy. The Castellanos name might mean something here, but the Rossini lineage? Theo will be the king of a domain Paul Castellanos couldn’t even dream up.”

“Rossini?”My God… I never knew this man…

“You didn’t think Nicholas Petras was his real name, did you?” she mocks. “Your father is stupid and greedy, but we weren’t silly enough to have Nic’s connection with the Mafia right there on his résumé.”

“You lied to get in with her father…” Santi pieces it together. “To clean money, Embezzle cash…”

“And then just to secure my operation,” Nic sneers, “I married his only child so if Paul ever found out? He’d be hammering nails into his daughter’s coffin, not just mine.”

My heart pounds against my rib cage. How could this have happened? My father was so money-hungry, so insatiable, he hired a mobster without even realizing? Nic was able to get layers deep, my dad blind to it all. He used my dad. He used me. And now, he’s using Theo.

Marta tilts her head, patronizing. “Eventually, Theo will see how following in his father’s footsteps isn’t all that bad. Shame you won’t be able to visit us in sunny Sicily.”

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