Page 103 of Luciano

I didn’t want an heir like my father expected. Bad things happened to children. I don’t think I would survive what happened to me happening to a child.

“A fortress isn’t always a bad thing... if it has windows.”

I didn’t answer.

Instead, I reached for her hand and said, “We go back to the condo tomorrow.”

She sighed. “Let’s stay for a few more days. Just to be sure everything’s calm after the Russo fallout. I didn’t want to say anything, but your father’s guards make things feel safer.”

I hesitated. I was ready to have privacy again.

Her thumb brushed my palm. “Please?”

I nodded slowly. “A few more days.”

Chapter 47

Luciano

I woke up cold.

The side of the bed where Ava usually slept was empty, the sheets cool to the touch.

A strange tension started in my chest—slow but rising. I sat up, scanned the room. Her slippers were gone. So was the robe.

I checked the bathroom. She could have been in the kitchen.

I pulled on sweatpants, not bothering with a shirt. There was a guard outside the bedroom when I opened the door.

“Where did my wife go?” I asked.

“She—uh, she went downstairs, sir.”

“Downstairs?”

He swallowed and nodded.

My blood stopped moving.

Not because it was forbidden for her to go down there. She could go anywhere she pleased.

But why was she down there?

I took the steps fast, bare feet silent on marble. Through the hall. Past the kitchen. Past the cellar doors.

The metal entrance to the Judgment Room stood cracked open.

I stepped in.

The air hit me first. Cool. Dry. Sterile. The place had been cleaned recently—I could smell the products.

The screens were on.

Ava stood dead still, watching me on the screen.

Shirtless. Blood-slick. Driving a knife into a man’s throat.

Another screen played—me dragging another by the hair to the steel table.

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