Page 116 of Goldflame

“What’s wrong?” he asks, rising in one fluid motion.

I try to speak, but my throat has closed. All I can manage is a single, damning word: “Bianca.”

His entire body goes rigid. I see it then—the truth written in the sudden tightness around his eyes, the way his hands clench at his sides, the almost imperceptible step backward he takes.

It’s all true.

He’s married. He’s been married this whole time.

I don’t wait for explanations or excuses. I can’t bear to hear his voice or to watch him try to justify one more betrayal in a lifetime of them. I turn and run toward thehouse, pushing past a confused Lorenzo, ignoring Adrian calling my name behind me.

Up the stairs, down the hall, into my room. I slam the door behind me and turn the lock with shaking fingers. Then I collapse onto the bed, my body curling in on itself as if it can somehow protect me from this new wound.

The tears come in violent waves, wracking my body with sobs that feel like they might break me in half. Every part of me aches with betrayal.

Adrian said he loved me. Adrian said he wanted me. Adrian said he kept his distance to protect me from Lucian’s cruelty.

And I believed him. After everything, after Julian’s betrayal, after Valentine’s manipulation, I still found the capacity to trust.

Stupid, stupid girl.

A sob tears from my throat—raw, animalistic pain that burns its way up from some primal place inside me. I bury my face in a pillow to muffle the sound, afraid that if I start screaming, I might never stop.

My mother had tried to warn me in her diary. Men in this world take what they want and discard the rest. They use women like objects—things to be owned and displayed and discarded when no longer convenient.

Why didn’t I listen to her?

How many times can a heart be torn apart before it stops trying to put itself back together?

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

DANTE

The wood grain beneath my knuckles offers no comfort as I knock on Aurelia’s door for the twentieth time in twenty-four hours. Each tap feels more hollow than the last—a futile gesture against the impenetrable barrier she’s erected between us.

“She was never who I truly wanted,” I say. I’ve just finished my fourth attempt to explain everything through the door, the reason I married Bianca, though I’m not sure Aurelia is actually listening.

“Aurelia.” My voice remains calm despite the storm raging inside me. “You need to eat something. At least take some water.”

Silence answers. The same deafening absence that’s met every attempt since yesterday.

I press my forehead against the cool surface of the wood, allowing myself three seconds of weakness—no more. The methodical counting has always grounded me, but now even this small ritual offers no relief from the vice crushing my chest.

“Please. Aurelia, please.”

I love you,I want to beg.

A faint rustling comes from within—the first sign of movement in hours. My pulse quickens as footsteps approach.

“Go away.” Her voice is hoarse and worn around the edges. “Just leave. I don’t want your explanations.”

The pain in her tone cuts deeper than any physical wound I’ve suffered. I’ve survived a bullet from my own mother, endured my father’s cruelties for decades, and navigated the treacherous waters of the Consortium—yet nothing has left me as devastated as the hurt I’ve causes Aurelia and her refusal to open the door.

“Aurelia, I?—”

“I said go away!” Something crashes against the door—a book, perhaps, or a shoe. “I trusted you! I believed everything you said about keeping your distance to protect me, about loving me all those years. It was all lies!”

Each accusation hits its mark. The most damning part is that I can’t entirely argue against them. In my many calculated decisions, marrying Bianca remains my most regrettable miscalculation.

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