Page 8 of The Silent War
A girl with her mother’s eyes—big, honest, too soft for this world.
She would never learn pain the way her mother did.
She wouldn’t flinch from raised voices or wonder if love meant punishment. She would grow up knowing protection before pain. Because she would be ours.
And we would burn every bloodline that so much as looked at her the wrong way.
She would grow up knowing safety. That her uncles were kings and her dads were monsters who smiled for her.
And then, a boy.
He would have Luca’s restraint. My threshold for violence.
That quiet, inherited darkness neither of us could hide—the kind of blood that made a room tense before you spoke.
But he would be loved.
Not feared or trained like a dog waiting for the next command.
He wouldn’t be broken to fit someone else’s vision of legacy.
And he would know how to choose what he became. Because we would be the fathers we never got. Not handlers.
Fathers.
And if anyone—anyone—tried to drag him into the kind of darkness we were born in? We would bury that threat before it got near his name.
And our wife.
Our beautiful wife.
The one who wore our ring.
Our names tattooed on her back.
The one we would never stop choosing—not even after we had already claimed her.
She would be in this very room, reading near the fireplace. I’d kiss her throat on my way in, Luca would kiss her cheek. She’d roll her eyes but never stop smiling.
Because she would know the truth.
We had built the empire for her.
We ran the city for them.
And we bled for the right to walk into this home without a weapon in our hand.
This wasn’t fantasy. It was blueprint.
And I’d die before I let anyone touch it.
I let myself feel it. Really feel it. Her in my arms at night. That little sigh before she slept.
Not weakness. Fuel.
The only thing strong enough to keep me getting back up when Villain tried to bury me.
I opened my eyes. Stared at the skyline.
