Clara Russo POV
A brutal cramp ripped through my stomach, sharp as a blade. I gripped the edge of the counter, my knuckles white.
"I need to go. You should head to your penthouse."
Silas watched me, his eyes narrowed and calculating. He didn't offer to help.
"One more thing," he said casually, adjusting his cuff. "I need a historic venue. Suitable for wedding portraits."
The words didn't hit me—they passed clean through, leaving a cold, hollow space behind.
Wedding portraits.
I forced air through the pain and kept my face blank. "There's a gothic estate on the outskirts of the city. It has the old-world stonework your family prefers."
"You'll act as my guide tomorrow." It wasn't a request. "I'm cashing in a fraction of the marker."
I nodded. The blood oath was iron. I couldn't refuse.
"I'll be there."
I fled the terminal without looking back. I hailed a cab, and the moment my apartment door clicked shut behind me, my legs gave out. I collapsed on the hardwood floor, curling into myself against the pain.
Serena rushed in from the kitchen. She slid across the floor and grabbed my shoulders.
"Clara!"
The dam broke. Ragged, ugly sobs tore out of me, each one a knife in my stomach.
"I can't do this, Serena. I can't cut my soul away from his." I choked on the words. "He's getting married."
Serena pulled me against her, holding me with a fierce, desperate strength while I fell apart on the floor.
That night, sleep came in fragments, soaked in cold sweat. When I finally drifted off, the nightmare was waiting for me—the same one I'd had for five years. I was tied to a chair in a warehouse. Silas stood over me, his sleeves rolled to the elbows, his hands dark with fresh blood. "Why did you betray the Famiglia?" he demanded. I tried to explain, to tell him everything, but my lips were stitched shut with black thread. I couldn't tell him about the cancer. I couldn't tell him the truth.
I jolted awake, gasping, my lungs burning, my sheets soaked.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. A single text from Silas: "Already en route to the estate."
I threw on jeans and a loose coat to hide my deteriorating frame. I swallowed a handful of painkillers dry, choking them down, and ran out the door.
When my cab pulled up to the gothic estate, Silas was already waiting in the gravel drive, flanked by four armed soldiers. A thick morning fog rolled over the grounds, giving everything a spectral, haunted beauty.
For one stupid, fleeting second, as I walked toward him through the mist, it felt like no time had passed at all. Like I was just meeting the man I loved for a quiet morning walk.
Then he turned, and the illusion shattered.
"Good morning, Clara." His voice was professionally polite, utterly distant—as if I were a business associate he barely tolerated.
I was nothing to him now.
No. Worse than nothing. I was unfinished business he wanted gone.
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