Chapter 68 Chapter 68

Chapter 68 Chapter 68
\[ IRIS’S POV \]

The room was silent. It wasn't the nice, quiet feeling of a peaceful morning. It was a cold, empty silence that made my thoughts feel too loud. I sat on the edge of the velvet bed, staring at the wall.

The tablet was lying on the floor. Mira had brought it to me a while ago, but I made her leave. I didn't want anyone by my side. I just wanted to be alone. I didn't want to see the world outside these walls. I didn't want to hear Sofia’s voice anymore.

But I couldn't forget her words. I could still hear her accusing me, her lies, and her anger. They felt like a poison that wouldn't leave my head. She had told the whole world I was a traitor, and now there was nowhere left for me to run.

He didn’t find you at a bus stop. He cleared the path to you. He murdered our mother.

The tears came first silently, tracing cold lines down my face, falling onto my hands that shook with rage and fear. I curled inward, hugging my knees, feeling the weight of every betrayal pressing into my chest. My mother’s face floated before me, fragile, luminous, the warmth of her love like a memory I could barely hold.

How had I not known? How had the man who had whispered promises of protection, of safety, of love, been the architect of my loss? My hands fisted the silk of my hoodie, clutching the fabric as if it could anchor me to sanity.

I remembered the first time I’d seen him truly look at me, not as a Rossi, not as a pawn, but as a person. The flicker of warmth, the tiny spark of something human. And yet, all those moments had been carefully orchestrated. Every act of care had been a calculated move, every gesture a domino in a game I didn’t even know I was playing.

I wiped at my cheeks, but the tears wouldn’t stop. My body shook as sobs racked through me, raw and unrestrained. I hated the sound of them. I hated the weakness I felt in their wake. And yet, I couldn’t stop.

The door opened quietly. I didn’t look up. I didn’t need to. I knew him before I even felt the shadow of his presence.

“Iris.”

His voice was low, measured, and dangerous in the way it always was, but softer now. Less predator, more man, but the warmth that normally accompanied that softness was gone, replaced by something I couldn’t name. He stepped closer, but I flinched.

“I… I can’t—” My voice cracked, words failing me as the sobs continued.

“You don’t have to speak,” he said, stopping a foot away from me. “Just… feel. Let it out. For once, let the world see the real Morett in you”

Really? Is he insane?

But I did as he said. I let the tears fall harder, my chest heaving uncontrollably. All the anger, all the betrayal, all the years of being overlooked, underestimated, hidden away, they came spilling out, unrelenting.

“You made me an orphan,” I choked, my fingers clawing at the sheets beneath me. “You stole my mother from me. And now… now you pretend to care?”

Salvatore didn’t move closer. He didn’t try to console me. He simply stood there, a silent, immovable witness to my unraveling. The silence between us was thick, almost suffocating.

“I did what was necessary,” he said finally, his voice eerily calm. “You think this is cruelty. You think this is malice. You think I’m a monster because I took what you didn’t even know was yours to protect. But you’re alive. You’re free. You’re mine, and in this world, that is everything.”

I laughed, bitter and dry. “Alive? Free? You call this free? You’ve put me in a castle on a mountain, surrounded me with your men, and made me into your little exhibit. You don’t protect me, you own me.”

“And yet you followed me willingly, even though if you didn’t I would have still kidnapped you anyway. But still you’re here because we share some. So I own nothing,” he countered, his voice rising slightly, betraying the first crack in his controlled exterior. “I give you choices. You can stay. You can leave. You can hate me. But in the end, you are not the one deciding where you go and who you are, it will be me.”

I shook my head, tears blinding me. “Stop lying to me, Salvatore. Stop twisting the truth. You killed her. You made me alone. And now I’m supposed to… what? Thank you?”

He stepped closer, but still didn’t touch me. “I didn’t kill her, Iris. I ensured the world couldn’t take you. Your mother… your mother was weak in a world that demanded strength. And I didn’t just protect you from men who would hurt you. I protected you from a fate that would have made you less than you are.”

“Less than I am?” I hissed, my voice rising. “I'm a Russo. I should have had family, love, and guidance. Instead, I have you. A man who built an empire around me while pretending to care. A man who made my suffering his canvas.”

He didn’t argue. He simply let me have the words, let me spill the rage and grief, and then he finally spoke again, softer this time.

“Pain is not weakness, Iris. Tears do not make you fragile. They make you human. And you… You are the only human I’ve ever seen who could survive the world without losing herself. I need you to understand that. Not as a Rossi. Not as my Little Mouse. But ask yourself. As the girl I… chose to protect, no matter the cost.”

I felt a shiver, not of fear, but of something deeper, more complicated. Anger, grief, and a strange, reluctant respect tangled in a knot in my chest.

“You’re insane,” I whispered, wiping my cheeks on the back of my sleeve. “You’ve spent five years building this… this empire around me. And now you expect me to just accept it? To forgive?”

“I don’t expect forgiveness,” he said again, and this time he let the words hang in the air like a challenge. “I expect survival. I expect you to see the truth. I expect you to understand what it means to live, not just exist. And I expect… eventually… that you will see why all of this matters.”

The words were like daggers. I wanted to scream at him, to push him away, to leave this fortress and never look back. But the truth was unbearable. I was alone in the mountains. Alone with him. And the only person I had ever trusted, my mother was gone.

I sank to the floor again, the tears returning despite my efforts to stop them. My hands clawed at my hair as the weight of the past five years pressed down on me. Every memory, every moment I thought was safe, was now tainted by the revelation that Salvatore had orchestrated it all.

“I trusted you,” I whispered into the cold, echoing room. “And you… You used me. Every step of the way.”

“You trusted the wrong people,” he said softly. “Your father. Your sister. The world. But you trusted me, and I… I didn’t betray you. I built a world where you could exist without fear. That’s the difference.”

I shook my head, sobs wracking my body. “I don’t want your world. I don’t want this empire. I don’t want… you.”

His expression softened. For the first time, I saw the vulnerability that I had glimpsed only once before, I saw a boy behind the monster. “You will want me, Iris,” he said gently. “Not now. Not tomorrow. But eventually, because you don’t have a choice.  I’ve made you see a truth you cannot ignore. That the world outside this mountain is cruel. That love is often a weapon. And that I… I am the only one who has never lied to you.”

The tears streamed more freely now, burning, cleansing, shattering. I couldn’t decide whether I hated him or needed him. I couldn’t decide whether to flee or to collapse into the dangerous warmth of his presence.

I covered my face with my hands, sobbing in helpless anger, mourning my mother, my past, and the life I had lost. The walls of the library, the fortress, the mountain itself, all of it pressed in on me, suffocating, enclosing, trapping me in a gilded cage I had never asked for.

And Salvatore…Salvatore stood there, silent, waiting, patient, and immovable as the mountains themselves. Waiting for me to choose. Waiting for me to see the world as he did. Waiting for me to cry the tears of a Moretti and understand that, in his world, even grief was power.

I raised my head, my eyes red and raw, and looked at him. The man who had terrified me, captivated me, controlled me. The man who had orchestrated my greatest pain and my only protection.

And for the first time, I realized,  the tears weren’t just for my mother. They weren’t just for the life I’d lost. They were for me. The girl who had survived. The girl who had cried, and yet was still standing.

The tears of a Russo, I thought bitterly, were stronger than any Moretti empire.

And yet… somehow… they were not enough to save me from him.

“Let me go, Salvatore. You said I can choose to stay or leave. Then let me go somewhere far away. A place no one knows I exist…please.”