Chapter 20: Twenty
The moment the words before the wedding left her father’s lips, Amara felt her world collapse inward.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t smile, didn’t even acknowledge Cristian Mareno’s poised smirk or Silvio’s smug glance of triumph. She turned on her heel and walked out.
The sound of her heels striking the marble echoed down the corridor, sharper than her father’s cane or her brother’s furious breathing. She didn’t stop when a servant called after her, didn’t slow when Darius shifted in the shadows as though ready to follow.
She didn’t want an audience.
Not now.
By the time she reached her room, her chest was tight with rage and something far heavier. She slammed the door shut and pressed her back to it, her breath trembling.
How could he?
How could her father?..Don Matteo Drevino, feared by every family from Valeforte to Naples look her in the eye and speak of peace with the man who had ordered her death? How could he smile while promising her to that man’s son, as though she were a pawn on his chessboard?
Amara gritted her teeth, blinking hard, but the sting of tears burned her eyes.
She crossed the room, tearing the pins from her hair. Gold slipped through her fingers and clattered to the floor. The gown she wore felt suffocating, like shackles sewn into silk. She ripped the sleeves from her shoulders, pacing like a trapped bird.
The walls pressed closer, each shadow stretching longer.
And in that suffocating silence, one thought rose above the rest.
I wish Mama were here.
Her knees weakened. She sank onto the edge of the bed, her hands trembling in her lap. The memory of her mother’s voice came soft, almost forgotten, but steady like lullabies sung when storms battered the city and Amara had crawled into her bed.
Her mother had always told her she was more than a name. More than a pawn. That she carried a strength Matteo would never see, because he only looked for weapons and heirs.
“Don’t let them cage you,” her mother once whispered, brushing hair from her face. “The blood in your veins is yours. No one else’s.”
Amara’s throat ached.
But her mother was gone. Stolen from her years ago, the truth buried in silence and lies. And now her father cold, ruthless Matteo wanted to chain her future to the very family that had tried to snuff out her life.
The loneliness cut deeper than any blade.
She curled forward, pressing her hands to her face. For the first time in years, she let the tears fall.
The house around her pulsed with distant laughter and the clink of glasses from the dining hall below. Deals being made. Alliances forged.
But here, in the silence of her room, Amara sat alone. Angry. Betrayed. Aching for a mother who would never walk through the door.
And she realized that no one…not even her father would fight for what she wanted.
If she wanted to survive, to be free, she would have to fight for herself.
The fire in her veins hadn’t cooled. If anything, it burned hotter in the silence of her room.
Amara paced until her legs ached, then collapsed against the side of her bed, pulling her knees up to her chest. The walls felt too close, the chandeliers too bright, the velvet curtains too heavy. She wanted to rip it all down tear the house apart piece by piece until her father heard her rage.
He wants me to marry him. The son of the man who sent assassins after me. The man who tried to spill my blood across his ballroom floor.
Her nails dug into her palms until crescent moons burned in her skin. She shook with anger, but underneath the anger was something worse.
Loneliness.
She wanted to scream at her father. She wanted to hurl every word she’d swallowed for years into his face until even he couldn’t ignore them. But she knew how it would end his smile would harden, his voice would lower, and he’d remind her that everything he did was for the family. That her duty outweighed her wants. That she was born to serve the Drevino name, not herself.
And what could she say then?
Her throat closed. She buried her face against her knees, breathing in the faint scent of lavender from her dress, clinging to it as if it were her mother’s embrace.
If only she were here.
Her mother would never have let this happen. She would have fought for Amara’s freedom, shielded her from the wolves circling in the name of alliances. She would have been her voice when hers faltered. Now all Amara had were ghosts.
The ache of that loss pressed deeper than any dagger.
A knock broke through the storm.
She froze, quickly wiping her cheeks, as if whoever stood there could see through the door.
“Amara.”
His voice.
Her chest clenched so hard it almost hurt.
Another pause, then: “I brought dinner.” His tone was clipped, professional. Meant for her father’s halls, not for her ears. “You didn’t eat earlier.”
She stared at the door, refusing to move. To answer would be to open a wound too raw.
Silence settled between them. She thought maybe he’d left, but then his voice came again, low, edged with something she couldn’t name.
“I know today was… a lot. You should rest.”
Her lip trembled. She bit down hard to stop it.
She wanted to fling the door open, to demand why he could look at her like she was the only person in the room one moment and vanish into silence the next. To ask if that kiss meant nothing, if she truly was only an assignment.
But she didn’t move.
Her silence became her answer.
Through the crack at the bottom of the door, she saw him leave. The faint scrape of metal told her he had set the tray down. A whisper of leather, a sigh of boots against marble, and then footsteps retreating down the corridor.
He hadn’t pushed.
Hadn’t crossed the threshold.
Hadn’t said her name again.
Just as he had that morning, when he avoided her gaze while speaking to Matteo, Darius had left her to drown alone.
Her chest hollowed. She pressed her forehead against her knees, letting the tears come freely this time, spilling hot down her cheeks.
He would guard her life. Yes.
But who would guard her heart?
The untouched tray sat cooling in the hall.
And inside, Amara’s loneliness pressed tighter, as if the mansion itself conspired to suffocate her.