CH- 34

CH- 34
Aria POV

We got back from the cafe and the estate was just too quiet for me.

No gunshots. No shouting. Not even the heavy tension of someone watching from the shadows.

Just wind through cypress trees and the occasional distant laughter from the garden where Isabella’s staff set up brunch tables no one used.

I hated it.

Peace made me feel itchy beneath my skin—like I didn’t deserve it, like it could be taken away at any moment.

Especially when I saw her—Isabella—moving through the halls in silk blouses and high-waisted trousers, discussing lighting fixtures and wine suppliers like we weren’t both raised in a house where silence meant danger.
We’d both killed. We’d both bled.

But somehow she wore calm like perfume. And I wore rage like a second skin.

“Miss De Luca?” a voice interrupted.

I turned—too fast. Instinct. My hand twitched toward the blade I no longer carried.

But it was only Dr. Matteo Renzi.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Mid-thirties, maybe. His white button-down was rolled at the sleeves, exposing tanned forearms that looked like they belonged to someone who’d spent time in the military… or prison.

He held a tablet in one hand, and a smile in the other—calculated, calm, and just a little too knowing.

“I was told you might need someone to talk to.”
“I don’t,” I said, too sharp.

He didn’t blink. “Then maybe you need someone to listen.”

“I don’t need anything.”

He held my gaze for a beat longer than necessary, then simply nodded.

“That’s fine. I’ll be in the sunroom after lunch. If you change your mind.”

I didn’t respond. Just turned and walked away, faster than I needed to.

But I heard him call after me softly, “It’s harder to heal in silence, Aria.”

\=================

Later, I found Isabella on the balcony off her new office.

She was barefoot, a wineglass in one hand, the soft pink evening soaking into her skin like paint.

The view stretched toward Florence’s skyline—olive groves, stone villas, a future she was trying to shape from rubble.
“You’re brooding,” she said without looking at me.

“You’re pretending,” I shot back.

Her lips twitched. “We all cope differently.”

There was a beat of silence. And then I said it—the thing that burned my throat every time I saw her.
“Do you ever think about her?”

Isabella’s posture stiffened.

“Our mother,” I clarified. “Selene. The one who lied to both of us. The one who chose empire over daughters.”
She turned, slowly. “Every damn day.”

I didn’t expect that.

She came closer. Set the glass down. And for once, she didn’t try to keep her voice even.

“I hated her,” Isabella said. “Then I pitied her. Now… I just want to understand what made her that way. What made us this way.”
“We were born into a lie.”

“And raised in fire.”

We stood there, quiet. Not reconciled. But not at war.

“She left clues,” I said finally. “About our father. About why she split us up. If we find out who he is, maybe we’ll understand.”

“You want to go digging through that graveyard?” Isabella asked, voice low.

I nodded. “Together. Or not at all.”

Her eyes flicked over me—testing, weighing. Then she offered her hand.
“Fine. A pact.”

I took it. Her grip was warm, strong.

“The Sister Pact,” I murmured.

Isabella smirked. “We’re terrible at naming things.”

\==================

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

The wind rattled the shutters. Somewhere in the house, music played low and sad.

I walked the halls barefoot, wearing one of Isabella’s oversized sweaters.

It still smelled like her perfume—rosewater and ruin.
I drifted toward the garage.

I didn’t mean to sneak out, not really. I just needed air.

But I wasn’t fast enough.

“Planning to vanish?” came a low voice behind me.

I froze. “Marco.”

He was leaning against the wall in jeans and a dark T-shirt, arms crossed. His hair was slightly damp like he’d just showered, and his tone was unreadable.

“I wasn’t—”
“You were.”

He stepped closer. Not threatening—just there.

“I just needed space,” I said, my voice quieter now, tinged with frustration. Or maybe shame. I hated being caught, especially when I couldn’t explain why I’d been running in the first place.

Marco didn’t respond right away. Instead, he studied me, his dark eyes searching mine like they could peel back layers I’d worked so hard to keep hidden.

When he finally spoke, his words landed like stones dropped into still water, rippling outward until they settled somewhere deep in my chest.

“You’re not alone anymore, Aria.”

Something about the way he said it—like he knew too well what it meant to carry ghosts—unraveled me a little.

“Why do you care?” I shot back, sharper than intended, because his words had unraveled something fragile inside me. Something I’d rather stay buried.

Marco shrugged, nonchalant but not dismissive. “Maybe because you remind me of me. Before I learned family doesn’t mean blood. It means the people who stay.”

It shouldn’t have affected me. Not really. Those words shouldn’t have burrowed under my skin, finding cracks I didn’t know existed. But they did.

They sank in deep, rooting themselves somewhere I couldn’t ignore.

Our eyes locked then, and for a moment, time seemed to stop.

The air between us shifted, charged with something neither of us acknowledged but both of us felt.

Tension crackled like static electricity, sharp and new and impossible to deny.

My breath hitched, and I wondered if he noticed—if he felt it too—or if this was all in my head, some desperate attempt to cling to anything solid in a world spinning wildly out of control.

Then, as quickly as it had started, the moment broke. Marco turned away, shoving his hands into his pockets, his expression unreadable once more.

“You should get some sleep,” he said, his tone light but carrying an edge I couldn’t quite place. “The past will still be there tomorrow.”

What did he mean by that?