Chapter 63: HOUSE OF KNIVES
POV: Adriano
Pain came first.
A hot, aching pulse that stitched its way from Adriano’s ribs to his spine like someone was threading fire through his nerves. Then came the sound—the low, steady beep of a heart monitor. A soft hum. Voices behind a closed door.
He blinked.
White light. Steel fixtures. The sharp tang of alcohol and latex.
A bunker. Again.
He groaned.
A face appeared in his blurry line of sight—stern, female, and absolutely unimpressed.
“You wake up angry every time. It’s becoming your brand.”
“Reina,” he rasped, licking his dry lips. “You drug me again?”
“You passed out from the second surgery,” she said, adjusting his IV. “Didn’t need help sleeping.”
“How long?” he croaked.
“Three days.”
His fist clenched.
“Three days?” His voice cracked with fury. “You let me lie here while Marco walks around with my crown—while she walks into every threat alone?”
Reina crossed her arms. “She didn’t walk in. She marched. And she’s been fighting off wolves the entire time.”
“I should’ve been there.”
“You were shot, Adriano.”
“I can still stand—”
“You’d fall before you reached the damn elevator,” she snapped.
Adriano tried to swing his legs over the bed. Sharp agony tore through his torso. His breath hitched.
Reina caught him before he fell. “You're proving my point.”
He clutched her shoulder, breathing hard. “You don’t get it.”
“I get everything,” she said evenly. “But if you love her—really love her—you have to do what none of your bloodline has ever done.”
He looked up at her, eyes dark.
“And what’s that?”
“Let the woman fight her own war.”
The words struck him like a slap.
“She shouldn’t have to.”
“No, she shouldn’t,” Reina agreed. “But she is. And she’s doing better than all of you combined.”
Adriano sagged back against the pillows. “You’ve chosen her.”
Reina didn’t blink. “So did you. Don’t forget that.”
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, he nodded once. “Alright. I’ll stay. For now.”
Reina leaned closer, her voice low. “Good. Because if you try to limp into that estate and mess up what she’s building—she’ll never forgive you.”
Adriano exhaled slowly. “I just want her to survive this.”
Reina smirked. “Then let her finish burning the old house down.”
Hours later, Adriano sat alone in the bunker’s side room, hooked up to machines but sharper now—fully awake, fully furious. He sipped bitter black coffee with one hand and flicked through the private surveillance feed on Reina’s encrypted tablet.
Twelve live cameras.
Each one embedded in corners of the De Luca estate. Hidden. Unofficial. Planted back when Reina had needed eyes without permission.
Adriano tapped through them with clinical precision.
The garden walk. Empty.
The west hall. Empty.
The chapel—still smoldering with memory.
He tapped again.
The throne wing.
And there she was.
Valentina.
She stood in front of a massive carved wooden door—the only one in the estate she hadn’t entered since taking the seal. The Widow’s Throne Room.
It was said to be cursed. Closed for two generations. Reserved for De Luca women who never lived long enough to rule. Or who ruled in name only—while others wielded the blade.
Adriano froze.
She placed her hand against the center sigil—an embossed iron rose with thorned edges.
The door opened slowly.
A thick red carpet stretched into a room of stone and shadows. Dust motes floated through golden shafts of dying light. Velvet curtains hung limp like faded royalty. The throne itself—black, silver-lined, shaped like a flame’s spine—sat on a raised platform beneath a stained-glass skylight.
She stepped inside.
Alone.
Adriano pressed his hand to the screen.
She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t flinch.
She walked straight to the throne—and sat.
The moment she did, something changed in the room. The shadows shifted. The light cut through the stained glass, casting rubies across her face. She looked like a painting come alive.
Not a girl.
Not a victim.
A ruler.
Adriano whispered into the silence, as if she could hear him across the miles of stone and secret.
“Don’t let them take it from you.”
And deep down, he knew—
They wouldn’t take it.
She would burn them if they tried.
He clicked the camera feed off, suddenly restless.
The silence in the bunker felt louder than the sound of gunfire.
Every nerve in his body buzzed with the sickening sensation of helplessness. He was a man forged in the fire of command, used to leading armies of men with just a look or a word. And now? He was stuck beneath stone and steel, forced to watch the woman he loved walk into a hornet's nest of betrayal, ambition, and history with nothing but her name and her scars.
His hand hovered over the screen for a moment longer, knuckles white with tension, then dropped to his lap. The tablet clattered to the floor.
Adriano swung his legs out of the cot again, slower this time. Every stitch tugged at his side, every movement sparked pain that lit up his spine. But he gritted his teeth and pushed forward, grabbing the cold metal edge of the table for balance. His muscles protested, but he didn’t stop. Not this time.
He needed motion. Purpose.
Because the past three days had been torment. The kind that didn’t scream—it whispered. Whispers of what-ifs. Whispers of guilt. Of all the times he had doubted her. Underestimated her. Tried to protect her when she had only ever asked to be heard.
Valentina.
She had stood in a room built to crush women like her and carved out space with nothing but fire in her eyes and a crown branded into her flesh. Not borrowed power. Not politics. But a truth written in blood.
And she had done it without him.
Every second she’d stood alone in that estate—surrounded by old men with older grudges, by wolves cloaked in tailored suits—he had felt like a caged beast. Helpless. Ashamed. And yet, strangely, proud.
Because the girl who once flinched when spoken to was gone.
The woman who remained didn’t ask for thrones. She took them.
She was more than an heir now.
She was evolution.
A quiet shuffle in the hallway snapped his focus. He looked up.
Reina leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
"What is it?" Adriano asked, trying to hide the edge in his voice.
Reina said nothing at first. Then she stepped inside and tossed something onto the end of the bed. It landed with a soft thud.
A bundle.
Adriano unwrapped it slowly. Black tactical wear. Light armor lining. His size.
“In case you decide to stop sulking and start thinking,” Reina said, tilting her head. “We’re going to need plans. Quiet ones.”
He looked down at the clothes, then back at her. The pain in his body was nothing compared to the sharp clarityin his mind now. There would be no more waiting. No more watching.
Adriano nodded slowly, the fire in his eyes finally matching the one she'd seen in Valentina's.
"Then let’s begin."