Chapter 33

Chapter 33


Annabel had been pregnant.

He didn’t even know.

And now the baby is gone.

He fired again, this time hitting the edge of the target’s head. He didn't flinch.

She hadn't told him. Of course she hadn’t. What reason would she have to trust him? He was the villain in her story, the man who had taken her away from her world, held her captive, dragged her into the middle of a war she didn’t start.

He had forced her into this messed up world and he might be messed up, but not to the point of bringing in an innocent child.

But it made him more mad that she hadn't even uttered a word to make it clear to him that she was pregnant and she should be treated with care or get proper treatment.

He kept shooting. Kept trying to force the thoughts away.

Bang.

He thought about her lying in that bed, looking so small. So fragile. The bandage wrapped around her hand, her pale skin, the wince on her face even in sleep.

Bang.

He saw the way Katarina looked at him, like he was the last person who had a right to be standing at Annabel’s side.

They had nothing together, he kept claiming but it hurt him like crazy knowing she was sick and there's nothing he was found to help.

Bang.

He remembered Luca’s voice on the phone.

“She will destroy everything.”

A woman. A woman was behind this chaos.

A useless bitch was behind making him feel all weak and powerless? Playing him like he was som fool? The gut.

Not just the assassin, but the one pulling the strings. The one giving the orders. And she knew them. She knew how to move in the dark, how to slip through cracks in their defenses. She was deliberate. Calculated. She was always two steps ahead. If not more.

And that made him wonder who she was more and more. She couldn't just he some nobody.

Could she be someone he had offended and can't even remember.

Because if someone could get that close, if someone could outmaneuver him in his own home, then who else could be hurt? What if it hadn’t been Annabel who took that knife? What if it had been Pinky? Or Katarina? Or even one of the guards he trusted with his life?

His family.

Bang.

The gun clicked empty.

He threw it aside and picked up another.

His arm ached, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. It was the only thing keeping him grounded.

Because right now, he was spiraling. Fast.

He could see it in his reflection on the polished metal wall, eyes wild, jaw clenched, chest heaving with every breath. He looked nothing like the controlled, collected Raffaele everyone knew. The man who ran an empire. The man who never cracked.

But this wasn’t business.

This was personal.

He slammed another magazine in, breathing hard as he aimed again.

He needed answers. Not just names, not just guesses. He needed to know how this woman had slipped past them. How she had known where to send her assassin. How she had poisoned a man under Luca’s watch.

And most of all… what the hell she wanted.

Revenge?

Power?

Blood?

He fired again, watching the target jerk back with every hit. His jaw throbbed from clenching too hard, but he didn’t ease up.

He had to figure this out before anyone else got hurt.

Before Annabel looked him in the eye and asked questions he couldn’t answer.

Before she saw him not as the man trying to protect her… but as the reason she’d lost everything.

He kept shooting. Not because he was angry, but because he was scared.

Scared that for the first time in a long time… he didn’t know what move to make next.

And that uncertainty?

It was a bigger enemy than the woman hiding in the shadows.

Because she was coming.

And she’d already proven, she wasn’t afraid to take everything from him. She was really daring and proving more an
d more that she didn't give a damn.

Piece by piece.

Until there was nothing left.