Chapter 29 29

Chapter 29 29
AURORA
The city pulses beneath my heels.
From the glass office at the top floor of one of my father's old clubs, I oversee everything now. The club, the casino, the string of businesses stretching like a dark empire through the streets—we run it all. I run it now. Soldiers bow their heads when I enter. Men twice my age lower their gaze. Every deal, every ledger, every whisper of profit goes through me.
I wear my father’s ring now. Not just because it fits—but because it belongs to me.
It’s nearly midnight when I leave the casino floor, my heels echoing across the marble as I step into the private hallway leading to my car. My guards are momentarily out of sight, and I’m texting Ricco, my right hand man, to prep the files for tomorrow’s meeting when a hand grabs me from the side and shoves me into the shadows.
“Don’t scream,” Luca Rizzoto hisses, slamming me against the wall.
His breath smells like cigars and venom. His eyes burn with something desperate—something unhinged.
I don’t scream. I just glare. “You’re brave for a man who hides behind rumors.”
He grabs my chin tightly. “Brave? You think managing a few clubs and throwing on a black dress makes you powerful? You don’t know what power is.”
I don’t flinch. “I know enough to leave you out of every deal.”
His lips curl. “You think I don’t see what you’re doing? Building alliances. Showing up to meetings with Pachino. Claiming loyalty. But I’ll tell you something, sorellastra, you’re still mine. Just like when I gave you away.”
I jerk my face from his grip, but he only laughs.
“You think Damiano really loved you? I gave you to him like a bone tossed to a dog. I thought he’d humiliate you, break you, maybe keep you as a servant or a toy. Not...” he spits the word “marry you.”
“Maybe that’s your mistake, Luca. You underestimate what people see in me.”
He steps closer. His voice drops, sharp and venomous. “If I catch you speaking to him again, if I see you near him, I’ll burn everything he has to the ground. Starting with his mother, then his father and then his brothers.”
My blood freezes.
He’s too close now. Too serious. Too calm.
“You wouldn't dare...”
“Try me,” he whispers.
He steps back, brushing off his jacket like nothing happened. “Stay quiet. Do your job. And remember, you’re only a princess because I let you live long enough to play the part.”
Then he vanishes into the darkness, leaving me breathless and shaking.
I smooth my dress. I fix my hair. And I walk to the car like nothing happened.
But inside, the fire reignites.
Luca thinks fear will stop me. He thinks he can still control me like before.
He has no idea who I’ve become.

Aurora’s POV – The Coronation of a Mafia Princess
The night glows like a diamond soaked in sin.
Chandeliers hang like frozen constellations from the tall vaulted ceilings of the Pachino estate. The ballroom is a flood of gold light, murmurs, and shifting shadows. Men in tailored black suits, women in dresses that whisper secrets with every step, they all gather tonight, sipping on rare wines, smiling with veiled curiosity.
And they’re all here for me.
My hot pink satin dress catches the light like a flame in motion. The side cut reveals just enough to command attention without asking for it. My heels click with intention. My hair flows in soft waves down my back, each strand catching the wind as if it, too, knows this night is mine. Eyes follow me as I walk. Some with disbelief. Others with respect. And many with caution.
“She’s the daughter,” I overhear one man whisper to another.
“No… the heir,” another corrects.
“They gave the throne to a girl,” a third scoffs, too quietly to be bold.
Let them talk. I am here, and I stay.
Godfather Pachino stands by my side with a hand on my shoulder, raising a glass. “My brothers and sisters, famiglia, tonight we honor the daughter of a great man. She does not just carry his blood, she carries his fire. I give you Aurora, princess of the famiglia, and rightful heir to her father’s empire.”
The crowd toasts. Glasses clink. A few smirk. Some nod solemnly.
And then I feel it.
A presence.
Eyes burning through the crowd.
I glance across the room and find him.
Damiano.
Leaning against a column like he’s holding the damn building up, dressed in black again like mourning’s permanent shadow. His face is still bruised from the attack, one cut healing along his cheekbone. Sunglasses tucked in his pocket now. His gaze is raw, unfiltered, and locked on me.
His jaw clenches as I walk past someone laughing too loudly.
His hand tightens around his glass when an older capo kisses my knuckles.
And yet, I see it.
The way his eyes soften when they fall to the small scar near my collarbone, the one only he used to kiss without asking.
I pretend I don’t see him. But my heartbeat betrays me.
Later, he finds me. In the marble corridor outside the hall, far from the music, far from the noise. His voice is low, tense.
“You look… dangerous.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” I whisper. “Not in your condition.”
He steps closer. “You mean since your new throne doesn’t come with me beside it?”
I inhale. “No, Damiano. I mean because the Rizzotos won’t stop until they finish the job.”
His face darkens. “So now you care?”
I look at him then. For real.
“I always cared,” I say. “Even when I chose vengeance. Even when I stopped answering. Even when I walked away.”
He laughs bitterly. “And what now? Is this the part where you break my ribs again with your words?”
I take a shaky breath and tell him what I have to—what he doesn’t deserve but needs to hear.
“I will never come back to you, Damiano. Not because I don’t love you, but because I do. And if we stay together, they’ll kill you.”
I see something break behind his eyes.
Not just pain.
But trust.
He says nothing. Just stares, like I’ve ripped something sacred from him.
Then he turns and walks away.
And now… we are enemies.
The music resumes. The champagne flows. The new princess is celebrated.
But in the shadows of the party, I station my people at every exit. I pay off every whisperer who might betray him. I place cameras in corners and bribe guards I shouldn’t trust. Because while the world thinks I’ve chosen power over love—
They don’t know I am still silently protecting him.
Always.
The Song That Should’ve Been Ours
The sound reaches me before I even realize where it’s coming from.
A piano.
Soft, haunting, familiar, so familiar it makes my breath catch mid-step. I freeze near the arched hallway, clutching the folds of my satin dress as the notes float down the corridor like a memory reborn. My heart begins to pound, and suddenly, I’m walking, no, drifting—toward the hall where the melody lives.
And there he is.
Damiano Lombardi.
Seated at the grand black piano like a ghost from my past. His bruised fingers glide across the ivory keys as if they were born to play pain. He’s not even looking at them. His eyes, those sharp, unreadable eyes—are locked on me.
He plays me.
Note after note, like an open wound.
Like a confession.
Like a goodbye.
I step into the hall slowly. I can barely breathe. My heels are silent on the marble, but he doesn’t break his gaze. He doesn’t miss a single beat. Not even when a tear, so subtle no one else could ever notice, gathers at the corner of his eye.
But I see it.
Because I know his soul.
The music wraps around us, isolating us in a room full of people who don’t matter. Because this song—our song—was meant to be played only for me. The same one he played the night he first said he loved me. The one he hummed when I lay in his arms after the storm at the lake house.
But tonight, it’s a funeral march.
For everything we could have been.
The pain in his eyes pierces me. The betrayal. The ache. The unspoken words. I want to scream. I want to fall into him and scream at the world for tearing us apart. One after another, people have carved us down to pieces. Lies. Rumors. Blood. War. And now silence.
This silence is louder than any gunshot.
There’s chaos in my mind. Whispers of “stay,” screams of “run.” But I can’t look away from him. He doesn’t stop playing. He doesn’t blink. He just bleeds through the keys. And I… I shatter with every note.
But I must protect him, even from me.
So I breathe in sharply. Stand straighter.
And speak the lie that will save him.
“I hate you, Damiano Lombardi,” I say, loud enough for others to hear. “I hate you from the depths of my heart.”
But my voice cracks.
He hears the truth in it. So do I.
He stops playing.
The music ends.
And I turn around before the tears betray me.