Chapter 168 - Santiago

Chapter 168 - Santiago
I had begun to watch Nova the way some men watch a slow sunrise. I watched quietly, steadily, with the kind of attention that settles into the bones long before you realize you’ve stopped breathing. Every morning, she walked into the room Salvatore had assembled for her, her team, her files, her future laid out in organized stacks, and every morning she carried herself a little straighter, spoke a little more firmly, and moved with the unmistakable certainty of someone rediscovering the architecture of her own strength.
It fascinated me.
Most men would have felt threatened, I suppose, intimidated by a woman growing sharper, louder, more capable by the hour. But I felt none of that. Not even a flicker. Because the truth thrummed in me with an almost comforting consistency: her power outside the bedroom never chipped away at her hunger inside it. It didn’t replace her desire to surrender—it deepened it. The more she grew, the more her body softened when mine pressed against it. The more confident she became, the more she melted when my hand closed around her throat or her wrists or her waist. Her evolution didn’t challenge my dominance; it made our dynamic richer, layered, inevitable.
And so I admired her with a pride that surprised even me.
She worked relentlessly, sometimes too relentlessly, to the point that I found myself standing in doorways watching her jaw tighten over spreadsheets while her hair fell forward, unbothered by the hours slipping through her fingers. She wanted the best for the people still trapped in the club’s shadow, the ones clinging to the edges of survival, and she carried that responsibility with a seriousness that most leaders twice her age failed to muster. Watching her fight for them lit something warm and steady behind my ribs.
I was halfway lost in those thoughts, one elbow braced on the doorframe, my mind cataloguing the way she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, when commotion broke the quiet rhythm of the hallway.
Only one man in this house could move with that combination of authority and chaos.
Salvatore.
He stepped into view with Giulietta hooked to his hand like a bright little shadow, her voice bouncing between the walls as she told him one of her winding, impossibly detailed stories. She gestured so wildly she nearly hit him twice, but he only smiled at her with the kind of patience that never failed to knock me off balance. I watched them approach, unable to stop the faint smile tugging at my mouth. Whatever else he was, Salvatore softened around his granddaughter in a way that was almost disarming.
He stopped in front of me.
“Salvatore,” I greeted evenly.
He nodded in acknowledgment but didn’t look at me yet—still listening to Giulietta’s story with full attention, his posture relaxed as if he had all the time in the world. I couldn’t hear what he murmured to her when she finally finished, but whatever it was made her grin with unfiltered delight before she bolted down the corridor, laughter trailing behind her like the tail of a comet.
Only then did he turn fully to me.
“Santiago,” he said, his voice settling into its usual weight.
“You’re taking it well. I didn’t expect it.”
My brows tightened. “Taking what well?”
“Alexia.”
He gestured vaguely toward the office where she sat hunched over documents. “She is growing—and she is getting her confidence back. I did not expect you men to handle that gracefully. That is my mistake, and I’ll admit it.”
For a moment, I could only stare at him.
Of all the things he could have said, that wasn’t even in the top hundred I had prepared myself for.
“Why wouldn’t we?” I eventually managed. “I want to support her. And I want the club to be hers.”
He studied me for a long, measuring beat.
“That,” he finally said, “is exactly what I did not expect. I assumed you would have taken over.”
A low laugh escaped me—quiet, but genuine. I shook my head.
“I had my sister run our family company,” I said. “I am perfectly capable of letting someone else take the spotlight. Power isn’t something I need to cling to. Not in that way.”
He hummed, the expression on his face shifting—approving, perhaps, but also calculating in a way that made the air feel slightly heavier.
“Good,” he said at last. “Because I need you. And I need your sister.”
I straightened slightly, instinctively bracing for whatever came next.
“I acquired the businesses we discussed at the gala,” he continued, almost casually—as if acquiring entire industries was no more strenuous for him than ordering dinner. “Hotels. Wellness resorts. Casinos.”
A grin ghosted across his mouth—one of those dangerous little smiles that foreshadowed inevitable upheaval.
“How are you at running those?”
I couldn’t help the answering grin that tugged at my lips.
“Well,” I said dryly, “I’ve never done it before. So I’m sure we’ll manage.”
Salvatore chuckled, a low, approving sound, and clapped my shoulder.
“Just so you know,” he added, voice turning quiet but unmistakably sharp, “Sean and James will be using them to launder money. You don’t need to know how. Your job is to keep everything functioning. To keep everything clean—clean enough for Alexia to build her future on.”
He paused, letting that weight settle between us.
“Until she is ready,” he said, “to get her hands dirty.”
I exhaled, long and slow.
So much information condensed into so few sentences.
So much shifting beneath the surface of the life I thought I understood.
So much responsibility being placed—deliberately, unquestionably—onto my shoulders.
And yet… I felt no panic. No hesitation.
Just the quiet, inexorable certainty that this was my life now.

I had spent weeks, months, really, fighting tooth and nail to carve myself free from this world, clawing at every thread that tied me to it, convinced that if I just pulled hard enough the whole tapestry would unravel and I would finally be standing on my own.
And now here I was.
Not simply back in it, but woven in deeper than ever.
The irony didn’t just flicker through me, it sat heavy and warm in my chest, almost comforting in its cruelty. I let out a low chuckle at the absurdity of it all. I had hated the role my father played in this shadowed hierarchy, hated how much of my life had been defined by decisions made behind closed doors by men who thought themselves kings. I risked everything in that lawsuit, my reputation, my future, my safety, thinking it would be the final blade severing my connection to all of this.
Instead, I’d stepped straight into the heart of the empire.
This world controlled everything—quietly, discreetly, insidiously—even as everyone pretended, they were just ordinary businessmen with expensive suits and clean consciences. You could deny gravity all you wanted, but it still held you to the earth. This was the same.
And it wasn’t just that I was part of it now.
I was tied to its heir.
The crown princess.
The future queen of all of this.
Mine—and also not mine—shared by two other men who didn’t flinch or bristle or posture about it. A configuration that would have been impossible anywhere else, unacceptable, scandalous. But here?
Here, the world tilted differently.
Here, it simply worked.
Maybe the only universe where such a thing made sense was this moral twilight, this kingdom of velvet shadows and sharp edges. And maybe—God help me—there was something strangely grounding in the chaos, something that made my chest loosen for the first time in years.
Because despite the madness, despite the danger, despite the impossible tangle of loyalties and desires…
For the first time in a long time, I could breathe.
For the first time in a long time, I felt like everything might actually be okay.

The End