To save her family from financial ruin, Elena Romano is forced into an arranged marriage with the most feared man in New York's underworld-Luca Moretti, a ruthless mafia boss. What begins as a cold, loveless union soon transforms as Elena discovers...
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Matteo sat on the edge of the bed, his hands trembling in his lap as if they were foreign to him. His eyes, once sharp and alive, now drifted blankly over the floor, clouded with something I couldn't name. Not fear, not exactly. Not grief, either. Just... emptiness. The man before me was a ghost of my brother. The Matteo I remembered could command an entire room with a glance, a word. This Matteo? This Matteo looked hollowed out, as if the years had chipped away at him until only a fragment remained.
I hesitated, every instinct screaming at me to rush forward, to pull him into my arms and promise him that everything would be okay. But I didn't know if that was true. I didn't know if there was even a way to make it true. How much of him had they destroyed? What had they done to his mind? My throat tightened, and I forced myself to take a slow step forward.
"Matteo?" I whispered, barely breathing the word.
He flinched. A small reaction, but it shattered something inside me. His shoulders tensed, his fingers curling into fists against his knees. And then, slowly, he lifted his head. His gaze found mine, but there was no recognition. Just a deep, unsettling confusion, like he was staring at a stranger wearing his brother's face.
"Luca?" His voice cracked, raw, disbelieving. Like he didn't trust his own mind to tell him what was real.
I nodded, even as my own chest constricted. "It's me."
He stared. I could see the war raging inside him, the desperate hope colliding with the fear that this was just another trick, another hallucination brought on by years of torment. His breath came shallow, uneven. And then—something in him snapped.
Matteo surged forward, collapsing against me, his entire frame wracked with silent, gut-wrenching sobs. He clung to me with a desperation that nearly knocked the breath from my lungs, fingers digging into my back as if he thought I'd disappear if he let go.
And maybe he did. Maybe he thought I wasn't real. Maybe he thought none of this was.
I held him tighter, my own vision blurring as a lump rose in my throat. My brother—the brother I had thought I lost forever—was breaking apart in my arms, and I didn't know how to put him back together. Didn't know if I could.
"Luca," he gasped against my shoulder, his voice a shattered whisper. "I thought—I thought you were dead. I thought I lost you."
"I'm here," I choked out, pressing my hand against the back of his head. "I'm here, Matteo."
He shook his head violently, breath coming in ragged gasps between sobs. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I should've been stronger, should've fought harder. But they—they—"
"Stop," I said, firmer this time. I pulled back just enough to look at him, to see the raw devastation in his eyes. "This wasn't your fault. You didn't do anything wrong."
