Ares ; A Mafia Romance ||✓

Bonus part 1

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Ares

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People might assume I’m happy. By all measures, I should be. My father and sister are here, safe and alive. My brother and aunt now live with us, completing the family I fought so hard for. I have everything I once believed would bring me peace.

But happiness isn’t mine to claim. It lingers just out of reach, dulled by guilt and shadowed by regret. Karma has marked me as her favored child, ensuring that every moment of relief is weighted with the memory of my sins. I know now—whatever victories I may achieve, true peace will forever escape me.

My heart still felt like a stone I carried every day, weighed down by regret and guilt. Isaac, ever perceptive, had noticed my silent struggle with the consequences of my actions. One day, he asked if I truly regretted all I had done. My response was nothing more than a quiet shake of my head. I owned my choices, wore them like badges of triumph. Isaac scoffed in disbelief, but I offered no explanation. I didn’t care if he thought me heartless. Because I was. I’d never been a saint, and I never pretended otherwise.

I didn’t regret the decisions that brought my father and sister back to me. No, those choices were mine to make, and I would make them again. What I regretted were my mistakes—underestimating my own emotions, thinking I was immune to such weaknesses. I never expected to feel anything for the pawn in my game. The feelings I had for her were faint, easy to ignore at first, and nothing compared to the burning need for revenge that consumed me. But those feelings, small as sparks, had ignited into a fierce blaze I could no longer ignore. Now that I had fulfilled my revenge, they burned relentlessly, leaving me hollow.

I knew what this was. I hated it. Hated that I’d let myself fall for the girl I was supposed to use and discard. That hatred had now transformed into regret—the bitter regret of denying what I felt and never letting myself choose her. If I had, Callista Miller would be with me now. And that knowledge haunted me.

It was almost laughable, the irony of it all. Even then, while still refusing to accept what I felt for Callista, I found myself trying to protect her. On the stormy night I left for the tower to confront Ubel and rescue my father and Eva—the final move in my path to victory—a strange fear seized me. The thought of losing her, of Callista being hurt, or worse, killed, was a blinding, gut-wrenching terror that I hadn’t prepared for. It knocked the breath out of me, forcing me to reconsider the plan we’d carefully constructed.

Originally, Callista was to accompany me to the tower. She was meant to be there as bait, my supposed weakness, the pawn Ubel would focus on to threaten me with. Isaac had installed the tracker in her phone for the location, therefore. But at the last moment, I found myself refusing to go through with it. The fear of something happening to her gnawed at me, a weakness I didn’t want to acknowledge. I left her at my mansion, surrounded by protection, and ignored her pleas for me to stay. She didn’t understand, and I couldn’t explain. I was too focused on tasting victory.

What I hadn’t expected was her defiance. Callista had followed me to the tower.

And that was my deepest regret—I couldn’t keep her safe, couldn’t hold her within the shelter of my protection. When I finally chose her, chose her safety, chose her life, she slipped through my grasp and was gone forever. She had consumed me completely, every thought, every heartbeat, and then, in the ultimate twist of irony, she sacrificed herself to save me.

I hated her for it. I hated that she threw her life away for me—me who had callously chosen her as a pawn, expecting her to die for my cause. It was almost a cruel cosmic joke. From the moment I picked her as my scapegoat, I hadn’t cared if she lived or died. And yet, just when I finally cared enough to protect her, to keep her alive—she was taken from me.