Because the longer I studied her, the less I understood what the hell I was doing here.
She didn’t look dangerous.She didn’t look connected.She didn’t look like the kind of woman whose existence could bring an empire crashing down.
She looked like someone trying to stitch together a life out of scraps.She was ordinary.Unremarkable.Alone.
If she were a clear threat, this would have been simple—clean, decisive, done.But watching her … she was just a woman who survived something and kept moving.And I couldn’t tell if ending her would have been an act of mercy, a mistake, or the beginning of a disaster I couldn’t walk back from.
The question slid in, unwelcome and insistent:what was the point of killing someone who wasn’t even fighting to live?
And worse—why did I even care?
I turned away and headed back toward the beat up old Volvo.
My family owned property everywhere.Tuscany was no exception.My penthouse—the one I didn’t use as much as I should—sat twenty minutes away, perched above the rooftops like it was dropped there from another world.It didn’t belong to the region, to the rolling hills and sun-warmed streets.It barely belonged to me.
The elevator opened straight into my living room.Glass walls.Black steel.Stone floors polished within an inch of their life.Everything was cold, modern, efficient.Nothing like Neve’s small, lived-in home.There was no softness there.No warmth.No welcome.Just the echo of my footsteps.
I stripped as I walked.Jacket first.Then my shirt.Belt.Everything fell where it fell until I was left in slacks and a pulse that wouldn’t settle.I poured a drink and stepped onto the balcony.
Night had laid itself over the city, scattered with lights from homes, restaurants, the lives of people who still got to be normal.Laughter filtered up from the street.A bar played music a block away, something upbeat and careless.It felt like a different universe entirely.One I no longer recognized.
I tried to steady myself, but my thoughts kept tugging in the same damn direction.
Neve Trimboli was here in Tuscany.Breathing.Existing.Carrying scars that traced back to me.She shouldn’t have been here, let alone in my orbit.Not in my world.Not in my shadow.But she was.
I told myself the answer was simple, and that I should end it.Tie off the loose thread before it unraveled the whole tapestry.Protect the family.Protect the throne.Protect everything I’d sacrificed to hold.
But when I closed my eyes… I saw her in that restaurant.Her shoulders squared even while fear twisted under her skin.Her jaw set like she’d rather choke on her own pride than hand it over.She was stubborn.Stronger than she had any right to be.Still fighting for survival after all this time.
The whiskey burned down my throat, but it didn’t settle anything.
I needed to kill her.That was the rule.The logic.The clean solution.
But for the second time in fifteen years… I didn’t know if I had it in me to do what needed to be done.And that terrified me far more than she ever could.
10
Neve
Zelda was already arguing with Paolo before I reached her stall.
It was the same routine as always.He spotted a woman walking by and threw out a catcall loud enough to rattle his display, just to get Zelda’s attention.She never disappointed.The two of them could probably fight through an earthquake.
Paolo leaned over his crates of tomatoes the second he saw me heading toward them, like my arrival was his cue to turn the volume up.
“Bella!You come to me today, yes?”he called out.
He wasn’t even looking at me.His eyes were locked on Zelda, waiting for her reaction.She folded her arms, her whole face twisting in irritation.
“Oh, shut up, Paolo,” she snapped.“You flirt with every woman who breathes near your stall.”
His grin widened.He loved this, lived for any sort of attention Zelda was willing to give him.
The market noise was loud today, vendors calling out specials, tourists asking prices, children whining for sweets, but Paolo’s voice rose above all of it.He seemed to think louder meant more charming.
Zelda’s glare could kill a man twice his size, but Paolo just tilted his head and leaned on his counter like he was posing for a painting no one asked for.And despite myself, I felt a small flicker of amusement.Their arguments were predictable, loud and dramatic, but underneath all that noise, there was something so obvious to anyone paying attention.
He wanted her.And she pretended not to want him back.