The left side of his face was a grotesque map of ruined flesh. Thick, angry scar tissue pulling his mouth into a permanent snarl, one eye milky and blind, the other burning with something unhinged and desperate.
Half his face was the man I remembered, cold, controlled, lethal. The other half was a monster Santino had created. He moved with steady, deliberate steps, and the gun in his hand was held with terrifying steadiness.
“Aurora,” he rasped, his voice wet and broken, like stones grinding together in his throat. “You stupid little girl.”
I killed the engine. The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by the crash of waves far below and the pounding of my own heart. My hands shook as I gripped the handlebars tighter, refusing to let go completely. Like the bike could still save me.
“Sergio…” My voice cracked. “How did you…”
“You think I wouldn’t follow you?” He laughed, that horrible wet sound echoing off the cliffs. “You ran straight from his bed to my crypt and now you’re running again. Always running. Always making stupid decisions.”
He took a step closer. The two men who had exited the other doors stayed back, watching with cold detachment. His loyalists. The ones who had dragged what was left of him from that blood-soaked altar.
“I told you,” he continued, gesturing with the gun like it was an extension of his ruined hand. “I told you he would destroy you. But you didn’t listen. You went back to him. Let him fuck you. Let him put his bastard in you.”
My hand instinctively moved to my stomach again. Sergio’s good eye tracked the movement, and something vicious flashed across his ruined face.
“Pregnant,” he spat. “With the Devil’s child. You really are just a stupid little girl, aren’t you? Running around thinking you could have freedom. Thinking you could choose. Thinking you could fix what that monster broke.”
Tears burned my eyes. The guilt I’d been carrying since the crypt crashed over me like a tidal wave. This was my fault. Santino had done this to him, for me. Because of one reckless kiss at a bachelorette party. Because Santino had decided I was his the moment our eyes met across that club.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, voice trembling. “Sergio, I’m so sorry for what he did to you. I never wanted this.”
“Save your apologies,” he snarled, cutting me off. He stepped closer, the gun never wavering. “You had your chance to come with me. To let me save you. But you chose him. Again. So now I have to take matters into my own hands.”
He reached out with his free hand, and grabbed my arm in a bruising grip. I gasped as he yanked me off the bike. The motorcycle tipped and fell with a metallic crash onto the road.
“You’re just a stupid little girl,” Sergio repeated, his breath hot and metallic against my face. “Playing dress-up in a world that will eat you alive. You think Santino loves you? He doesn’t love anything except power. He’ll use that baby to tie you down forever, then discard you when you’re no longer useful.”
I struggled against his hold, but he was stronger than he looked, desperation and madness giving him strength. “Let me go, Sergio. Please. This isn’t you. You were never like this.”
His ruined mouth twisted into something that might have been a smile. “You don’t know me anymore, Aurora. Thanks to your devil.”
He started dragging me toward the SUV. My heels dug into the gravel, panic clawing up my throat. The baby. I couldn’t let him take me. Not like this.
“Chiara!” I screamed, hoping against hope that the call had somehow gone through before the phone fell. “Chiara, help me!”
Sergio laughed again, that broken, wheezing sound. “No one’s coming to save you, little girl. Not your sister. Not your devil. Not this time.”
He shoved me into the back of the SUV. The door slammed shut behind me with terrifying finality. As the vehicle roared to life and sped off down the coastal road, I pressed both hands to my stomach and whispered a silent prayer to whoever might be listening.
The SUV sped deeper into the unknown, the coastal road giving way to narrower, winding paths that cut through dense forest. I kept my hands pressed tightly over my stomach, trying to shield the tiny life inside me from the madness surrounding us.
Sergio had gone quiet for a few minutes, but the silence was worse than the muttering. Then he turned in his seat again, slowly this time, and looked at me with an almostgentle expression on the undamaged side of his face. It made everything so much more horrifying.
“Don’t cry, Aurora,” he said softly, his voice oddly tender despite the rasp. “I’m not going to hurt you. I could never hurt you. You’re still my bride. Even after everything.”
He reached back between the seats with his hand and gently brushed a tear from my cheek with surprising care. The contrast between the tenderness of the touch and the grotesque ruin of his face made my skin crawl.
“You’re carrying his bastard,” he murmured, almost sadly, “but that’s not your fault. You’re just a stupid little girl who got caught in the devil’s web. I’ll fix it. I always fix things for you.”
The driver kept his eyes on the road, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. Even his own men were afraid of him now.
Sergio kept stroking my cheek with that ruined hand, murmuring to himself and to me in the same breath. “Pretty girl… always so pretty… even with his mark on you. I’ll cut it out if I have to. Make you clean again. We can still have our wedding. Smaller this time. Just us. No Morettis. No devils.”
I shrank back against the seat, fresh tears falling. “Sergio… please. This isn’t you. The man I was supposed to marry… He was cold, but he was sane. He had control.”
He smiled at me with the good side of his mouth, the ruined side twisting it into something nightmarish.