Page 151 of The Ache That Stayed

My jaw tightened, just slightly. The timing was deliberate. Nothing about this felt accidental. I looked at the man next to Jimmy, looking at me, waiting for my reaction. My fingers tightened imperceptibly around the glass in my hand, the crystal giving a faint, protesting sound beneath the pressure before I forced my grip to ease.

Control wasn’t something I lost in rooms like these. Not for men like them. And certainly not over whatever game the bastard thought he was playing. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

I set the phone down slowly.

Across the table, the argument had escalated between Ronnie and Jimmy. One of them stood abruptly, chair scraping against the floor. Another leaned forward, voice rising, the conversation slipping past negotiation and into insult.

I stood. The movement alone was enough to shift the room.

“Sit,” I said in Mandarin, not raising my voice.

I gave Ronnie a knowing look, and he sat. Silence followed—not agreement, not respect, but recognition. No one spoke for a while. But they sat. That was enough. For now.

My phone buzzed again. I ignored it. Then again. And again.

When I finally looked down—Roxanne. Calling.

“Amore,” I said, quieter now as I stepped away from the table, turning just enough to carve out space from the noise. “I’m in the middle of something. Can this wait?”

There was a pause—brief, almost imperceptible.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s fine.” Her voice was too steady, but something felt amiss.

“I just—nothing. I’ll call you later.”

I could have pushed. Could have asked why her voice sounded restrained instead of warm. Why instinct had been clawing at me since the moment I saw the photographs.

Instead—

“I’ll see you soon,” I said.

The line went dead. I stood there a moment longer than necessary, the silence pressing in, in a way I didn’t like. I slipped the phone back into my pocket and returned to the table as though everything was fine.

By the time the meeting ended, hours had passed—enough for tempers to cool, for decisions to take shape, for alliances to settle into a temporary but functional fix. I checked my phone again, expecting something—anything—from her. There was nothing. No missed call. No message.

Just the images, sitting exactly where I had left them, unchanged. I opened them again, slower this time, not looking for confirmation but for contradiction—for anything that told me I was misreading what I saw. A sign that dismissed the feeling settling beneath my ribs. I didn’t find any.

Another message sat beneath them.

My expression didn’t change. But an unease settled into place beneath the surface, quiet and deliberate in a way I recognised too well.

The next day, a message came from her saying she loved me. It wasn’t anything suspicious, but a chill slid down my spine. I called her. Nothing. By the third attempt, her phone was switched off. Roxanne never turned her phone off. Never.

A sharper edge slid beneath my thoughts as I dialled Santino next. If there was anyone who would know where she was—

His phone was off too. That was the moment instinct stopped whispering. Every part of me went completely cold.

I was on a flight within the hour. Because whether this was betrayal, manipulation or something far worse—I intended to look it in the eye myself.

CHAPTER 41

Marcello

Ireland felt colder than London. Sharper in a way that didn’t sit right. My phone rang before I even stepped out of the car. An unknown number flashed across my screen. Not the same one as before. I answered anyway.

“Yes.”

There was a pause—brief, measured. Then—