Page 147 of Twisted Vows

I take a deep breath and move forward. “It’s time to finish this.”

My voice is steady. It never shakes before the possibility of death. But a pulse that isn’t anger stirs inside. Perhaps love. Probably the last clean thing left in me.

“We’re outnumbered. They have weapons and men who don’t care who bleeds.” I let that sink in. “But they don’t have us. They don’t know us. And they don’t know what it means to fight for something that matters.”

“So go home,” I say. “Hold your wives. Kiss your kids. Sleep beside the people who make this worth surviving.” A beat. “Come back ready.”

Thunder rolls overhead as I climb back out into the rain, focusing on the mission and ignoring the slap of wet pavement beneath my boots. Most of all, I try to bury the whisper of Sophia’s name somewhere in the back of my mind.

Every step forward feels final. Every breath tastes like memory.

And for the first time in years, I find peace in knowing I’m approaching the end.

After a while, I return to the house, but I stop short of the door when I find Marco asleep inside his SUV that’s parked out front.

In the back seat, Gio snores low, his gun sprawled across his lap. He twitches in his dreams, his fingers flexing as if still pulling triggers. Too young for this kind of life, all of them. That’s why I’m leaving Gio behind during the mission.

I debate climbing into the vehicle as well but decide against it. Sleep doesn’t come for me. It never does on nights like this. My mind runs laps around ghosts. Her face when she left, the way her mouth trembled like she was swallowing something she couldn’t forgive…

So I go and sit on the hood instead and light a cigarette, its ember glowing like a slow fuse in the gray. The air is cold and sharp. Every inhale drags metal and rain into my lungs…bitter and clean, like penance.

I stretch out on the hood, fold my arms behind my head, and stare up at a sky that doesn’t care whether I live through tomorrow.

Sophia would’ve hated this.

Hated the recklessness, the martyr complex, and the way I pretend I don’t have anything left to lose.

She was the last thing that mattered to me.

The next time I check my watch, it’s twelve minutes after five in the morning and everything is pitch-dark. I hear footsteps. Measured. Deliberate. Like heels on wet gravel.

“Izzy.”

“Good morning to you too.” Her voice drips with insincere warmth.

She emerges from the shadows, wrapped in a snug black coat, her red lipstick sharp enough to wound. Her kind of beauty always comes with conditions and hidden blades.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say flatly.

“I heard you were planning a suicide mission.” She tilts her head, her eyes tracing me like I’m both a threat and a temptation. “Couldn’t resist watching.”

“Consider this your warning. Turn around.”

She doesn’t. Of course not.

“You’re wasting yourself on this vendetta,” she argues. “I don’t want you to do this. You could have everything Gabi denied you. Men. Money. Respect.”

“Respect’s a myth.”

Her smile becomes predatory. “You could be the Padrino, Enzo. Imagine it. No leash. No Benedetti shadow over your head. You and I…we could build something better.”

I flick my cigarette butt after it burns to the filter. “You mistake ambition for purpose.”

“Then what’s your purpose, hm? To die for a woman who walked away?” A dagger hides underneath that silky tone. She strides closer, her hand pressing against my chest. Her nails graze the fabric. “You deserve someone who matches your darkness, not someone who’s scared of it.”

Her touch—cold fingers on a dead heart—does nothing.

“You think that’s what love is?”