4 - 2

Damiano Lombardi – POV

The pain is sharp, deep—lodged just beneath my ribs like a curse.

It’s not the worst I’ve had. Not even close. But it’s inconvenient and painful.

I hate inconvenient.

I press my hand against the wound, stumbling behind the alley where the streetlights don’t reach. My breath comes in shallow bursts, my shirt sticking to my skin, warm with blood. It smell rusty.

This town is too quiet for this kind of noise. I know someone will definitely come.

But I don’t expect her.

Not yet.

But then she’s there in a blur at first, she is rushing toward me, her voice soft and she is panicked. "Are you okay?"

I almost laugh.

It’s her.

Aurora.

No—that’s not her real name. I know it. She is Aurora Sienna Moretti.

Her hands are on me out of the blue, searching for the wound. She is shining a flashlight with her phone. I study her face, and for the first time in a minute, the ache in my side dulls. Not from anything she’s done yet but just from seeing her up so close again.

She doesn’t recognize me. Not yet. I haven’t spilled my identity to her.

Or maybe she does, and she’s just pretending. Smart girl. I like it.

“I should call an ambulance,” she says, her voice trembling.

“No.” I utter instantly.

I see the shift in her eyes, the way fear sharpens into familiarity. She knows what I am. Maybe who I am.

I tell her to take the bullet out, and she doesn't even flinch after that.

She just moves.

She pulls a blade from her bag like she’s done this a million of times before.

Interesting.

The hands are calm. The scarf she ties over the wound which is quick and clean.

There’s more to her than the quiet café and soft-spoken words.

My people are minutes away. I tell her that. She nods and rises to leave, breath caught between relief and panic.

She runs away.

I don’t stop her because it’s her little naughty talent of always running away from me. I want to laugh at the thought but I am dying in pain.

So I just watch her.

Because now I know what I suspected the moment I stepped into her café—

She’s not just hiding.

She’s surviving.

And whether she likes it or not, she just got pulled back into my world.

The one she tried to escape.

***

I remember the first time I saw her.

She was wearing a baby pink jumpsuit which was too innocent for the room she was dragged into. Her long hair was unkempt, her wrists trembling as she fought and screamed, tears carving down her cheeks like she could cry her way out of her fate.

She didn’t know me. Not then. He didn’t even see me.

But I knew exactly who she was.

Her stepbrother, that pathetic worm Luca Rizzoto, delivered her to my estate like a gift wrapped in defiance. A pawn in exchange for his own life. I needed a bride, a name beside mine, to solidify a billion-dollar agreement with men who value family ties more than bloodshed. She would fit the role perfectly.

I had a white bridal dress laid out for her. It was made only for her, hand crafted by talented designers with Swarovski diamonds on it. She would’ve been so lucky to wear it.

But I watched her from behind the one-way glass. Every move. Every tear. Every breath. There was something in her which was more fire than fear. And I made a decision before she even looked my way.

She was going to be mine.

But she ran away.

She slipped through the fingers that were never meant to be escaped. Vanished like a ghost, leaving behind onlysmoke and fury. I lost the deal and worse, I lost face. Her stepfather turned into me to save his own reputation, accusing me of making her disappear.

A coward’s move.

Revenge became inevitable. We became rivals.

It took time to find her. She covered her tracks well—no IDs, no trail. But Vincent spotted her. Said there was a woman running a quiet little café, calling herself Aurora. Said she wore a flamingo-shaped necklace.

That necklace.

The same delicate chain she wore the day she was brought to me, clutched between her fingers like a lifeline. She still wears it. Like she’s daring me to recognize her. Like come and see I am your bride who ran away… Or maybe she wears it because she still remembers everything she tried to forget.That necklace is still there, that tiny flamingo charm resting against her collarbone. It's the only piece she didn’t bury when she vanished.

When I saw her in the café, I knew. With only one look.

Time didn’t change her. Not the way it should have.

She’s still soft in the face, but her eyes carry the weight of freedom and also mixed with fear. A freedom she wasn’t meant to have.

She doesn’t know yet.

But I didn’t come to this town for business.

I came for her.

She belongs to me.

And this time there will be no running away from me.