Page 263 of Untamed

“You already did,” I answer quietly. “The second you backed the marriage to Giana, you chose their world over mine.”

I wait for him to deny it, but he doesn’t say a word. And maybe that’s the clearest answer he’s ever given me.

“I’d rather die for her than live with a woman I don’t fucking want.”

Enzo scoffs, but I cut him off with a glare sharp enough to draw blood.

“You think I don’t know how this ends? That I haven’t run every fucking scenario in my head? I’m not stupid, Enzo, I just don’t see the point in surviving a world without her in it.”

I step forward, voice dropping to something raw and low. “And don’t talk to me about Giana like she’s a solution. She’s a cage dressed in silk and Luciano’s signature on the bars. You want to survive this war? Fine. But I’m not crawling through it just to sit on a throne built on someone else’s blood, holding someone else’s fucking hand.”

I hold his gaze as I utter the next words. “She’s my endgame,” I whisper. “Not a deal. Not a strategy.Her. I’ll protect her withmy last fucking breath, even if that means becoming the very monster I’ve spent my whole life trying to outrun.”

“You always did love too hard,” Enzo mutters, his tone defeated.

“Love like this doesn’t come soft, Enzo. It carves itself into bone.”

I turn to leave, but pause, just long enough to look him dead in the eye.

“Tell dear old Papà, nice try sending you to reel me in. But no dice. If he wants to leash me, he better come and try it himself.”

“Ares—”

I don’t wait around for him to spit out whatever he has to say, I turn and start walking away. “Riferisci al che la sua arma non obbedisce più.”

Tell the Don his weapon doesn’t follow orders anymore.

It’s nearly dawn, I can hear the bird chirping away outside, but I’m wide awake. Sleep is a luxury right now, one neither I nor Ares have.

I lie in his bed, naked, still wrapped in the warmth he left behind, eyes fixed on the ceiling as shadows stretch across the room like long, clawed fingers. The scent of him clings to the sheets, smoke, earth, something darker I’ve never been able to name. And now, it feels like it’s slipping through my fingers with every breath I take. With every second that ticks past.

Ares said he’d come back, and I trust him. Because he always does. But this time…I can’t shake this unsettling sense that it feels a lot like goodbye. I’m doing everything I can to reassuremyself that wewillsurvive this war. but deep down, I can't shake off the sense that something awful is looming just ahead.

My chest is tight, brittle and aching, as that thought presses in harder.

God, what if he doesn’t come back? What if last night was the last time I’ll ever feel his arms around me? The last time he kissed me like I was everything he’d ever need… and whispered that he loved me like it was a vow?

My fingers twist into the sheet, grasping for something, anything, that feels real. But the room feels hollow now. The silence isn’t just silence. It’s dread. Thick and stifling. Like the world is holding its breath, waiting for the moment it all falls apart.

Because heisgoing to war.

And he’s doing it forme.

I saw it in his eyes. The calm before the storm. The credence of choices already made. He kissed me like a man already walking into fire. There was a goodbye buried in his touch, and I was too afraid to name it...untilnow.

What am I supposed to do? Sit tight in a house off the grid someplace I don’t know, all alone, likely too far away. Safe but sheltered. Just...waiting.Day in, day out...no communication...just waiting to hear if he’s alive or been killed.

I can’t. I can’t do it. I’ll lose my damn mind.

He’s going to kill. He’s going to bleed. And he’s not going to stop until he burns down everything that threatens me.

Me. Not him, not his family or his legacy.Me.

If I hadn’t come here...If I had just listened to him and hadn’t tangled myself into his world, into his heart...he wouldn’t be out there painting targets on his back.

Fuck.I don’t want to admit to myself, but Luciano was right. If I stay… Iwillbe the reason he dies.

Despite him telling me he’s okay with not surviving this war as long as I’m breathing, I’m not okay with it. I’m not. Without me he’d have a future. He would have power. He wouldn’t be sacrificing everything for a girl he was never meant to love.

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