Chapter 4 - Caleb’s WarningCaleb was not dead.
Victor said those words first, because he must have seen murder on my face.
“He’s alive,” he repeated. “But someone tried to enter his room.”
I pushed myself upright too fast and nearly blacked out.
Victor caught my shoulders.
“Don’t.”
“Take me to him.”
“You can barely stand.”
“Then carry me.”
His jaw flexed.
One hour later, he did.
Caleb’s new medical facility sat on the top floor of a private hospital near the lake. There were cameras in every hall, guards at every elevator, and a doctor who looked terrified when Victor Romano walked in carrying his injured wife.
Caleb lay asleep beneath a pale blue blanket.
He was twenty-two, though illness had thinned him until he looked younger. His hair had grown too long over his forehead. Machines monitored his heart, his breathing, the fragile rhythm of the only person in the world who had belonged to me before the Romanos swallowed my life.
I touched his hand.
Warm.
Alive.
I nearly collapsed from relief.
Victor stood by the door, giving me the illusion of privacy.
“What happened?” I asked without turning.
His security chief, Dante, answered.
“Man dressed as an orderly came in at 9:40 p.m. Badge was fake. He left when the nurse challenged him. Dropped this in the stairwell.”
He held up a plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a photograph.
Me, lying over Leo in the sunroom.
Taken from outside the shattered glass.
On the back, written in black marker:
BRIDES BURN TOO.
Victor’s expression did not change, but the room temperature seemed to drop.
I stared at the message.
“Alessia,” I whispered.
Victor looked at me.
“Your wife died in a car bomb,” I said. “And now someone sends this after you marry me.”
Dante shifted. “It could be a threat from the same people.”
“No,” Victor said.
His voice was quiet.
“This is personal.”
Caleb’s fingers moved beneath mine.
I looked down.
His eyes were open.
“Mara?”
I bent over him carefully, ignoring the pain. “I’m here.”
He blinked slowly. “You look terrible.”
I laughed through tears. “You always know what to say.”
His gaze moved past me and landed on Victor.
Fear sharpened his face.
“Is that him?”
Victor stepped forward. “Victor Romano.”
“My sister’s boss.”
“My wife.”
Caleb’s eyes widened.
Then he tried to sit up.
“No. Absolutely not. Mara, what did you do?”
“She saved my son,” Victor said.
Caleb looked at me.
I could see him piecing it together. The bandages. The ring. The guards. The fear.
“Mara,” he whispered. “Tell me this isn’t payment.”
I squeezed his hand. “It’s complicated.”
“That means yes.”
“No.”
Victor watched us in silence.
Caleb’s eyes filled with fury, weak but real.
“You can’t have her,” he told Victor. “She spent her life being used by people with more power. You don’t get to be another one.”
For the first time since I had known him, Victor did not respond like a king.
He responded like a man being judged.
“You’re right,” he said.
Caleb blinked.
Victor continued, “I have power over her circumstances. I won’t pretend otherwise. But I will not use it to break her.”
Caleb laughed bitterly. “That supposed to comfort me?”
“No,” Victor said. “It’s supposed to be true.”
The heart monitor beeped steadily.
Caleb looked at me again. “Do you want this?”
The question landed like a blade.
Did I want this?
A hospital chapel wedding. A dead woman’s bedroom. Armed guards. A man whose world turned people into leverage.
“No,” I said honestly.
Victor’s face did not move.
“But I want Leo alive,” I continued. “I want you safe. And I want the people who did this to stop deciding who gets to live.”
Caleb closed his eyes.
“You sound tired.”
“I am.”
“You sound scared.”
“I am.”
His fingers tightened around mine.
“Then promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“If you find a chance to run, and staying means losing yourself, you run.”
Victor heard it.
I knew he did.
So did Caleb.
I looked at my brother’s thin hand in mine.
“I promise.”
Victor turned toward the window.
Outside, dawn was beginning to gray the sky.
Dante’s phone buzzed. He checked it, then looked at Victor.
“We found the fake orderly’s car.”
Victor’s eyes sharpened. “Where?”
“Abandoned under Lower Wacker.”
“And?”
Dante hesitated.
“There was a woman’s scarf inside.”
Victor went still.
“What kind?”
“Silk. Blue. Initials embroidered on the corner.”
The silence deepened.
Victor spoke first.
“A.R.”
Dante nodded.
My stomach tightened.
“Who is A.R.?”
May you like
Victor looked at Caleb, then at me.
“My sister,” he said.
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