ALESSANDRO’S POVPeople always said a bad day was not a bad life, but when your entire month was as bad as mine, it was safe enough to call it a bad life.According to Leo, the members of the Crimson Hand—the shadow cult that had killed my parents—had risen again, and we had defeated their main forces. All that was left was for us to hunt down the remaining minor members, and they would be gone for good.Also, according to him, I was dating Bianca Rossi, the woman I had an eye on ever since I saw her straight-laced and desolate that one night at a club. She was feisty, one of the most feisty women I had ever seen. She knew she was talking to Alessandro Moretti, but she didn’t hold back her fire and just kept stabbing me with truthful words I hadn’t wanted to hear after I tried poking into her business.And I had no memory of winning her over.Many things were important in a man’s life, and the day said man finally got the woman of his dreams ranked among the most important, yet I had
LEO’S POVI had to stay and wait for Bianca to arrive before I went to Charlie. She deserved much more than a rushed phone call. I had to go see her. I had been staying with Alessandro because he lost his memory and was more unbearable than usual. I couldn’t let the staff or Giovanni suffer his wrath.Now that Bianca was coming, I hoped he would at least be less angry and closed off.The first thing Alessandro did was run upstairs. He zoomed past me like he was angrily chasing down Crimson Hand members. I could have sworn the wind from his run lifted my hair a little bit. Giovanni, on the other hand, had stepped out of the kitchen holding a bowl of cereal. Had he not eaten all day?It occurred to me that he had been specifically holed up in his room, hiding from his brother all day. He only came down because he had given out information.“What are you looking at, betrayer?” Giovanni scowled at me. I huffed a laugh and went to sit beside him at the home bar. Only Giovanni would eat cer
BIANCA’S POVI had called Darren to follow me, along with the guild members. If we happened to meet Alessandro’s trigger-happy brother, Darren would be too distracting for him to interrupt the brutal conversation I was about to have with Alessandro. I debated calling Charlie, but I didn’t know if Leo was going to be there.The waiting room was elaborate, far more than necessary. This was my first time visiting this house; we were always at his smaller, more modest building. But this was the Moretti equivalent of the White House. If he wasn’t here, there was nowhere else I knew to search.There were many more employees milling about, and we were let in without having to wait. Someone must have known I was coming because they asked for my name and sent me on my way.“That is a gorgeous garden,” Darren exclaimed, his hand going to his mouth in awe of the sheer opulence.I had lived with Matteo for a long time; he believed in extravagance, and our home was extravagant, but it couldn’t com
LEO’S POVWhen the Morettis sauntered off to see Bianca and her friend, I was tempted to follow them. After all, Bianca and I were cool, and I wanted to see if she was okay too.I followed behind them—not close enough to intrude, but close enough for Bianca to see me and say hi.However, when the first thing I heard was Bianca’s angry voice, I immediately made a U-turn. I had never walked back so fast in my life. At that moment, it was truly confirmed that Bianca had a five-year-old boy. Her tone was so eerily familiar with what my mother used to use before she gave me an ass-whooping for being so stubborn as a child.I sympathized with Alessandro; it was his cross to bear, and I hoped he bore it like a champion. I couldn’t help but wince at the thought that I would go through worse with Charlie. I sat at the home bar again, poured myself a shot of whatever wine Giovanni had added to his cereal, and imagined how it was going to go.I’d be standing outside my door, a bouquet of flowers
DARREN’S POVI had to admit, when Bianca asked me to come along with her to see Alessandro in his main Moretti house, I had been extremely reluctant.I still hadn’t called or reached out to Giovanni in any form. I didn’t know if it was nerves or just the fact that he had held a gun to Bianca the first moment he saw her, but I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted anything to do with someone so aggressive.However, Bianca’s stupid ex-husband had defamed her all over social media, and I absolutely didn’t want my best friend to head over to her boyfriend alone with his disappearing act. She needed emotional support. I suspected that the real reason she wanted me to follow her was so she could monitor me to prevent me from letting it leak that half of Matteo’s businesses were a money laundering front.She was too damn nice—that was why people tried to pull silly strings. Linda was coming over to Italy soon, and I would summon the rest of our friend group. We had a bastard with the Ricci last name
DARREN’S POV “Any woman that has the strength and forces to get past the guild members and cross into the other side would ruin us all if we don’t kill her on sight,” he said, as if any of his words made any sense at all. What kind of enemies would they have? Unless my best friend’s new boyfriend was involved with a fucking mafia, I didn’t think that kind of precaution was necessary. “What do you mean, strength and forces? What is going on in your family?! Why is shooting a random woman normal to you?” I yelled. In this current conversation, I was the only one yelling. I hated yelling. “That’s not my story to tell, not until Sandro approves of I—” He was trying to weasel out of the conversation, and I was trying to weasel out of liking the aggressive brute. “That is a shitty answer, and you know it! You can’t start that kind of conversation and not continue it!” “We have enemies! We have people who would LOVE to see every single person in my family six feet in the ground! If
BIANCA’S POVMemory loss? What had he done to lead to memory loss?“How did you lose your memory?” I asked, my expression guarded. I wasn’t sure what was going on again, but it was beginning to look like Alessandro wasn’t the man I thought he was.“According to Leo, a building fell on me,” he said casually as if that were something that happened to regular people all the time. Worry permeated me, and I turned to look at him closely, searching for any visible injuries.They were there—small scrapes and cuts on his head and the rest of his body that I hadn’t seen before. They were minute in size but plentiful in number, as though one had moved their phone screen against a rough piece of rock.“When?! How? What happened?” I asked, stopping beside a giant, gorgeous tree with purple and red flowers. We had walked a small distance from the entrance, but I could still see it. This garden truly was ethereal. Almost as ethereal as Alessandro himself. He looked so casual, and we were walking th
BIANCA’S POVHe seemed pleased that Luca looked like him, but he didn’t say anything to confirm or deny what I had just said.“I feel like I need to shove a paternity test in his face,” I said again. The waters I was trying to test were not moving in my favor yet.“I’ll make a public statement for him to back off our Luca,” Alessandro assured me, moving to remove his phone from his shorts’ pocket. I stopped him. He had lost his memories, and Matteo was a cunning piece of shit. If Alessandro joined the fray as he was right then, he had the chance to be manipulated.“Wait, let’s not go after Matteo until you get back all your memories,” I said, bringing his hands forward. It seemed a little excessive, but I had him swear not to. It wasn’t actually excessive since it was Alessandro—he was as stubborn as a mule.“Do you remember when we had Luca?” I changed the subject with a smile. If my suspicions were correct, then he was my one-night stand five years ago. I had thought Luca was Matteo