Chapter five

A Mother’s Betrayal

The world tilted on its axis.

My mother. The woman I had mourned, the one I had buried in my heart alongside my father’s cold corpse—was standing right in front of me. Alive. Whole. 

And watching.

Everything inside me froze. My mind screamed at me to move, to act, to defend myself, but my body refused to respond. I could only stare, my breath caught in my throat, my heart pounding so loudly I thought it would explode.

The chaos of the fight blurred around me. Dante and Ryder had engaged Lorenzo, their fists flying, while Sasha and Luca struggled to gain the upper hand. But none of it registered—not when the ghost of my mother stood before me.

She took a step forward, her gaze locked on mine, and I saw it then. The cold indifference in her eyes. The hardness that had always lingered beneath the surface, now fully revealed. It was like seeing her for the first time—as she truly was.

“Elena,” she said softly, her voice carrying over the chaos as though she wasn’t surrounded by violence. It was that same gentle tone she’d used when I was a child, when she’d soothed me after nightmares of blood and death. “You look so much like him. So much like your father.”

Her words sliced through me like a blade. She was supposed to be dead. She had disappeared alongside my father, killed by a rival family—or so I had believed for years. The grief I had carried, the pain of losing her, had shaped my entire life. And now, she was standing here, alive, as if none of it had mattered.

“How?” My voice cracked, barely audible. “How are you alive?”

She smiled—a slow, calculating curve of her lips that made my blood run cold. “Alive? Darling, I never left. You were just too blind to see it.”

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut, and I stumbled back a step, my legs weak beneath me. I shook my head, disbelief clouding my vision. “No… no, you… you died. You *died*!”

“Is that what you were told?” Her tone was mocking now, the gentleness long gone. “I can’t imagine why you would believe such a convenient lie. You never questioned it, did you?”

My breath hitched, and the room around me seemed to spin. I had never questioned it. My father had been assassinated, his enemies ruthless and efficient, or so I had thought. And my mother had… vanished. I’d assumed the worst, that she’d been taken, killed—something. But never this. Never that she had chosen to leave.

She took another step closer, her presence overwhelming. The familiarity of her scent, her voice, mixed with the realization that I no longer knew the woman standing before me. The woman I had loved, trusted—betrayed by her very existence.

“What… what do you want?” I barely managed to whisper, my throat tightening.

Her eyes flickered with something dark, something ruthless. “I want what’s mine.”

The simplicity of her statement made my skin crawl. I backed away further, instinctively seeking the safety of the walls, but I couldn’t escape the cold grip of dread tightening around me. The same dread that had been haunting me for years.

Behind me, the sounds of the fight raged on. Lorenzo was laughing now, his deep voice echoing through the room as Dante and Ryder tried to land a blow. But I couldn’t focus on them, not when my mother’s presence sucked the oxygen from the room.

“How long?” I asked, my voice hollow. “How long have you been watching?”

Her smile widened, as if she had been waiting for that question. “Since the day you disappeared. You thought you were clever, didn’t you? Running away, hiding your little secret. But you were never out of reach, Elena. I always knew where you were. I just didn’t care… until now.”

The walls around me seemed to close in, the weight of her revelation crushing. The years I had spent looking over my shoulder, the paranoia that had driven me to hide my children—it had all been for nothing. She had always known. 

“You… you knew?” I whispered, feeling the world crumble beneath me. “About the children?”

Her smile faltered for the briefest moment, and then her eyes narrowed with a chilling intensity. “Of course I knew. I know everything.”

A strangled sound escaped my throat as I clutched at my stomach, the horror of it all sinking in. My own mother had known I was pregnant, had known about the children, and had let me suffer, alone, in fear. She had let me run, let me believe that I was keeping them safe.

She had let me live a lie.

“Why?” I choked out, my chest constricting as the betrayal took hold. “Why didn’t you come for me? For them?”

Her eyes flashed with something unreadable, a flicker of emotion that was gone as quickly as it appeared. “Because it wasn’t time.”

My knees buckled, and I stumbled against the wall, the weight of her words crashing down on me. “Time for what?”

She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “For you to take your place, Elena. To claim the empire your father left behind.”

A sickening realization dawned on me then, cold and bitter, spreading through my veins like poison. This wasn’t about me, or my children. This was about power. It had always been about power.

I shook my head, refusing to believe it. “I don’t want it. I never wanted it.”

Her expression darkened, and for the first time, I saw the true extent of her cruelty. The woman who had raised me, who had once been my protector, had turned into something monstrous. “You don’t have a choice, Elena. The empire is yours, whether you want it or not.”

“No,” I said, my voice shaking but firm. “I’m not part of that world anymore. I left for a reason.”

She laughed then, a cold, hollow sound that made my blood run cold. “You think you can just walk away? That’s not how this works. You were born into this, Elena. It’s in your blood. You’re a Romano, and that means you will *always* belong to this world.”

I wanted to scream, to tear myself away from the truth she was forcing upon me, but I couldn’t. The weight of her words pressed down on me, suffocating me with the knowledge that no matter how far I ran, I could never escape my legacy.

And then, in the midst of my spiraling thoughts, I heard a voice—Lorenzo’s voice, cutting through the chaos like a blade.

“She’s right, you know.”

I snapped my head toward him, my body tense as I watched him shove Dante back against the wall. Blood trickled down Dante’s lip, but he didn’t stop fighting, his fists swinging with brutal precision. Yet Lorenzo remained unfazed, his gaze locked on mine.

“This was always your destiny, Elena,” Lorenzo said, his voice smooth and controlled. “You’ve been running from it for too long.”

I shook my head, backing away from both of them, my heart pounding in my chest. “No. I won’t do this. I won’t let you control me.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Lorenzo said, his voice turning colder. “The children are the key, Elena. They’re the heirs to an empire greater than any of these men could ever imagine. And with them in my grasp, I will control it all.”

A wave of nausea hit me as his words sank in. My children. He was after them. All of this—the fights, the manipulations, the lies—it was all about them. My precious babies, the only thing I had fought to protect all these years, were nothing more than pawns in their twisted game.

“No,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the sound of my own heartbeat. “I won’t let you.”

Lorenzo’s eyes glinted with amusement. “You can’t stop me, Elena. You never could.”

Panic surged through me, and I felt the walls closing in, the room spinning as the reality of the situation hit me full force. I was trapped, surrounded by enemies—by people who had once loved me, by my own blood, and by the very man who had orchestrated my destruction.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the door to the room burst open once more.

This time, it wasn’t an enemy. 

It was my son. 

“Mom?” His voice was small, scared, and it broke me in ways I hadn’t thought possible.

Time slowed to a crawl as I turned toward him, my heart shattering into a million pieces. There he was—my beautiful boy, standing in the doorway, his eyes wide with fear as he took in the scene around him. 

“No,” I gasped, my legs moving before I could even think. “*No*!”

I ran toward him, my mind consumed with a singular thought—protect him. Shield him from the darkness that was closing in on all sides. But before I could reach him, before I could pull him into my arms, Lorenzo’s voice rang out, cold and sharp.

“Come here, boy.”

I froze.

My son hesitated, his eyes flicking between me and Lorenzo, confusion etched across his innocent face. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t.

“Don’t!” I screamed, my voice breaking as I lunged forward. “Stay with me!”

But it was too late.

With a sickening smile, Lorenzo extended his hand, and my son—my sweet, terrified son—took a step toward him. 

Toward the man who had sworn to destroy us all.