Chapter 38
Aurora POV
I don’t know how I end up making it back to the safehouse without having a complete and total meltdown.
It’s actually kind of a miracle.
One minute I’m walking out of Dominic’s penthouse with my heart hammering so hard I can barely breathe and the next I’m staring at the pale reflection of myself in my bathroom mirror, still in the same clothes I’d been wearing when I left.
Marry Dominic Guerrero.
Pushing away from the sink, I stumble back into my room and sink down onto the edge of the bed, my knees buckling the second I draw close to it.
How the hell did my life come to this? I thought the worst was over after Leonardo died—that I’d somehow escaped being forced into the Guerrero family against my will.
Naively, I thought somehow that I might finally be free to make my own choices. Instead, I’m now staring down the barrel of another prison. Only this one is much more dangerous.
Dominic isn’t Leonardo.
He’s younger, ruthless and infinitely more clever. Unlike Leonardo, he doesn’t need to bully people to get what he wants. He simply is the danger. A wolf among lambs, a king without a crown.
And he wants me at his side for whatever reason.
I press my face into my hands and exhale shakily, trying to organize the chaos of my thoughts.
It’s not that the idea of being with Dominic repulses me. If anything, that’s the most terrifying part of all this—I’m not exactly turned off by it. There’s something about him that pulls at the darkest, deepest parts of me, something that makes my pulse race and my blood hum with want.
When he looks at me, it’s like I’m the only thing that matters in the world. And when he touches me, I forget who I am entirely. I forget who we both are. But that doesn’t erase the reality of who he is at his core and what I’ve seen that he’s capable of.
I watched him orchestrate the death of his own father and not flinch at the sight of his body lying dead on the floor while chaos erupted around us. I watched him walk through blood and fire without flinching to retrieve me, barely batting an eye at the other innocent lives running for safety and getting gunned down in the process.
All done by his own hand.
I watched him dismantle everything around him with the kind of cold calculation that still sends chills down my spine whenever I think about it.
And now he’s asked me to bind myself to him forever. Because there’s no divorcing someone like Dominic Guerrero. If I marry him, there would be no leaving. No calling in a favor to make him disappear if he got too overwhelming or too cruel for me to handle.
It would be his world and his rules. His chains that would keep me tethered to him until my dying breath.
And that’s what scares me the most.
As I lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, I try to imagine what my life would look like with him.
What kind of husband would he be? What kind of father? Would he raise his children the way he was raised? Cold, ruthless and hungry for power above all else? Would he expect me to stand silently by while he painted the streets with blood?
Or… would he be different?
Could he be different?
I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m willing to take the risk to find out, either.
I don’t love him. At least… I don’t think I do.
Then again, I’m not sure of anything anymore.
The sun is just starting to rise when Gianna finally knocks on my door to wake me up for breakfast.
I’m curled up on top of my bed, still wearing last night’s clothes, when I slowly roll over to face the door.
She pushes it open and slips inside, a cup of coffee in each hand.
I glance up at her, offering a weak smile. “Thanks.”
She plops down on the bed across from me, handing me one while cradling her own mug between her hands.
“So,” she says after a moment. “What the hell happened last night?”
I laugh bitterly. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Gianna waits patiently while I take a long sip of coffee, trying to gather the courage to say it all out loud.
“Dominic asked me to marry him.”
Gianna’s mouth falls open in shock. She gapes at me for a good five seconds before she can even form words. “He what?”
A sigh leaves me. “He said the families are worried about the alliance crumbling now that Leonardo’s dead. They need another marriage to cement things. So, he volunteered us.”
Gianna blinks rapidly, her brain clearly short-circuiting. “But… you were already married. Technically. Doesn’t that count for something?”
I shake my head. “I guess not. Leonardo’s death annuls the marriage and it was never consummated. With him gone, the alliance is null so that’s why they want a new one in its place.”
Gianna groans, dragging a hand down her face. “That’s ridiculous. And you’re just… what? Supposed to roll over and say yes? I’m going to talk to my dad about this because there’s no way he was on board with that.”
I stare down into my coffee, the swirling liquid blurring as fresh tears sting my eyes.
Even if that were the case and Stefano did push back against the idea, it wouldn’t matter. According to Dominic, what’s done is done and there’s no stopping this bolder from continuing to roll down the hill.
I’m stuck at a fork in the road with both options leading towards the same destination. Dominic had agreed to give me time to think about it but in reality, I know it’s simply an illusion of choice.
Whether I like it or not, I’m going to be forced to marry Dominic eventually.
“I feel... trapped.” I mumble, more to myself.
Gianna is quiet for a long time, her expression torn between fury and sadness. When she finally speaks, her voice is low and fierce. “There’s no way you can marry him, Aurora. You can’t. You’ll never get out. Besides, you’ll never get to have a life of your own like you’ve always wanted.”
I bite my lip hard in order to keep myself from crying. “What choice do I have? If I say no, our family and Dominic will end up turning on each other. Your dad will get caught in the mess and be killed. Who knows if either of us will survive after that. Even if we can somehow escape, we have no means to protect ourselves.”
We’d be easy pickings for anyone to come along and take advantage of. Being a woman in the mafia world meant we had no choices, no options that would help us better our future if we were ever given the opportunity to leave or escape.
I barely had a sixth grade education and no actual real-world skills that could be used to actually live on my own. Without any of that, I’d be better off dead.
Gianna gets up and starts pacing, her energy frantic and wild. “Then we have to think outside the box.”
“Like what?” I ask.
She spins to face me, a manic gleam in her eye.
“What if you faked your death?”
