Leo’s study was on the first floor, behind the same dark doors as before. This time they were ajar.
Clara heard voices before she entered.
“…cannot be allowed,” an older man was saying. “A waitress? In this house? After what happened tonight, you should send her somewhere secure and be done with it.”
Another voice, female, cold as a knife: “The prophecy is nonsense, but symbols move men. If Leo places her beside him, half the city will think fate has chosen her.”
“And the other half will try to kill her,” the old man snapped.
Clara pushed the door open.
“Then it sounds like I should learn quickly.”
Three people turned.
Leo stood behind his desk, one hand pressed subtly against his side. His face was pale, but his eyes sharpened when he saw her.
The old man beside the fireplace wore a charcoal suit and a disapproving mouth. The woman near the bookshelves was stunning, with black hair cut to her chin and red lips curved in something that was not a smile.
Leo said, “Clara.”
“I heard my job title mentioned.”
The woman looked her over. “And here I thought diners closed by now.”
Clara smiled at her. “They do. Poisonous women apparently don’t.”
Matteo coughed into his fist.
The woman’s eyes flashed.
Leo’s voice was quiet. “Enough, Valentina.”
Valentina.
Clara filed the name away.
The old man stepped forward. “Miss Hayes, this is family business.”
“No,” Clara said. “Apparently I’m family business now.”
Leo’s gaze rested on her with dark approval.
The old man noticed and hated it.
“I am Carlo Salvatore,” he said. “Leo’s uncle.”
“Congratulations.”
His nostrils flared.
Valentina moved closer, graceful as smoke.
“You have no idea what you’ve stepped into.”
Clara looked at her. “That makes two of us. But unlike everyone else in this room, I didn’t choose crime as a lifestyle brand.”
Valentina’s smile vanished.
Leo made a sound that might have been pain or amusement.
Carlo pointed at her. “This is exactly what I mean. She is reckless.”
“I’m tired,” Clara said. “There’s a difference.”
Leo came around the desk. “You should be sleeping.”
“I’ll sleep when someone explains why a dying man knew more about my future than I do.”
Valentina’s eyes flicked to Leo.
So did Carlo’s.
Clara caught it.
“What?”
Leo said nothing.
Clara’s stomach tightened.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Valentina smiled again, slower this time.
“Oh, Leo. You didn’t tell her the best part?”
Leo’s voice dropped. “Valentina.”
But she was already looking at Clara.
“The prophecy is older than you think. It does not simply say a woman of rare blood will save a Salvatore.” Her eyes glittered. “It says she will become his bride, wear his ring, and betray him before the first snow.”
Clara felt the room go silent around her.
Betray him.
Leo’s expression had become unreadable.
Carlo muttered, “Enough of this.”
But Clara could not look away from Leo.
“Is that true?”
He did not answer fast enough.
A laugh escaped her, small and stunned.
“That’s why everyone is scared of me?”
Valentina tilted her head. “Not everyone.”
Clara turned toward her.
Valentina’s smile sharpened.
“Some of us have been waiting.”
Before Clara could ask what that meant, the lights went out.
The mansion plunged into darkness.
A heartbeat later, alarms screamed.
Red emergency lights washed the study in blood-colored flashes.
Men shouted in the hallway.
Glass shattered somewhere below.
Leo moved instantly, grabbing Clara by the wrist and pulling her behind him.
This time, she did not tell him not to touch her.
Nico appeared in the doorway with a gun drawn.
“Breach at the east gate!”
Matteo’s voice came from the hall. “Second team inside the kitchen!”
Owen.
Clara’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“My brother!”
Leo turned to Nico. “Get the boy.”
“I’m going too,” Clara said.
“No.”
She ripped her wrist free. “You said I decide.”
Leo stared at her for one burning second.
Then he shoved a small black pistol into her hand.
Clara froze.
“I don’t know how to use this.”
“Point. Pull. Do not hesitate.”
“I said I don’t know how to use it!”
“Then stay behind me.”
They ran.
The mansion had transformed into chaos. Guards moved through red-lit corridors. Doors slammed. Somewhere, gunfire cracked, sharp and deafening. Clara’s breath tore in and out of her throat as she followed Leo up the stairs toward Owen’s suite.
Halfway there, a man stepped from the shadows.
Not Salvatore.
He lifted his gun.
Leo pushed Clara down.
The shot exploded above her head.
Leo fired once.
The man dropped.
Clara hit the floor hard, the pistol skidding from her hand. Her ears rang. She could not move. Her eyes locked on the body slumped against the wall, blood spreading beneath him.
Leo hauled her up.
“Don’t look.”
But she had already looked.
They reached Owen’s room.
The door was open.
The bed was empty.
Clara’s scream came out soundless.
Leo grabbed the nurse, who was shaking against the wall.
“Where is he?”
“They took him,” she sobbed. “A woman. Black hair. She said Mr. Salvatore ordered—”
Valentina.
Clara turned slowly.
Leo’s face had gone deadly still.
From somewhere below came the roar of engines.
They ran to the balcony at the end of the hall just in time to see two black SUVs tearing down the driveway toward the open gates.
Clara gripped the railing.
“No.”
Leo lifted his phone, barking orders into it, but Clara barely heard him.
On the driveway below, something white fluttered against the wet stone.
A folded piece of paper.
Clara ran.
By the time she reached it, rain had soaked through the edges. Her fingers shook as she opened it.
The handwriting was elegant, black, and cruelly familiar.
The bride has been claimed.
Bring the girl to the cathedral by midnight, or the boy stops breathing.
Clara looked up at Leo.
Rain slid down his face like tears he would never shed.
For the first time since she had met him, Leo Salvatore looked afraid.
Then Clara turned the note over.
There was one more line written on the back.
Ask Leo what really happened to your parents.
PART 3 — The Cathedral Where Brides Were Buried
The note in Clara’s hand felt heavier than a gun.
Rain blurred the ink, but not the threat.
Bring the girl to the cathedral by midnight, or the boy stops breathing.
And beneath it, like a blade slipped between her ribs:
Ask Leo what really happened to your parents.
For one dizzy second, Clara forgot how to breathe.
The mansion behind her roared with alarms. Men shouted orders. Engines screamed somewhere beyond the gate. But all she heard was Owen’s laugh from that morning, thin and stubborn, when the flickering light above his bed had mocked their poverty.
Her brother was sick.
Her brother was scared.
Her brother was now in the hands of people who thought human lives were messages written in blood.
Clara turned toward Leo.
“What does this mean?”
Leo’s face was carved from shadow and rain. The fear she had seen in him vanished so quickly she almost wondered if she had imagined it.
“Not now.”
That was the wrong answer.
Clara stepped closer, fists clenched, the soaked note crushed between her fingers. “My brother was taken from your house by a woman you trusted. Men are trying to kill me because of some insane prophecy. And now someone says you know something about my parents.”
Leo’s jaw hardened.
“I said not now.”
“No,” Clara whispered. “You don’t get to decide when my life makes sense.”
Matteo came running down the stairs behind them, coat flapping, gun in hand. “Boss, we traced the SUVs. They split after the south bridge.”
“Block the roads,” Leo said. “Call every man we own.”
“Already moving.”
“Nico?”
“Following the second SUV.”
“And Valentina?”
Matteo’s expression darkened. “Gone.”
Leo closed his eyes for half a second.
Clara saw it then.
Not surprise.
Pain.
“You knew she might do this,” Clara said.
Leo opened his eyes. “I knew she wanted power.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
The answer was too quiet.
Clara hated him for the control in his voice. She hated that he could stand there like a general while her world had been ripped open.
“Take me to the cathedral,” she said.
“No.”
The word came instantly.
Clara laughed once, bitter and breathless. “You really do love that word when it comes from your mouth.”
“They want you there.”
“They want Owen dead if I don’t go.”
