Claimed By The Mafia Don (Ariella and Asher) novel Chapter 192

His hand brushed the counter beside my shoulder. And then his voice—his voice came again, low and quiet.

“I didn’t know how I’d feel seeing you again.”

I opened my eyes and there he was.

Asher.

Don of the Romano family. The most dangerously handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on. A man dressed like a Roman emperor thrown into modern-day war—classic, composed, powerful. Every inch of him screamed control. Power. Lethality. But also... something else.

He was the man who did witchcraft to my body without even trying. And he was standing in my kitchen.

After nearly a year, after silence, distance, fear, after burying myself in motherhood and caution and regret, he was here. I had worked so hard to forget him. To forget how he made me feel like I was the centre of the storm, the reason the sky broke open.

But now here he stood. And I think... I should have been happy.

I should’ve been smiling, maybe even jumping into his arms, gasping in disbelief. But instead, I reached for him.

I pulled him close. My hands gripped the back of his neck, my fingers tangling in his hair, catching him off guard. He didn’t move. He didn’t pull back.

And I cried.

I felt Asher tense beneath my body and my hands. He didn’t speak. He didn’t flinch. For a moment, I wasn’t even sure he was breathing. It was like the world paused like nothing else existed but the two of us, locked in this fragile, aching stillness. My fingers tangled in his hair, his body warm and solid beneath me, grounding me.

I tried to hold back the tears, to stay composed, but they fell anyway, heavy and relentless.

Then slowly, like he was waking up from the same long nightmare, his arms came around me.

One hand curled at the back of my head, his fingers threading gently through my hair. The other pressed flat against the small of my back, anchoring me, holding me together like he somehow knew I might collapse without him.

And maybe I would.

“You’re alive,” I whispered, my voice trembling as I cried harder.

He kissed my forehead. His lips were warm, reverent.

“I missed you,” he said softly.

“I never stopped loving you,” I admitted, my voice barely a whisper. I mean… what was the point in lying to him anymore?

“I love you, Asher. I have never loved anyone else.”

The words spilt out like a secret I’d been holding too long. “No man has ever been able to replace you.”

And as I said it, I saw something shift in him. His body language changed subtly, but unmistakably. His shoulders tensed, his jaw clenched, and his eyes… they darkened with something I couldn’t quite read. Not anger. Not sadness. But something deep. Something he was holding back with everything in him. It was like he was holding himself together just barely, standing on the edge of something dangerous.

I opened my mouth, ready to explain to reveal it all, to give him every broken piece of me. I wanted to tell him everything right now. He was alive and so were we, who knows what will happen next time.

But I didn’t get the chance.

Because suddenly, his body moved. His mouth came down on mine, silencing me with a kiss that stole my breath. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t slow. It was hard. Fierce. Desperate. It was almost like he couldn’t stand to hear another word. like my confession had cracked something in him wide open.

He pulled me against him roughly, as he needed me to be closer, closer than our bodies could manage. And he kissed me like he was trying to make up for every moment we’d spent apart, the nearly one year, since we last saw each other… and maybe even the five years before we saw each other again.

It was fire. Regret and need. It was him. And it was me. At that moment, there was nothing and no one