Union Of Death (Secrets of The Famiglia Part 2) novel Chapter 23

I go to my journal and pick it up and take it across the room where I move the rug on the wall aside and open my safe, placing the book in a more secure venue. I ignore Aliyana’s tantrum, because that is what it is, a tantrum.

This isn’t about the book; I see it now. It is about us and it’s time we talked.

“I love Camilla, Aliyana, but I’m not in love with her.” My voice is not raised in my confession, nor is it changed by the truth. Because for Aliyana this is news to her, but for me, I have said those words in my head every single day I laid my cursed soul in her path. Every time I stepped foot in her home I have said those words in my head.

She turns around and I see her tear-stricken face, “I don’t want to hear it, I just want to leave and stay gone, please Marco.”

“No, hear me out, if you still want to leave then go.”

“Leaving you when I did and how I did was the only option there was. Marrying me comes with a heady price tag.”

“Mischa?” She asks, and I nod as she moves into the room, further away from the door.

“Yes, and no. I come with an early death sentence. I have a lot of enemies, many of them. When I saw you on that rooftop you stole a piece of me, I didn’t want to give to anyone, and every day since, you took more. But like you, I made Ren promises, and one of them was leaving you to live your life.”

“What? But I only met you that day, and Ren died that night.” She comes closer to me and her eyes are so confused but wary.

“It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen you. I knew you from the time you were a kid. Never meeting you in person was for my sake of mind.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t. But I didn’t want to put a child’s face to the woman who would potentially be my wife.”

“But you chose Camilla.”

“Yes, it is a complicated situation. My father wants me to have an heir and Camilla is one I initially chose to give me that, but I changed my mind a bit too late. My father agreed to Dante Moretti’s terms and the day I approached him about everything, it was too late.”

“So, you chose to hurt me instead? Do you have any idea how I felt?”

“I’m ending our engagement. I want to be with you, I’ll marry you in secret and keep you here just like Elladio did with his wife.” A tear leaks from her eyes and she looks behind me at the painting of the beautiful woman who once graced this library. A woman many don’t know about because her husband’s love, became her prison, and her life an obsession.

“I thought you hated me, I convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough, it took me months to get over you and now you want to marry me?”