Chapter 5 Where silence screams louder

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They stopped counting the meetings.

Because to count them meant acknowledging they existed.

And acknowledging meant admitting it was real.

Aria kept no record. Not in her journals, not in her calendar, not even in her mind. Each encounter was folded away in the dark corners of her memory like a pressed flower-fragile, illicit, beautiful. A danger she couldn't name without trembling.

Sometimes she hated herself for going.

Sometimes she hated herself more for wanting to stay.

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Luca never spoke of her to anyone.

Not Matteo. Not Dante. Not even himself, when he looked in the mirror and saw the man he was becoming-softened in the most brutal places, hardening in others. There was no room for softness in their world. But with her, it wasn't softness. It was surrender. The kind that burned slow and consumed everything.

She was a wound he didn't want to heal.

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They met in the quiet spaces between duty and rebellion.

In a crumbling chapel where the saints no longer watched.

In the backroom of a jazz club whose piano wept the way they couldn't.

In the wine cellar beneath an abandoned villa where dust clung to the memory of laughter.

Always hidden. Always brief.

Always at night.

Because daylight couldn't touch what they had. It was too pure for the dirt on their souls.

And in every moment, the tension coiled tighter.

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There were no confessions.

No declarations of love.

Only stolen breath.

Only looks that said what mouths never dared.

She would arrive with her jaw set and her eyes wary, and his shoulders would relax in the way they never did around anyone else. She'd cross her arms, like she needed armor against him. He'd keep his hands in his pockets, as if not touching her took all his strength.

They talked about everything and nothing.

The moon. Art. What they'd do if they hadn't been born into blood.

He once told her he would've been a writer.

She laughed. "You, writing poetry?"

"I've written one," he said. "It starts and ends with your name."

That night, she couldn't sleep. Her name had never felt like that before.

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The tension was slow.

A breath held for too long.

A match lit in a dry forest.

Neither of them ever said, I need you.

But it was there. In the way he'd brush her hair back like it burned to touch her. In the way she'd linger at the door one second longer, waiting to see if he'd pull her back.

He never did.

She always wished he would.

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And then came the night they came closer than ever before to crossing the line.

The world outside was chaos. A rival crew had set fire to a De Luca-owned restaurant. Retaliation was already being planned. Everyone was on edge. Violence stirred in the streets.

And they still found each other.

Because in storms, people run toward the only shelter they trust.

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It was the warehouse.

Half-burnt. Abandoned. Smelling of smoke and memory.

He was already there when she arrived, his shirt stained with someone else's blood.

She rushed to him, fury and fear clashing in her chest. "Are you hurt?"

"No," he said. "It's not mine."

She looked at his hands. At his eyes. At the stillness in him that always terrified her more than rage.

"What happened?"

"They sent a message," he said. "So I sent one back."

"Who did?"

He hesitated.

"Aria," he said finally, "it was your brother."

Her breath caught.

Of course it was.

Of course Enzo had found a way to make everything worse.

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She turned from him, fists clenched.

"My brother wants to see you dead."

"And your father wants me gone."

"And my best friend is lying to cover for me."

"And my father watches me like he's waiting for me to confess."

A long silence stretched between them.

And then he said it, softly.

"Is this the part where we end it?"

She turned back to him, slowly.

"Is that what you want?"

His voice cracked. "No."

She stepped toward him.

He stepped back.

"Don't," he whispered. "Don't come closer."

"Why?"

"Because I'll touch you."

"Then touch me."

And with that, the dam broke.

He reached for her like a man dying of thirst.

Their lips crashed-not like a kiss, but like a war. Her hands found his shirt, gripping it like it anchored her. His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her to him as if letting go would kill him.

It wasn't soft.

It wasn't gentle.

It was years of inherited hatred burning into heat.

It was the scream of everything they were never allowed to feel.

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They broke apart only when the world demanded breath.

Her forehead against his. Eyes closed. Hearts beating like war drums.

"I'm not sorry," she whispered.

He cupped her face, fierce and reverent. "Neither am I."

"But this will destroy us."

"I'd rather be destroyed than feel nothing again."

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After that night, things changed.

They didn't talk about what happened.

But the way they looked at each other shifted.

No more pretending.

No more silence.

But still, no peace.

Because Enzo was hunting.

And Dante was suspicious.

And Bianca was watching too closely.

And the past was catching up.

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Still, they met.

Even when it was reckless.

Even when it was wrong.

Because it was the only thing that ever felt right.

But somewhere deep in the marrow of their bones, they knew-

This couldn't last.

Nothing beautiful ever does in a world made of bullets and betrayal.

But still they held on.

Because sometimes the most dangerous thing...

Is hope.

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