Chapter 6
“Niccolo.” Step by step, I closed in on him.
“Do you think those words were slander? Or do you simply not dare to face your own filth?”
“Mau-”
He hadn’t even finished saying my name when my hand clamped around his throat.
“Nico!”
Rizza shrieked, trying to rush forward, but one of my men pressed the barrel of a gun against the back of her head.
advanced, he retreated.
“Those ten brothers-they followed me from the very beginning, when we first entered this world. They died on the road to saving you. Do you know what it felt like, standing before their parents’ tear-filled eyes when they asked me where their sons had gone?”
Niccolo’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His gaze grew conflicted as it settled on me.
I smiled through tears. “I never told you any of this. I was afraid that the blood I shed for you would become your guilt, your burden. But all these years, it turns out you never thought about how many men I lost that day. You only wondered whether I had betrayed you!”
With a violent shove, I slammed him into the wall.
The hook jutting from it tore into his old wound, blood soaking his collar, staining my hands.
‘Nico!” Rizza cried again.
His gaze shifted to her-gentle, tender, without a trace of fear.
‘Perhaps I misunderstood you,” he whispered. “But, Maureen… I really love children.”
‘I’ve dreamed of having a child with you, of a happy family of three. I swear I’d be a good father. I’d never let him suffer as you once did. It would be like living life over again-our regrets were wiped away in the next generation…”
I stared at him. Then I pulled out a medical record and held it in front of his eyes.
‘But you,” my voice cracked, “you killed your own child with your own hands.”
The date of miscarriage was the very same day he asked me for a divorce.
His bloody fingerprint sealed the page. “This is…”
‘You thought I went to the hospital that day to confront your little mistress?” I closed my eyes briefly. “No. That day, I was already showing signs of miscarriage.”
‘My body was finally strong again. That child was hard-won. But then you pushed me. And our baby was gone forever.”
His brows furrowed.
But there was no regret.
No shock.
Only calm resignation. He let the paper slip from his fingers, his voice as light as dust.
“Then let’s divorce. End things peacefully. That’s the best outcome for us.”
Bang!
The butt of his gun smashed against his forehead.
I tore the weapon from his grasp, spun it in my bloodied hand, and pressed the muzzle against his jaw.
I smiled, my face smeared with blood. “After all these years, you still don’t understand me?”
“I told you-I gave you your last chance. Between us, there is no divorce. Only death! And now you talk of the ‘best outcome’? Too late.”
His hand gripped mine weakly, trembling.
The wound on his shoulder sapped his strength. Slowly… he released me.
And then, with the same gentle smile of his youth, he said, “Fine. Kill me, then.”
The gun nearly bent under the force of my grip. I dragged him here, forced him into this fight, desperate for an answer. To know why he betrayed me. To give some meaning to the ten wasted years of my life.
But the truth was crueler than any blade.
Sometimes, the death of love wasn’t in the screaming battles or the blood-soaked betrayals. It was one lover ripping themselves open in agony, while the other would rather die than waste another breath explaining.
And all of it… was because of another woman.
A latecomer.
Someone who had never bled for him.
I slid the bullet into the chamber. My cold voice rang out against Rizza’s hysterical sobs.
‘If that’s how it is… then I’ll grant your wish.”
‘No! Niccolo!”
Bang!
The gunshot rang out-but not from my weapon.
Behind us, the bodyguard who had been holding Rizza at gunpoint dropped to the ground, clutching his bleeding arm and writhing in pain.
Her eyes lit up. “Reinforcements!”
