🐺 The Forbidden Bed That Made Her the Mafia Boss’s Fiancée

Chapter 08 - The Wolf That Wasn’t His

Adrian left the hall without a word.

No order. No threat. No slammed door.

That frightened everyone more.

I followed him because I did not know what else to do with the sudden urge to keep him from disappearing into whatever darkness men like him carried alone.

He went to the library and stood before a portrait above the fireplace. Three men in black suits, painted years ago in rich brown shadows. Salvatore Moretti in the middle. Vittoria seated beside him. On his left stood a man with Adrian’s eyes and a hand resting on the shoulder of a teenage boy.

Adrian.

The man behind him smiled faintly.

“Your uncle?” I asked.

“Matteo.”

“The wolf belonged to him?”

“He told me it was an old family crest.”

“Was it?”

“No.”

He reached up and touched the tattoo at his neck where a black line disappeared beneath his collar.

“I was nineteen when I got the first piece. He took me. Said my father would understand when I was older.”

“And did he?”

“My father didn’t speak to me for two weeks.”

There was no self-pity in his voice, which made it worse.

I stood beside him, the library smelling of leather, dust, and rain-soaked stone.

“Maybe your father was trying to protect you from the symbol, not punish you for it.”

Adrian looked down at me.

“You always rescue the dead?”

“When the living are too angry to hear them, sometimes.”

His gaze stayed on mine longer than was safe.

For hours, we prepared.

That is the only word for what happened. Adrian’s men studied the South Boston address. Vittoria confirmed pieces of the past. Nico, stitched and pale, insisted on joining until the doctor threatened him with restraints and everyone pretended not to notice that he was crying when he learned his father might be alive.

I sat at the long library table with my father’s ledger open before me.

One page near the back had stuck to another. When I carefully separated them with Adrian’s knife, a folded note slipped out.

The paper had gone yellow at the edges.

My name was written on it.

Elena.

My hands began to shake.

Adrian was across the room speaking to Paul when I opened it.

My father’s handwriting filled the page.

My Ellie,

If you are reading this, then your mother kept you alive long enough for the truth to become your burden. I am sorry. I wanted you to have recipes, bad jokes, and a father who taught you how to change a tire. Instead, I have left you a war I tried to end.

Trust your mother.

Trust Salvatore’s son only if he becomes the man his father hoped he would be.

But never trust the man with the wolf on his back.

He wears loyalty like skin and betrayal like bone.

The rest blurred.

Adrian was beside me before I knew I had made a sound.

“Elena.”

I handed him the note.

He read it once, slowly.

Then again.

His face did not change, but something in him retreated.

“My father warned me about you,” I said.

“He warned you about Matteo.”

“Did he?”

The question hurt him. I saw it land.

Maybe I wanted it to. Fear makes people unfair. So does grief.

Adrian folded the letter with careful hands and placed it on the table between us.

“I have the wolf.”

“Yes.”

“And you need to decide whether that is enough to run.”

“What happens if I do?”

“I send you and your mother somewhere safe. I find Kate. I finish this.”

“And if I stay?”

For the first time that night, his control cracked enough for me to see the man underneath the boss.

“If you stay, I will use every law of my world to keep you alive, Elena. But my world takes from people. Even when I try to give.”

I should have been afraid of the honesty.

Instead, I found myself thinking of the morning light on his face when I woke beside him, the way his hand had tightened when danger entered, the way he had not once mocked my panic or dismissed my mother’s fear.

I was afraid.

Just not only of him.

Before I could answer, Paul entered.

“We traced the address.”

Adrian turned.

“It’s an old theater near the waterfront,” Paul said. “Closed twenty years ago after a fire inspection.”

Vittoria appeared behind him, cane in hand.

“Matteo loved that place.”

Paul hesitated.

“There’s more.”

He looked at me.

“We found Kate’s phone signal inside.”