Healing is never a straight line.
It bends, cracks, spirals back to places you thought you left behind.
And sometimes, it walks hand-in-hand with love just to make the fall harder.
Annah stood on the balcony of her new room in Valentino's mansion. The sky stretched in a sea of orange and pink, but her heart stayed grey. She had been back for two weeks now, physically safe. But her soul? Still in recovery.
The bruises had faded, but her mind replayed everything Alex's grip, his mocking voice, the nights that blurred into nightmares.
And Valentino's betrayal? That one still stung the deepest.
🥀 Unspoken Words
He was different now quieter, gentler.
Every time their eyes met, guilt sat between them like an invisible wall.
She saw it in his hesitation when he reached for her tray.
In the way he checked her wrist for pressure marks without touching her.
In the way he walked past her room at night and didn't knock.
But she didn't want apologies anymore.
She wanted the truth.
One morning, as sunlight spilled into the grand dining hall, Annah broke the silence.
"Why did you believe her?"
Valentino looked up from his untouched toast.
"I didn't believe her. Not fully."
"Then why did you send me away?"
He exhaled slowly, like a man carrying years of mistakes.
"Because I was afraid."
She blinked. "Of me?"
He looked her dead in the eye. "Of how much I needed you."
The honesty stunned her.
He continued. "In this world… love is weakness. And you were the first person who made me forget I'm supposed to be strong."
Annah swallowed the lump rising in her throat.
She stood. "Love doesn't make you weak, Valentino. Fear does."
And she walked away before he could say another word.
Annah started spending her days in the garden again.
The same one where she had picked that first white rose.
She replanted beds of peonies and daffodils. Started journaling. Reading. Drawing. Some nights, she played the grand piano in the music room when the house was quiet.
Valentino watched from afar guarding her not with guns, but with space.
He asked nothing of her.
Until one evening changed everything.
A delivery came to the mansion. No return address.
Inside: a USB drive… and a photo.
It was Annah naked, bruised, asleep in Alex's arms.
Valentino's fingers curled into fists.
Attached was a note:
"Tell me, does your Queen still wear white?"
Enraged, he threw the glass across the room.
Whoever had sent it was watching them. Closely.
Valentino called his inner circle. There had been a leak.
Only a handful of people knew where Annah had been taken after her rescue.
One of them was still feeding information to Alex's men who were not all dead, as they had assumed.
And worse?
They weren't just coming for Valentino.
They were coming for her.
It happened on a Wednesday.
Annah had gone out for a quiet walk around the estate.
The guards were posted, the perimeter secured or so they thought.
She bent to clip a rose… and heard the snap of a twig.
Three masked men emerged from the hedges, tasers drawn.
She screamed.
Two guards rushed in, but one was taken down instantly ambushed from behind.
It was a setup.
But then gunfire rang out.
Valentino came sprinting down the path, shirtless, gun in hand, fury in his eyes.
He took one down with a headshot.
Another fled.
The third reached for Annah.
"No!" she cried.
Too late.
The man grabbed her by the hair just as Valentino fired.
Blood sprayed across the roses.
Annah collapsed in his arms, shaking.
He held her. "I've got you. I've got you."
She sobbed into his chest.
And he swore, right there under the bleeding sky, that he'd never let her be touched again.
After the attack, the mansion turned into a fortress.
Security tripled. No one entered without clearance. Annah was moved to a room beside Valentino's own, where he could hear her breathe at night.
They ate meals together. Talked quietly by the fire. Sometimes, she fell asleep on the couch, and he covered her with a blanket.
Their silence softened.
He told her about his past ,how his father raised him with fists instead of love. How his mother died in a car bomb meant for him. How he became "Valentino the Ice King" because the world didn't allow softness.
"I didn't know love could exist in this world," he said once.
She touched his hand. "It does. You just never looked in the right place."
It happened late one night.
She had a nightmare ,screamed in her sleep.
He rushed in, held her, stayed by her side.
"I'm here," he whispered. "You're safe."
Her hands clutched his shirt.
"Don't leave."
He didn't.
She looked up at him, eyes wet and pleading.
And he kissed her not like a mafia boss, not like a man claiming a woman but like someone tasting something they thought they'd never deserve.
It was slow. Gentle. Healing.
She kissed him back.
Because maybe… just maybe… he wasn't ice anymore.
The next morning, they woke in each other's arms.
No sex. No words. Just warmth and breath and the quiet thrum of something new.
But as Valentino left to make a call…
A guard rushed in.
"Boss," he said, pale, sweating. "We found the traitor."
"Who?"
The guard hesitated.
"It's… Elena."
Valentino froze.
Elena' his personal maid. The one who had raised him like a sister. Trusted more than anyone.
"She was working for Alex. She's the one who gave him the USB."
Valentino's eyes darkened. "Where is she now?"
The guard looked down.
"Gone."