Alya
"I will marry you, James Carrizo."
My voice cut through the sterile quiet like it didn't belong in this room; too smooth, too deliberate for beeping monitors and the scent of antiseptic and blood. He stood by the window, shadow stretched long across the floor, arms folded like he didn't trust himself to move. But his gaze snapped to mine. Hope flickered. I crushed it.
"I marry for myself," I said, the words curling slow around the pain anchored in my chest. "I do not do this for love."
His eyes didn't shift. He already knew.
"You lead the Cosa Nostra. I carry Bratva blood. Our names were never meant to share the same breath."
He didn't speak. That silence of his always said too much.
"But we want the same thing. You want his empire stripped. So do I. You want him ruined. So do I. We carry different ghosts, but they scream the same name."
