Chapter 47

ALESSANDRO

I stepped outside, the faint sting of disinfectant filling the air. The smell of my freshly cleaned wound clung to me — metallic and sterile, mixing with the cool night breeze. I glanced down at my arm, the skin still red where the fire had caught it. It wasn’t too bad. I was lucky. Or maybe I wasn’t — because the one person who mattered most was lying broken inside that hospital room.

Ria.

Her silk-brown hair had been spread across the pillow, glinting under the pale light. Her skin — bruised but still so soft — looked fragile, almost unreal. I couldn’t stop seeing her like that, and it was eating me alive.

That soft tone of hers, those lips — even cracked and dry — haunted me. I wanted to hold her close, to erase every trace of pain from her body. But I couldn’t. Not now. She needed peace, not passion. Still, every time I thought of her lying there, my chest burned.

I le