Chapter 316: Working

CHAPTER 317

KATYA POV

The silence stretched until it felt like a physical weight pressing down on my chest. Every passing second amplified the absolute absurdity of the scene, rendering it so utterly, damningly suspicious that I could barely command my lungs to draw breath.

Romeo bringing us home. Here. At this hour. I had entirely lost track of the time—it was some nebulous, freezing hour long past midnight, the dead of night when secrets were meant to stay buried.

Beside me, the reality of our predicament seemed to settle over Chiara too. She leaned in so close that the trembling warmth of her shoulder pressed hard against mine.

“We’re finished.”

I kept my eyes locked on Nonna, my gaze frantically searching her face, desperately scraping for any familiar sign of impending ruin. I braced myself for the sharp flash of anger, the heavy, devastating weight of disappointment, or the icy glare of betrayal.

But her features remained frustratingly, terrifyingly calm. Romeo broke the stalemate, his long strides carrying him to the very foot of the grand entrance steps before he came to a smooth, leisurely halt.

“You’re still awake.” The words cut through the stillness, delivered with the exact same composed indifference, the same chillingly detached cadence that he utilized for every mundane interaction.

Nonna merely lifted one elegant, perfectly sculpted eyebrow, her expression unreadable. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I was working.”

The lie slipped past his lips with such terrifying ease, such seamless, polished fluidness, that for a fraction of a second, it almost sounded like the absolute truth.

My eyes widened, a hot prickle of sheer disbelief stinging the back of my neck. Working? Seriously? The man had just left three bleeding corpses rotting in a dim club alleyway, and he was casually tossing out excuses about business.

Well, why was I surprised though. He’s work always entails death. But still I shot a sideways glance at Chiara, whose jaw had gone slightly slack; she was staring at Romeo with a wide-eyed, paralyzed fixation, as though she had just witnessed someone deliberately and casually step straight into the path of a roaring, oncoming train.

Nonna’s piercing gaze lingered on the sharp lines of his face for one agonizing beat longer, absorbing his posture, before it drifted slowly, deliberately toward the two of us.

“And these two?”

My heart didn’t merely drop; it plummeted into a dark, bottomless void, my stomach churning violently.

Romeo didn’t offer an immediate response. Instead, he turned his head slightly, his gaze washing over us with a cold sweep that made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

His face remained an unbending, unreadable slate. Then, with a slow, deliberate movement, he looked back at Nonna, the corners of his mouth curving upward into a chillingly smile.

“Working also.”

I blinked, the words echoing senselessly in my mind. Working? Chiara’s eyelids fluttered in identical shock, but neither of us dared to split the silence.

Neither of us possessed the courage to interrupt the dangerous theater playing out on the gravel driveway.

“I needed help with some works and they offered,” he continued, his tone remaining perfectly level, entirely devoid of the frantic energy that was currently tearing my own pulse to shreds.

He paused, his grey eyes pivoting back to fixate on our disheveled forms. “But, as you can see, I brought them back. Safe and sound.”

Safe and sound.

The phrase hung in the air, dripping with an irony so thick it made me sick. That was it. That was all he was going to give her.

There was no horrifying mention of the choked, blinding smoke billowing through the crowded club, no whispered warning of the police sirens that were likely now wailing across the city, and absolutely no acknowledgment of the bloodied, ruined bodies left behind in the dark. Just a beautifully wrapped, utterly monstrous lie.

I stared at the profile of his face in complete, staggering disbelief. Was he actually covering for us?

The sheer concept felt entirely absurd, a glitch in reality. Why would someone like him ever shield us from the fallout?

Beside me, Chiara seemed to be drowning in the exact same whirlpool of confusion; I could practically hear the chaotic questions bouncing around inside her skull, colliding against her panic.

Nonna remained quiet. Too quiet. The oppressive stillness returned tenfold as her slender, manicured fingers rested lightly on the polished wooden arms of her wheelchair.

She studied each of us in turn. Romeo. Then me. Then Chiara. And finally, back to Romeo. The complete lack of predictable fury frightened me far more than if she had immediately erupted into screaming, because the silence meant she was calculating.

Finally, a heavy breath escaped her. “I’m glad,” she murmured softly, her voice losing its sharp edge. My eyebrows knitted together in confusion as she finished the thought. “…You’re home.”

The specific cadence of her words hit me with the force of an physical blow. It wasn’t I’m glad Romeo brought you. It wasn’t I’m glad you’re safe. It was simply, purely, I’m glad you’re home.

A wave of guilt crashed over me, She had been worried. While we were drinking, while we were fleeing through toxic smoke and stepping over the dead, she had been sitting here in the freezing dark.

She hadn’t anchored herself at the door because she hungered for an interrogation; she had been waiting, counting the empty hours, desperate for the simple knowledge that we were still breathing.

My throat tightened instantly, a painful, aching lump forming in my esophagus. “I’m sorry…” The apology slipped past my lips before my brain could stop it, a desperate, raw plea.

Nonna’s eyes softened almost instantly, the cold suspicion evaporating from her gaze. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. I stared at her, the word looping in my mind. That was completely unexpected. She looked thoroughly exhausted, more frail and spent than I had ever seen her in my entire life.

The deep, etched lines around her eyes seemed to cast heavy shadows beneath the harsh glare of the porch illumination. Still, she managed to offer me a small, incredibly fragile smile.

“Right now…” Her eyes traveled with deliberate slowness over our ruined appearances, taking in the state of our clothes, our wild hair, and the tremor in our hands.

“You both look like you’ve had enough excitement for one night.” If only she actually knew. My stomach twisted into a tight, agonizing knot.

She had no earthly idea of the horror we had just walked through. Or, perhaps, a darker thought whispered, she knew far more than she was letting on.

I couldn’t tell. With Nonna, the truth was always buried beneath layers of strategy. She turned her head toward Romeo, her chin tilting upward slightly.

“Thank you.”

He gave a single, curt nod in return. Nothing more. No pleasantries, no false warmth. Nonna’s gaze returned to us, her expression shifting into that gentle, all-enveloping smile that only she could wield—a smile that usually signaled the calm before a catastrophic storm.

“Now…” She clasped her hands together in her lap, the sharp snap of her palms drawing our attention. “Would someone kindly explain why neither of my girls is wearing a jacket… and why Katya looks as though she could fall asleep standing up?”

Chiara and I exchanged one single, horrified glance in the dim light. The sheer weight of the secrets crushing our chests felt entirely unsustainable.

We were definitely not surviving tomorrow.