Gone Before He Loved Me Chapter 05

Gone Before He Loved Me Chapter 05

The butler froze.

Matteo’s face darkened. “Take it out. I don’t want to hear crying in front of me.”

The butler didn’t argue. Took the baby from Aurora’s arms.

After he carried the struggling infant away, Aurora grabbed Matteo’s favorite coffee mug and slammed it to the floor.

Shards everywhere.

Matteo’s temple pulsed. Lucia had made that mug for his birthday.

“Enough!” The words tore out of him.

Aurora stared at his face, laughed coldly. “Lucia’s dead and you’re this broken up about it?”

Matteo didn’t answer. Bent down, picking up the pieces. Cut his fingers. Didn’t stop.

Aurora lunged, snatched the fragments from his hands, hurled them again.

“She had it coming! She put me through hell all these years—and I’m glad she’s dead! Dying once is letting her off way too easy—she owes me big time. Even her next life wouldn’t be enough to pay me back!”

Matteo looked up at her. Voice hoarse. “Get out.”

Aurora’s eyes went wide. “What? Matteo, I gave you a son! You’re kicking me out for a dead woman?!”

“She was trash! She deserved what she got! Now that she’s gone, you should marry me—nothing standing in our way—”

“I’m your child’s mother—”

The slap cracked across her face.

Aurora stumbled, hand to her cheek, frozen. “You hit me… for her…”

Matteo’s eyes were dead cold.

The entire hall went silent. Every servant stared at the floor.

“Aurora. We’re done. I’m telling you one last time—get out of my house.”

He turned and walked away. Collapsed onto the sofa.

Closed his eyes. Pain crushed him.

All these years, he’d been wrong about his feelings for Aurora.

She’d come into the Santoro family through Lucia’s stepmother. Unlike Lucia—who was raised to be a proper wife for some wealthy heir—Aurora had been a social butterfly, working the room.

One chance encounter years ago had made Matteo fall for her.

Aurora knew exactly how to play him. Made him chase, made him want, turned into an obsession.

He’d done everything for her. At first to win her.

Then it became habit.

A rich heir, the Don of a mafia family, reduced to a dog on Aurora’s leash.

And the person she hated most in the world was Lucia. She wanted to take everything Lucia had.

Matteo knew it was greed. He helped her anyway.

But that wasn’t love.

Real love didn’t make breathing hurt after you lost it.

The urn pressed cold against his skin. Another stab to his heart.

Reality crashed back.

He remembered what the nurse said at the hospital, “Don, the enhanced treatment order was signed by you.”

Matteo frowned.

He’d never ordered any increase. And the signature was sloppy, poorly forged.

A wave of killing intent flooded him.

He grabbed the phone. Called his assistant. Voice shaking, barely restrained rage.

“Investigate Lucia’s death. Everything.”

…

Sunlight filtered through trees, spilling across my coffee cup. Early summer in France.

Three years since I escaped that hell.

A lot had happened.

That day, Aurora cranked the voltage to the max.

The machine screamed, overloaded, and exploded. Darkness flooded the treatment room.