THE MAFIA KING BROKEN ROSE novel Chapter 174

“You fired her?” I asked Dominic, sitting up on the bed, still half–naked and aching in places I didn’t want to think about. “Why?”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even pretend to feel bad about it. Just adjusted the cuff of his shirt like the question annoyed him. “She was a distraction.

I blinked at him. “A distraction? She barely said three words.”

“You begged me to let her join,” he said, voice flat. “You think I’m going to keep someone around who makes you look at anyone else like that?”

I stared. “It was one time. And you were literally the one who cro-”

“She touched you,” he said, sharper now. “She tasted you. She made you come.”

“And you watched!” I snapped, heart starting to pound. “You told me to!”

His jaw clenched.

I scrambled to my feet, grabbing the towel, suddenly hating how exposed I still was. “So what, now I’m not allowed to enjoy anything unless it’s you?”

His eyes darkened. “You’re mine, Aria. Don’t forget that.”

I shook my head, biting back everything I wanted to scream. “You’re impossible.”

He turned away, clearly done with the conversation, and I couldn’t help it–I reached for the chair where my dress was crumpled and yanked it on, ignoring the sting between my thighs.

As I zipped up, the silence grew heavier. Almost suffocating. It wasn’t just what happened with Riley. It was something else. I could feel it.

And I hated that he noticed it before I could open my mouth.

“What did the doctor say?” Dominic asked quietly.

I paused, hands stilling at my waist.

“You didn’t bring it up last night,” he said. “So I’m asking now.”

I didn’t answer immediately. I didn’t want to say it out loud.

“They said the markers are back,” I muttered finally, voice low. It might’ve relapsed.”

His shoulders tensed. “And?”

“And they need to do more scans. Bloodwork. All of it. But… yeah. It’s back.”

I sat down, quieter now. “The fatigue. The headaches. I thought it was just stress. But the doctor thinks the cancer cells weren’t all gone after the last round. They were dormant.”

He didn’t say anything for a while. Just stood there, silent, unreadable.

“You should’ve told me sooner,” he said.

“I didn’t want you to look at me like this,” I muttered.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m broken,” I snapped, eyes burning. “Like I’m dying.”

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He walked toward me, slow and steady, and knelt down so we were eye level.

“You’re not dying,” he said.

“You don’t know that.”

“You…”

He cupped my face, gently this time. “We survived the first time, we would survive the second”

Before I could respond, the captain’s voice crackled through the overhead speaker.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be landing in approximately ten minutes. Please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for descent.”

I turned my face toward the window, throat tight.

He stood and held out his hand.

I didn’t take it.

“Aria…”

I looked at it for a second. Then past it. Out the small window, where streaks of grey clouds blurred over the glass and the earth below was rising fast.

“I’m fine,” I said, already buckling my seatbelt. “Let’s just land.”

He didn’t push. Just let his hand drop, the silence between us louder tharf the engine’s hum. It stayed that way until the wheels hit the tarmac with a jolt and the plane taxied down the private runway.

By the time the stairs lowered, Dominic was already moving. Always three steps ahead. Always acting like it didn’t bother him when I pulled away. Except it did. I could see it in the way he tightened his jaw, the way his fingers curled like he was fighting the urge to grab something–maybe me.

A black SUV waited near the edge of the hangar, engine humming low. A man in a sharp black suit stood by the door, nodding once when Dominic

approached.

I walked behind him, my boots clicking against the stairs, fingers still trembling slightly from earlier. Not from fear. Not from the altitude. Just… from knowing what might be waiting.

Dominic opened the car door for me. I didn’t say thank you. Just slid inside and stared ahead.

He joined me a beat later. The door shut with a soft thud. The driver merged onto the main road with barely a sound, the city rolling past like a silent film.

“We should check in at the hotel first,” he said, adjusting his cuff links like he wasn’t watching me out of the corner of his eye.

“No,” I said quickly. “Let’s go to the vault.”

He tilted his head. “You sure? You didn’t even eat.”

“I want to see it, Dominic. I need to.”

His jaw flexed, but he nodded once. “Alright.”

The rest of the ride passed in silence. My mind raced the entire time–what if the inheritance wasn’t real? What if someone already found it? What if t wasn’t strong enough to handle whatever truth’s came next?

The car slowed as we turned onto a narrower road, surrounded by tall gates and even taller trees. This was old money land. Private land. The kind that didn’t exist on maps.

When we reached the estate, I sat up straighter.

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Chapter 174

“This place,” I breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

Stone walls wrapped around the property. Ivy clung to every inch. The old building looked like it had been untouched for decades–forgotten by everyone but those who knew what it really was.

Dominic said nothing. Just stepped out and rounded to my side, opening the door for me again.

Inside the estate, everything smelled like cedar and dust. The hallways were dimly lit with antique sconces, casting shadows that stretched too far. A

sense of heaviness settled over me as we walked.

He led me past an old wine cellar, then behind a hidden panel that clicked open after he pressed his palm to a reader.

We stepped into a small steel elevator. No buttons. Just a scanner.

“Your fingerprint,” he said, looking at me.

I placed my thumb on the glass.

A soft chime.

The vault door groaned open as the elevator stopped. And there it was.

A room made of reinforced steel walls. Temperature–controlled. Humidity–regulated. The real kind of vault–the kind meant to store more than just gold.

I stepped in first.

And froze.

It was empty.

No stacks of files. No flash drives. No crates. No old–school ledgers. Just blank shelves. Cold air. Silence.

Dominic moved past me, checking every wall, scanning the hidden compartments.

Nothing.

I slowly turned, my breath catching. “Where the hell is it?”

He didn’t speak. Just stood in the center of the empty vault, his fists clenched at his sides.

“Dominic,” I said again, sharper this time. “Where. Is. It?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered. Then louder–angrier-“I don’t know.”

-That didn’t make sense. He always knew. He was always ten steps ahead. But not this time.

I turned away, dragging my hand down the steel shelf nearest to me. Cold. Dusty. Empty. Just like the answers I came all this way for.

“This was it,” I said quietly. “This was supposed to tell me something. Anything about my parents. About who I really am.”

“We’ll find out what happened.” Dominic pulled out his phone and pressed speed dial. “Now.”

I wrapped my arms around myself and stared at the floor, blinking back the tight burn behind my eyes. It wasn’t just about the inheritance. It was about closure. Identity. Proof that I was more than just some broken puppet in someone else’s game.

“Matthias. I need eyes on the vault. Now.” Dominic’s voice was hard. Controlled. But I could feel the tension vibrating off him. “The feeds. Pull the security footage from the last seventy–two hours.”

He paused, listening. I turned toward him.

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“…Yeah. Everything. Get me timestamps. Who accessed the system, who disabled it. If anything was moved we need to know when and how

Another pause. Then he ended the call and looked at me.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?”

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