Chapter 212
D
John De Santis was finally arrested.
Conspiracy. Medical tampering Financial crimes. All tied back to Dulcie–and him. Before they hauled him away, he begged for a private audience. I agreed. For closure. The chapel was cold. Dim.X
He knelt
“It was Dulcie’s idea,” he rasped. 1 just helped her. Have mercy, Danica….
I crouched beside him, Close enough he could smell the fire on my breath.
“Mercy?” I whispered. “Mercy died with my mother,
I stood and walked out without looking back.
Let Reagan watch his father rot. Let the world watch the De Santis name burn. I wasn’t one of them. I never was
And Reagan? Pathenic Reagan. They called it a “psychotic break.” I called it justice.
Reagan De Santis–once heir to the throne of a billion–dollar empire was now just another patient in a high–security psychiatric institution buried in the mountains, far from the headlines he used to control.
They found him wandering barefoot in the wreckage of his estate, muttering to no one, bleeding from the hands after trying to claw his way through glass. Salvatore’s men didn’t even have to lift a finger. His mind crumbled all by itself!
Now, they said he sits in a padded cell all day, whispering my name like it’s a psalm.
“Danica Danica Danica_”
Again and again. They said he sees me in the comers. Laughing. Untouchable. Dressed in the black silk h
he once ripped off me with greedy hands. Only now, I’m a phantom. A goddess. A reckoning.
Sometimes he werps. Other times, he screams.
He still asks the staff, “Where are my children?”
They never answer
Because no one believes him anymore. Not about me. Not about heirs. Not about anything
The doctors call them hallucinations–his desperate mind clinging to a reality where he still matters.
He doesn’t
Not to me. Not to the world. Not even to history.
I watched the last of his holdings get auctioned off. Stocks, shares, properties, patents. Gone. Sold for scraps. The De Santis name was stripped from every building, every contract, every record that once screamed legacy.
And me?
i stood above the world that once tried to bury me. Wearing the name they tried to erase–Danica De Santis–not as a victim, but as the architect of their ruin.
One day, I sent Reagan a letter
No name. No return address. Just four words on ivory paper
“You never had me ”
They say he tore the room apart after that.
Bit the walls. Bloodied his mouth. Tried to climb the ceiling like a rabid animal reaching for a ghost that wouldn’t come. He dies five months later. No funeral. No press. No inheritance. Just a number in a ledger and a cold tag on his toe!!
Reagan De Santis
Status forgotten
And me? I don’t look back i
Because ghosts don’t haunt queens. They serve them
TWO YEARS LATERI
I never believed in weddings Not after the first one The dress. The vows. The kiss. It had all been an illusion–velvet wrapping on a coffin. A ceremony meant to make me feel owned, not loved
But this this was different.
We mamed in Sicily No media No guests. No eyes that didn’t belong E
Just ancient stones and golden sunflowers stretching to the honzon, their faces turned to the same sun I was finally free under. It smelled like salt and citrus, the breeze warm, carrying the scent of blooming fennel and the faintest trace of sea
And I wore black Of course I did
12:43 PM
Not out of mourning–but defiance.}
The gown clung like liquid shadow, silk catching every flicker of firelight from the torches surrounding us. Lace draped off my shoulders like smoke. No veil. My face was uncovered, unapologetic. The scars of everything I survived wore themselves like diamonds in my eyes. Salvatore stood at the altar–no tie, just a black–on–black suit and the weight of a man who had killed for me, bled for me, burned the world at my request and still looked at me like I was holy.
When I reached him, he took my hand–not like he was claiming me, but like he was anchoring himself.
His lips brushed my fingers. And then, quietly, deeply, he said:
“To protect your soul. Not control it. To love you in war, in silence, in shadow, To never ask you to kneel–only to rise. Again. And again. And again.”
I stared at him for a moment, heart thudding like a war drum, and said the only thing I knew to be real
“I don’t need saving. Just someone who knows where to bury the bodies.”
His grin? Sinful. Dangerous. Mine.
The vows were sealed not with a ring, but a silver chain–thin, delicate, looped around my wrist and his. A reminder. We weren’t owned. We were tethered.
Two wolves who leamed how to howl in harmony
And our children?
Our three wild stars. Our triplets.
They ran barefoot through the grass, flower crowns tangled in their curls. The boys chased each other like they were born to conquer mountains. And my daughter, danced between them like a storm with a smile.
“Mommy, you look like the moon!” she shouted.
I bent down, scooping her into my arms. That’s because I married your father under the stars.”
Salvatore lifted the boys, one on each shoulder, like the king they’ll remember him as. Our children squealed with laughter, crowns falling. joy uncontained.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t plotting. I wasn’t fighting. I wasn’t surviving.
I was living.
And beneath that Sicilian moon, with the scent of lemons and rebellion in the air, I pulled my children close and whispered:!!
“You are born of fire. You will never kneel,”
They looked up at me–eyes fierce, bright, unbroken.
Just like mine.
Salvatore and I danced in the grass, barefoot and wild. No music but the ocean waves in the distance, and the laughter of the empire we built–not from ashes, but from blood and choice.
I leaned into him, my voice low. “We made it.“}
He rested his forehead against mine, breathing me in. “No, bella. We took it.”
And damn right we did.
We weren’t survivors anymore.}
We were sovereign.Z
12:43 PM c
