Chapter 266

• Allesio’s POV
• It had been a week since I made that promise to Rosa. Since I promised her that I won’t tell Alaric. And each day felt like a weight pressing down harder on my chest. The guilt of keeping the secret, the guilt of betraying Alaric, was gnawing at me, and I couldn’t escape it. The promise I’d made to her—I won’t tell Alaric, I won’t tell anyone—had started to feel less like a vow and more like a cage I couldn’t break out of.
• I spent more time at the mansion than her condo now, hoping to bury my thoughts under the grind of work. I told myself that keeping my focus on Alaric, on what I owed him, would keep my head straight. But every time I looked at him, every time I saw his face, the guilt flared up again. It didn’t matter that Rosa was the one I loved. I had a duty to Alaric that I couldn’t ignore, no matter how much my heart pulled me in the other direction.