113

113
Allesio’s POV
Alaric’s voice still rang in my ears as I paced the length of my room. He hadn’t raised it, hadn’t even sounded angry, but his words had carried enough warning to make my chest tighten.
“You’re getting too comfortable, Allesio,” he’d said. “I don’t care how charming you think she is-your job is to get the information. Stop wasting time.”
I rubbed a hand over my jaw, staring out the window at the darkened grounds of the mansion. Alaric always knew how to dig his claws into people, and I wasn’t any exception. The problem was, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to follow his orders.
The mission had been simple enough at first. Gain Rosa’s trust. Get close enough to learn her family’s weaknesses, their strategies, the cracks in their armor and if they were ever involved in Dominic’s death, or if they knew if the Cruz family had done it. I’d done it before with others, and I’d done it well. But this time, it wasn’t so easy to compartmentalize.
Maybe it was the way she looked at me, those sharp eyes that softened just enough when she let her guard down. Or maybe it was the stories she shared lately-about her father, her childhood, the kind of memories that painted her as more than just the daughter of a powerful syndicate boss. She wasn’t just a target anymore. She was a person.
And that was the problem.
I sat down on the edge of my bed, resting my elbows on my knees. The room felt stifling, like the walls were closing in on me.
Alaric was right about one thing-I was getting comfortable. Too comfortable. Rosa had started trusting me, letting me in, and I should have been capitalizing on that, asking the right questions, steering the conversations toward what we needed to know. Instead, I’d found myself caught up in her laughter, the way her eyes lit up when she talked about something she was passionate about, the quiet vulnerability in her voice when she let her guard down.
I leaned back, running a hand through my hair. It wasn’t like me to hesitate, to second-guess myself. But every time I thought about pressing her harder, I remembered the way she’d looked at me when I’d given her that old journal.
And that was the thing. Rosa was no longer just someone I was playing a role with. Somewhere along the line, the lines had blurred, and I wasn’t sure where the act ended and where I began.
I rubbed my eyes sleepily, running a hand through my hair as I walked to the dining room. I was pretty sure breakfast was over and I didn’t know why I had slept in the way I did today.
I was barely even awake when I strutted into the kitchen and served myself. Rosa wasn’t here. And maybe that was a good thing. Maybe she’d had her breakfast and I won’t have to run into her today. I dug into my food, eating slowly when the kitchen door open and she walked in, her hair still slightly damp from a shower, I felt the same pull I always did-a mix of admiration and guilt that made my stomach churn.
“Morning,” I said casually, leaning back in my chair.
“Morning,” she replied, her voice warm but guarded. She’d gotten better at masking her emotions around me, but I could still see the flicker of hesitation in her eyes.
We made small talk for a while, the conversation easy but shallow. It wasn’t until she excused herself to handle some business that I realized I hadn’t asked her a single probing question.
Alaric’s voice echoed in my head again. ‘Stop wasting time.’
I sat in Alaric’s office, the dim light casting long shadows across the room. He was pouring himself a drink, his movements unhurried, but I could feel the intensity of his gaze on me even when he wasn’t looking directly at me.
“She trusts you, doesn’t she?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.
“I think so,” I replied carefully.
“Then why don’t we have anything useful yet?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. At least, not one I could say out loud.
“She’s careful,” I said instead. “She doesn’t let much slip.”
Alaric turned to face me, his expression unreadable. “That’s why you’re there. To make her let her guard down. You’ve done it before, so do it again.”
His words stung more than they should have. I’d heard them a dozen times in different variations, but this time, they felt heavier, like they carried an accusation I couldn’t deny.
“I’m working on it,” I said, my voice quieter than I intended.
“Work harder,” Alaric said sharply. “We’re running out of time, and I won’t have you jeopardizing everything because you’re getting distracted. Get out.”
I didn’t even argue. I got up from the chair and walked out, heading straight to my room. I poured myself a drink, staring down at the amber liquid swirling in the glass. Alaric wasn’t wrong-I was distracted. But it wasn’t as simple as that.
When I first started this mission on Rosa, I’d seen her as a means to an end. She was smart, beautiful, and capable, but none of that had mattered because she was just a job. But now… now, I couldn’t look at her without feeling the guilty of what I was doing.
Every time she let her guard down around me, every time she trusted me enough to share a piece of herself, it felt like I was stealing something. And the worst part was, I wasn’t sure I could stop.
I downed the drink in one go, the burn in my throat doing little to numb the turmoil inside me. I ran my hands through my hair in frustration and made my way out of my room, heading out of the house to the garden.
Rosa was sitting there, a cup of tea by her side and her shoulders relaxed.
I approached her quietly, not wanting to startle her. She glanced up when she heard my footsteps, a small smile tugging at her lips.
“Mind if I join you?” I asked.
She hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Sure.”
I sat down across from her.. For a while, we didn’t say anything, the silence between us comfortable.
“You seem different today,” I said finally.
She raised an eyebrow. “Different how?”
“Lighter,” I said. “Less… guarded.”
She laughed softly, the sound low and musical. “Don’t get used to it. It’s rare.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” I said, a smile tugging at my lips.
Her expression softened, and for a moment, I saw the vulnerability she tried so hard to hide. It was in the way she looked at me, the way her fingers toyed with the edge of her journal, the way she seemed to relax just a little bit more.
And that was when I finally realized what I have been trying to figure out. I didn’t want to betray her, not because I couldn’t, but because I didn’t want to be the one to take away that lightness, that trust.
But the question was, what the hell was I supposed to do about it?