Chapter 130
Aria’s POV
I stood there, frozen.
Chiara’s words echoed in my mind like a bell ringing too loud in a quiet room.
“Do you know you’re related to them?”
I blinked, confused at first. Not because I didn’t understand her–but because I couldn’t believe she thought I didn’t know.
A slow breath left my lips. I let the silence stretch for a moment before I answered.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “I’ve always known.”
Chiara didn’t react right away. Her eyes stayed on me, searching for something. Maybe guilt. Maybe regret.
“Victor had told me the frst day o met Matteo,” I added, my voice calm. “Before anything happened. Before they ever touched me.”
She looked…surprised. Not shocked–but like she didn’t expect me to be so open about it.
“So you just… went ahead with it?” she asked, arms folded tightly across her chest.
I met her gaze. “We did.”
There was a pause. She leaned against the window, chewing on the inside of her cheek.
“I just don’t get it, Aria,” she said softly. “You knew they were your step–uncles. Doesn’t that… mean anything?”
Her voice wasn’t angry, just tight. Like she was holding in something bigger.
I moved to sit back down on the couch. The sunlight spilled across the floor like gold. The warmth felt nice. I needed it.
“They’re not my blood,” I said. “And Victor–he’s my stepfather, not my real dad. I barely knew him before he married my mom. The triplets never lived with us, never acted like uncles. It’s just… not like/that.”
Chiara let out a sharp breath, like she didn’t know what to do with my answer.
“But people won’t see it that way,” she said. “They’ll see the family tree and make assumptions. Especially people like Victor.”
“I don’t care what people think,” I said, and it was the truth. “What I care about is how they make me feel.”
She didn’t say anything.
“They make me feel safe,” I went on. “Wanted. Like I’m not just someone’s burden or shadow. I’ve never felt that before–not until them.”
Chiara’s face softened a little, but I could still see the storm behind her eyes.
“They’re my brothers,” she said quietly. “I just want to protect them.”
I looked down. “So do I.”
The room was quiet for a long time after that. Only the ticking clock filled the space between us.
1/3
Chapter 130
Finally, she sat down across from me, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of her sleeve.
“I know they love hard,” she said. “But they also hide things. All three of them. They’ve always done that even from me”
I raised my head. “What are you trying to say?”
“I don’t think they’d ever hurt you on purpose,” she said. “But I also think there are parts of them you don’t fully know yet. And if you’re falling in love with them, you deserve the truth. All of it.”
I’swallowed hard.
I knew there were shadows behind their eyes sometimes–things left unsaid. But I also knew they were honest with me in the ways that mattered. They showed me tenderness, fire, loyalty. Every time they touched me, it felt real.
Still…
There was something about the way Chiara said it. Like she’d seen things I hadn’t.
“What kind of truth?” I asked.
She looked out the window, jaw tight. “Just be careful, Aria. That’s all.”
And then she stood. Her voice was lower now, quieter–but her next words hit harder than anything else she’d said.
“Because in this family,” she said, looking right at me, “things get twisted. People keep secrets. And sometimes love isn’t enough to fix the damage.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but she was already walking toward the door.
She paused with her hand on the frame and turned back
one last time.
“Just promise me something,” she said. “Promise me that if you find out something you don’t like… you won’t just ignore it because of how they make you feel.”
I didn’t promise. I couldn’t.
I wasn’t looking for them. I didn’t plan any of this. But somehow, they became everything. And no matter how complicated it looked from the outside, it felt simple when I was with them–like the world finally made sense.
I looked down at my hands, twisting the edge of the oversized sweatshirt between my fingers. A breeze drifted in through the cracked window, cool against my skin, but it did nothing to quiet the burning in my chest. I wasn’t ashamed of how I felt about them–not Matteo’s quiet strength, or the way Enzo could make me laugh even when my world felt like it was crumbling, or how Dante’s protective instincts made me feel like I was something worth guarding. They weren’t just the triplets to me. They were warmth in a house I’d never felt at home in, steady hands when my own were shaking, soft voices in the dead of night when the world seemed too loud. So yes, maybe it looked wrong on paper. Maybe the connection through Victor would make other people’s skin crawl. But Victor was never my blood. He was a name on my mother’s marriage certificate, a stranger with a key to our apartment and a cold kind of love I never understood. The triplets were never my uncles in any real sense. They didn’t see me as a niece, and 1 didn’t see them as anything less than the ones who made me feel alive. That mattered more to me than titles or family trees. That was real.
Because the truth was, I already knew I’d do anything to hold on to them. Even if it meant walking into the dark with my eyes open.
Author’s note: Thank you for reading my book this far, I know there are a lot of mistakes that need correcting and they will be corrected but please don’t read my book for the purpose of leaving hate comments, all through, if you don’t like it, I understand, you can stop reading.
