He Chose His Bastard Over Our Baby - Chapter 19: Chapter 19

The cemetery was silent. Too silent.
I knelt before Amara's grave, tracing the cold marble with trembling fingers. My baby girl. My whole world. The wind whispered through the trees, and for just a heartbeat, I let myself feel the crushing weight of my grief.
Then the hairs on my neck stood up.
Someone was watching.
I went rigid.
Not alone after all.
A rustle. A shifting shadow.
I moved—lightning fast. Gunfire shattered the stillness. Bullets whizzed past as I dove behind a weathered tombstone. Ambush. My pistol was in my hand before I'd finished rolling. How many? A quick glance—five armed men closing in.
"Give up, Valeria! You're surrounded!"
That voice. Isabella. Should've known.
White-hot rage flooded my veins. My first shot dropped one attacker. Four remaining. I zigzagged between graves, dodging bullets. Needed to think. Couldn't let them pin me down. Another shot from cover—missed. Damn.
Fire erupted in my shoulder as a bullet grazed me. I choked back a scream, fingers digging into the wound.
Then came that voice—deep, icy, familiar.
"Valeria!"
Darius.
The graveyard erupted in chaos. Gunfire drowned out the wind as shadows darted between tombstones. Bodies fell. Blood soaked the sacred ground. Darius's men fought like demons, shielding me with terrifying precision. Isabella's assassins matched their ferocity, driven by bloodlust and the bounty on my head.
I pressed against a stone angel, lungs burning, heart hammering. I'd known war. But not like this. Not here, where my daughter slept forever.
The click of a safety disengaging.
I whirled and fired without thinking. My bullet found its mark. Another body hit the dirt.
Three left.
Movement in my periphery. I sighted down my barrel—
And froze.
Lorenzo.
He stood at the edge of the carnage—suit torn, knuckles bloody, hair wild. His expression was unreadable.
My stomach dropped.
He'd escaped.
For a heartbeat, we just stared. I'd chained him. Tortured him. Broken him. Yet here he stood. No weapon. No vengeance. Just... something else in his eyes. His gaze flicked to Amara's headstone.
I understood why he'd come.
To beg.
To kneel.
To whisper apologies to the little girl who'd once called him daddy.
But forgiveness would have to wait.
Isabella wasn't finished.
She materialized from the shadows, pistol raised, lips twisted in a snarl. "This ends now, Valeria."
I bared my teeth. "Then shoot already."
I saw the decision flash in her eyes.
Her finger tightening. The muzzle flash. The bullet screaming toward my heart.
I didn't blink. Didn't move.
Because in that frozen instant—
Lorenzo moved faster.
"No!"
His body crashed into mine, knocking me sideways.
The gunshot echoed like a thunderclap.
Lorenzo staggered. Gasped. Then crumpled.
Blood. So much blood.
I caught him, my arms wrapping around his falling body as we sank to the earth. His breath came in wet, ragged gulps. Crimson bloomed across his shirt where his hand clutched his chest.
I couldn't breathe.
"Lorenzo—"
His trembling fingers brushed my cheek. Warm. Weak. "Told you..." A shuddering exhale. "I'd die for you."
His blood coated my hands. His eyelids fluttered. Breathing turned shallow.
No.
A sob clawed at my throat.
I wasn't ready.
I wasn't—
Another gunshot cracked the air.
I turned to see Isabella's body jerk violently before collapsing in a heap. Lazarus, Darius's top enforcer, lowered his smoking pistol.
"Done," he muttered.
But it wasn't.
Because Lorenzo was dying in my arms.
And for the first time in years—
I was terrified.
His breath hitched. Blood pulsed between my fingers. His fading grip barely grazed my face. "Sorry... about Amara... about everything," he whispered.
A tear betrayed me. His remorse was real—I could see it, feel it. But it changed nothing. Too late now.
His chest stilled.
Lorenzo De Luca was gone.
I stared at his lifeless face, waiting—for relief, for satisfaction, for anything. But all that came was a yawning emptiness. His blood soaked through my clothes, a permanent stain from the man who'd once been my entire world.