Chapter Eight
1002 Words
The moment Fiona stepped outside, the cool evening air hit her like a slap. Her chest tightened, breaths coming too fast as she stumbled down the front steps. The world felt shaky, as if the ground beneath her was no longer steady. Her mother’s words kept ringing in her head:
*“I’m getting remarried… to Adrian Valerio.”*
*“You’ll meet his son soon. He’s coming home.”*
His son.
Alistair.
The man who had held her by the waist in a dark hotel room.
The man whose voice still haunted her sleep.
The man whose baby she carried.
Her stomach twisted painfully. She pressed a hand to her belly and tried to breathe, but every inhale felt thin and desperate. The panic swelled until she felt sick.
She sent Zara a rushed voice note—broken, breathless, barely coherent.
“Zara… I–I need you. Please. Come get me. Please.”
She didn’t even wait for a reply. She walked aimlessly down the street, heart pounding against her ribs, vision blurring with unshed tears.
*How was she supposed to face him? How could destiny be this cruel?*
A soft vibration buzzed in her palm. Zara was calling.
“Fiona?! Fiona, slow down—where are you?”
Zara’s voice cracked with worry. She’d known Fiona was pregnant, had held her hand through every tearful doubt, but she had never—not once—imagined *this.*
“I’m near Maple Street,” Fiona whispered, shaking. “Zara… he’s going to be my stepbrother.”
There was a long silence, the kind that meant Zara was trying very, very hard not to explode.
“…What?”
Fiona could picture her friend standing frozen, mascara wand halfway to her lashes, expression caught between disbelief and fury
“Jesus, Fiona—what happened? You just ran out like the house was on fire!”
Fiona shook her head, but her voice was cracked and small.
“She’s marrying his father… Alistair’s father.”
Zara froze. “Wait—*Valerio*? As in… that Valerio family?”
Fiona nodded miserably.
Zara swore under her breath. “Girl, you are carrying the son of the literal mafia prince, and now he’s going to be your stepbrother? Fiona! Why is your life a telenovela with guns?”
Fiona let out a half-sob, half-laugh. “I don’t know what to do, Zara.
Fiona let out a broken laugh that turned into a sob.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I swear. I didn’t know…”
“Oh, babe,” Zara breathed, softening instantly. “It’s okay. I’m coming to get you right now. Don’t move. And breathe—just breathe, alright? We’ll figure this out.”
Fiona nodded, hugging herself tightly.
But deep down, she knew Zara had no idea how complicated it would truly be.
**ALISTAIR – POV**
Alistair Valerio sat at the long obsidian table in his penthouse office, flipping through a confidential trafficking dossier when his father’s call came in. He almost didn’t answer—he rarely did. But something in the old man’s tone earlier had been off.
He accepted the call.
“Alistair,” Adrian Valerio said, voice controlled but nervous, “I need to tell you something important.”
Alistair leaned back in his seat, expression unreadable.
“Go on.”
“I’m getting married.”
Alistair’s jaw tensed. Marriage was a luxury he never cared for. But he said nothing.
“And you should know… she has a daughter. Younger than you.”
Now his attention sharpened—cold, calculating.
A new stepsister.
A stranger being brought into the Valerio family.
Into *his* territory.
“Who are they?” he asked, voice low.
“Her name is Evelyn Lewis .And the daughter… Fiona.”
The pen in his fingers stilled. Something in him paused—familiar, intrusive—like a shadow slipping back into place. The name tugged at a memory he’d been trying to bury, a soft moan in a dim-lit room, a girl who tasted like innocence and danger.
of that girl—her touch, her breathless whisper, the way she had clung to him that night three months ago—had never left him.
It had infuriated him.
It had haunted him.
And now she was going to be tied to his family?
Alistair tossed the pen into the fireplace, flames swallowing it instantly.
He turned to vince, his right-hand man, who stood near the door.
“Find everything you can on Evelyn Lewis and her daughter,” Alistair ordered, voice cold and sharp. “I want it tonight.”
Vince hesitated. “Already done. And uh… boss, you’re not going to like this.”
Alistair raised a brow. “Say it.”
“The daughter’s name is Fiona Lewis.”
Alistair’s breath stopped.
Fiona.
That Fiona.
The one he had spent months trying—and failing—to forget.
A slow, lethal smirk curved his lips, but his eyes darkened dangerously.
“So fate brings her back to me.”
He stepped toward the balcony, wind sweeping his hair back.
“She won’t be able to run this time.”
Every instinct inside him sharpened.
Every possessive, territorial part of him woke like a sleeping beast.
His father’s marriage announcement no longer mattered.
Only one thing did.
**Fiona Lewis was coming back into his world.
And she belonged to him more than she knew.**
But the unease crept in anyway… crawling under his skin.
“I’ll return to the estate soon,” he said coolly. “We’ll speak then.”
When the call ended, Alistair stood, pacing slowly to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city. His reflection stared back at him—dark eyes, controlled posture—but inside something was shifting, tightening.
Fiona.
His father’s fiancée's daughter.
A coincidence?
Or the universe playing a sick joke?
He didn’t believe in fate.
But he did believe in consequences.
And he knew—instinctively, violently—
Whatever waited at home would change everything
- Writer
