Red Card to Your Heart: You Don't Deserve My Love Extra Time novel Chapter 30

Carina called me insane.

Salvatore, it seemed, had reached the same conclusion.

He brought in Milan's most prestigious psychiatrist—a man whose client list included royalty and crime lords alike. "You're ill," Salvatore told me, his voice gentle as he stroked my hair. "Let me help you heal."

Perhaps there was truth in his diagnosis. There was something unnervingly methodical about how perfectly my plans were unfolding—a clockwork precision that occasionally disturbed even me. The calculated manipulation, the careful positioning of pawns, the cold-blooded patience—all executed with machine-like efficiency.

Yet beneath my controlled exterior, something was fracturing. I could sense that the force sustaining me—the vengeful fire that had kept me breathing when I should have died years ago—would extinguish itself the moment I achieved everything I'd set in motion.

And then what would remain?

On nights when Salvatore was handling business across the border, I would retrieve the photograph I kept hidden between the pages of a hollowed-out Bible.

In the image, Daniel Reed stood with his back to the camera, shoulders straight, stance confident—the perfect posture of a man who believed in justice.

My Daniel.

I would trace his silhouette with my fingertip, remembering how it felt to press my cheek against his back, to feel his heartbeat beneath my palm.

"I love you," I would whisper to the ghost in the photograph.

The words felt both true and somehow distant now, as if belonging to another woman I once was.

Lately, an intrusive thought had begun haunting my quietest moments: After this is over, Daniel, could I finally join you?

The most unsettling part was how the thought brought peace rather than pain.

What troubled me more were the occasional moments—becoming increasingly frequent—when Salvatore's touch would make me forget Daniel's face. When his rare, genuine smiles would momentarily blur my purpose. These moments of weakness terrified me more than death ever could.

I fell asleep clutching the photograph, dreams filled with two men whose faces kept merging into one.

When I woke, the photograph was gone.

She sank to her knees beside the bed, eyes closed in surrender as she parted her lips like an obedient child. I tossed the grape with perfect accuracy, watching it land in her mouth.

"Delicious, isn't it?" I asked pleasantly. "The sweetness is quite remarkable."

Carina swallowed, keeping her gaze fixed on the floor. "Yes."

Suddenly, something shifted in her demeanor. A small smile crept across her face—the kind that suggested she was privy to information I lacked.

Her eyes met mine, gleaming with an unsettling confidence that hadn't been there moments before. "Enjoy them while you can, Isabella," she whispered, her voice dripping with anticipation. "A woman in your... condition... should savor every pleasure. After all, no one knows how much time any of us really has."

I maintained my placid smile, betraying nothing of the sudden alertness her words had triggered.

"How thoughtful of you to be concerned for my health," I replied, selecting another grape. "Perhaps you'd like another one?"

The cold calculation behind my eyes made her recoil. Whatever small victory she thought she held had clearly lost some of its savor