Chapter 10: The Last Manuscript

Elara didn't sleep.

She lay in Julian's guest bed, staring at the ceiling and replaying every moment of their kiss, every word of their conversation, every look that had passed between them. The silk sheets were softer than anything she'd ever felt, but they might as well have been sandpaper for all the comfort they provided.

I'm falling in love with you too.

Why had she said that? Why had she confessed the one truth that made everything impossibly complicated just moments after insisting they had no future together?

Around three in the morning, she gave up on sleep entirely and padded to the window. The city sprawled below her, a glittering maze of lights and shadows, and somewhere out there, Vincent Moretti was planning her destruction. The thought should have terrified her, but instead she felt strangely calm. Maybe this was what Helena had felt—the peace that came with accepting that some fights were worth the cost.

A soft knock on her door made her turn.

"Elara?" Julian's voice was quiet, careful. "Are you awake?"

She opened the door to find him standing in the hallway, still wearing his dress shirt and pants from earlier, though both were wrinkled now, his tie long since discarded. He looked like he'd been wrestling with his own sleepless demons.

"I couldn't sleep either," she said.

"We need to talk. There's something I haven't told you—something you need to know before this goes any further."

The seriousness in his voice sent ice through her veins. "What is it?"

Instead of answering, he gestured for her to follow him. They walked through his penthouse to what she realized was his home office—smaller than the corporate space, but no less impressive. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the walls, and she could see first editions that were probably worth more than her entire bookstore inventory.

But it was the desk that drew her attention. On its polished surface sat an ornate wooden box, similar to the one they'd found in Helena's study but larger, more elaborate. Julian's hands were shaking slightly as he opened it.

"This is Helena's original manuscript," he said quietly. "Not the published version of Eterno, not even the uncensored copy you found. This is what she wrote first, before any editing, before any self-censorship, before any fear."

Elara's breath caught. "You've had it this whole time?"

"My grandmother gave it to me when I was sixteen. She made me promise to keep it safe, to make sure it survived no matter what happened to her." Julian's jaw tightened. "She knew Vincent would try to destroy it eventually."

The manuscript was thick, handwritten in Helena's careful script on cream-colored paper that had yellowed with age. Even from across the desk, Elara could see passages that had been crossed out, sections that had been rewritten, margins filled with notes and second thoughts.

"Vincent doesn't just want to keep sanitizing the published version," Julian continued. "He wants this destroyed completely. He's convinced that as long as Helena's original words exist, someone will eventually discover the full truth about our family."

"And will they?"

Julian's smile was grim. "Helena didn't just write about her love affair with my grandfather. She documented everything—business meetings she overheard, deals she witnessed, names and dates and details that could bring down half the crime families on the East Coast, even forty years later."

The implications hit Elara like a physical blow. "This isn't just a romance novel. It's evidence."

"It's a time bomb. Helena thought she was writing a love story, but she was actually creating the most dangerous piece of evidence in organized crime history." Julian ran his hands through his hair, destroying what was left of his perfect styling. "Vincent has spent thirty years making sure no one ever sees this manuscript. He killed Helena to protect it, and he'll kill both of us without hesitation if he thinks we're going to expose it."

Elara sank into the chair across from his desk, overwhelmed. "Why are you showing me this? Why are you telling me?"

"Because you deserve to know what you're really fighting for. This isn't just about preserving a love story anymore, Elara. This is about justice for every crime Helena documented, every victim whose story she recorded without even realizing it."

She stared at the manuscript, understanding now why Vincent had been so desperate to keep Helena's work buried. This wasn't just about family privacy—it was about survival for an entire criminal empire.

"There's more," Julian said quietly. "Vincent isn't just trying to protect the family's past. He's trying to protect their future. My grandfather may have been the romantic hero of Helena's story, but Vincent... Vincent is everything Helena feared the family could become."

"What do you mean?"

Julian moved to a filing cabinet, pulling out a folder thick with photographs and documents. "For the past five years, I've been building a case against my uncle. Money laundering, extortion, murder—he's escalated far beyond anything my grandfather ever did. He's turned the family business into something Helena would have been horrified by."

The photographs were surveillance shots—Vincent meeting with known criminals, exchanging briefcases, shaking hands with men whose faces Elara recognized from FBI wanted posters she'd seen on the news.

"You're working with the FBI," she breathed.

"I've been feeding them information for years. Enough to build a case, but not enough to bring charges. Vincent is too careful, too insulated." Julian's voice was tight with frustration. "But Helena's manuscript could change that. Her firsthand accounts of how the business operated in the sixties and seventies could establish patterns, provide context that would make the current evidence meaningful."

Elara looked up at him, pieces clicking into place. "That's why you really agreed to help me. Not just to honor Helena's memory, but to bring down Vincent."

"Initially, yes. But now..." Julian met her eyes, and she saw vulnerability there that took her breath away. "Now it's about more than that. It's about making sure you survive this. It's about protecting the woman I—"

He stopped, but the unfinished words hung between them like a confession.

"Julian," she whispered.

"I know you think we don't have a future. I know you believe people like us don't get happy endings. But I need you to understand something—protecting you has become more important to me than bringing down Vincent, more important than justice for my grandmother, more important than anything else in my life."

The words should have thrilled her. Instead, they filled her with terror.

"You can't mean that."

"I do mean that. And that's what makes this so dangerous." Julian came around the desk, kneeling beside her chair so they were at eye level. "Vincent is going to force a choice, Elara. He's going to make me choose between destroying him and protecting you. And when that moment comes, I'm going to choose you. Every time."

"No." Elara stood abruptly, pacing to the window. "You can't make that choice. Helena died because no one was brave enough to expose the truth. You can't let her sacrifice be meaningless."

"Helena died because she fell in love with a dangerous man and refused to walk away when she had the chance," Julian said quietly. "Just like you're doing now."

The parallel hit her like a slap. She turned to face him, seeing her own fears reflected in his dark eyes.

"This is exactly what I was afraid of," she whispered. "This is why I said we can't do this. I won't be responsible for you abandoning everything you've worked for."

"And I won't be responsible for letting the woman I love die because I chose revenge over protection."

The standoff stretched between them, two people caught between love and duty, between the past and the future, between Helena's ghost and Vincent's threat.

Finally, Elara moved back to the desk, her hands hovering over Helena's manuscript like it was radioactive.

"What if there was another way?" she said slowly. "What if we could expose Vincent and keep me safe?"

"There isn't. Vincent won't stop until you're dead or silenced permanently. The only way to protect you is to make a deal with him—give him the manuscript in exchange for your safety."

"Or," Elara said, her voice growing stronger as an idea began to form, "we could make the manuscript public before he has a chance to stop us. If the whole world knows Helena's story, if the FBI has her evidence, then there's no point in killing me."

Julian stared at her like she'd suggested they jump off the roof. "That's suicide. Vincent would never let us live long enough to—"

"What if we didn't give him a choice? What if we moved so fast, so publicly, that he couldn't silence us without exposing himself?"

The silence that followed was electric with possibility and terror.

"You're talking about publishing Helena's complete story," Julian said slowly. "Everything. The romance, the crime details, the evidence that could destroy dozens of families."

"I'm talking about finishing what Helena started. She wrote her truth because she believed it mattered. She died because someone wanted to bury that truth. Maybe it's time we honored her courage instead of her fear."

Julian was quiet for a long time, studying her face like he was trying to memorize every detail.

"If we do this," he said finally, "there's no going back. Vincent will come after us with everything he has. Other families will want us dead for exposing their secrets. We'll be fugitives for the rest of our lives."

"Together?" The word slipped out before Elara could stop it.

Julian's smile was soft and devastating and full of promise. "If you'll have me."

Elara looked at Helena's manuscript, at forty years of hidden truth waiting to see the light. She thought about the woman who'd written it, who'd chosen love over safety and died for her choice. She thought about all the readers who'd fallen in love with a sanitized version of that story, never knowing how much braver and more beautiful the truth actually was.

"Yes," she said, her voice steady with newfound determination. "Let's finish Helena's story. Let's give her the ending she deserved."

As Julian reached for her hand, as their fingers intertwined over the manuscript that would either save them or destroy them, Elara realized that some love stories weren't meant to be safe.

Some were meant to be worth dying for.