Chapter 6
LUCA
I'm wearing a path in the Persian rug, back and forth like a caged animal that's forgotten what it's hunting.
Declan told me once that pacing makes me look weak. I told him that sitting still while your world tilts off its axis makes you look dead.
Right now, I'm neither weak nor dead. I'm something worse—distracted by a woman who tastes like cherries and bad decisions.
I pace because if I sit, I'll picture Belle and how she sounded thirty-six hours ago.
My knuckles still throb from yesterday's lesson in respect.
The guy's lucky I didn't kill him. Anyone else who talked about Belle like that would be breathing through a tube right now.
Belle. Fuck.
That little gasp when she whispered my name—like I was a prayer and a curse in the same breath.
The way her back arched off the bed when she came, like her body was trying to crawl inside mine.
Christ. I've had her once and I'm already planning our next hundred times.
This is how empires fall—not with bullets, but with green eyes and pink lips that taste like salvation.
I shouldn't have gone in her room. Even I know that.
I had half a dozen excuses lined up in my head from security, to boredom.
Truth is, I heard her moaning my name and lost the plot.
I should've walked away and closed the door, pretended I didn't hear and see what I did.
But sweet little innocent Belle Donovan with her fingers up that sundress, isn't something you walk away from once you've had a little taste.
It's been years since I let a woman get this deep under my skin, and this one managed it in less than a few days.
Now I know exactly what she tastes like, and how tight she feels around me.
And the way her eyes went wide when I first pushed inside her?
That look alone was worth the seven million her father owes me.
Virgin.
The word rattles around my skull like a bullet that won't find an exit.
I've fucked plenty of women. Experienced women who knew the game, knew the score, knew that morning meant goodbye.
But Belle? She gave me something that can't be taken back, can't be undone, can't be forgotten.
The blood on my sheets. The pain flickering across her face before pleasure drowned it.
The way she trusted me to be careful with her.
I wasn't careful. I was starving.
And now she's branded into my brain like someone took a hot iron to grey matter.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her face, stunned and beautiful, whispering yes when I asked if she was sure.
She should've been someone else's story. Some college kid, some safe guy who buys her daffodils and coffee.
Instead, she got me. The Beast.
I took her first like I was owed it, and now? I'm fucked.
"Thinking about your new toy?"
I turn to find my brother Declan leaning against the doorframe, smirking.
"Don't you fucking knock?"
Declan raises his hands in mock surrender and strolls in without permission, looking like the devil's lawyer himself.
Sometimes I wonder if killing him would be worth the headache of explaining it to our mother.
"Touchy today," he says, helping himself to my whiskey. "Must be the virgin bride getting under your skin."
I narrow my eyes. "How do you know about that?"
"Please. This house has more ears than the CIA. Everyone knows you popped her cherry."
I'm across the room in seconds, my eyes locked threateningly with his. "Say one more word about her like that."
"Interesting. You actually care about this one."
"She's leverage. Nothing more." I take a step back, and he smiles, straightening his tie.
"Bullshit. I saw your face when she walked past the living room this morning. You looked like a starving man who just spotted a prime steak."
I glare. "Cut the shit, Declan. Go back home."
"I thought I'd stick around, you know?" He takes a slow sip, savoring it. "Just until dinner tonight. Will she be coming? Belle Donovan?"
Her name in his mouth makes my jaw clench. "Watch yourself."
He raises a brow. "Relax. I'm not stupid enough to touch what you've already marked. But she's a distraction, Luca. Don't dress it up as anything else."
I turn away, pouring myself a drink to hide the heat crawling up my neck. "You're seeing things."
"All I'm seeing is the Russians pushing into our territory, Luca." His voice drops. "And the feds sniffing around the shipyards. Can you afford a distraction right now?"
I knock back the whiskey, let it burn all the way down. "I know what I'm doing."
Declan steps closer. "From where I'm standing, it looks like you're making the same mistake you made with Elena."
I slam down the glass on the table, so damn hard, it cracks.
Elena's name in his mouth is a match to gasoline.
"Mind your own fucking business," I hiss.
Declan shakes his head. "You wanted Elena because she was innocent, just like this Belle girl, and look how that ended. You weren't yourself for months! MONTHS!"
The memory of Elena's burned-out car flashes behind my eyes.
I'd turned into a ghost, and it was Declan who had stepped in, who sat in my chair while I haunted memories.
It was also Declan who enjoyed my power far too much.
"Get out. I'm done with this conversation," I bark at Declan.
He chuckles on his way to the door. "Remember, brother. Leverage has a way of becoming a liability when you start thinking with the wrong head."
"Close the door on the way out."
He leaves it wide open.
That's Declan for you. Always stirring up some fucking shit just to get under my skin.
Drinks and dinner are a quiet affair. Just a handful of my most trusted men.
Declan's around, keeping the whiskey flowing.
I keep it small on purpose because when there are too many people at the table, the secrets start bleeding.
My men fill the dining room with their usual bullshit—war stories getting bigger with each telling.
Sal's describing how he handled the Russians, his hands painting violence in the air like other men describe their golf swings.
I'm not listening. I'm waiting for her.
Every footstep in the hall has me looking up like some lovesick teenager.
When the fuck did I become this man? The kind who checks his watch every thirty seconds, who sent a dress to her room just to see her wear something I chose?
Tonight's a strategic move to introduce Belle to the guys.
To make it clear she's under my protection, whatever she may decide.
After what happened with Elena, I'm not risking another innocent woman's life. I'll wage a goddamn war, if I have to.
Sal raises his glass. "To the boss, finally giving us his good scotch."
The others laugh, and I raise my glass.
Declan smirks behind his glass like he knows a secret the rest of us don't. I ignore him, checking my watch.
Where is she?
Then, like she heard my thoughts, Belle appears in the doorway.
God damn.
She walks in with her chin tilted high, hands nervously clasped together in front of her.
She's in a simple black dress I had sent up to her room earlier when I figured it would look good against her pale skin.
I figured right.
Her hair falls in waves down her back, and her lips are stained the color of sin.
But what catches my eye, what makes my breath stutter in my chest, is the ring.
She's wearing it. The massive diamond catches the light, throwing it back at us like she's landed a star on her finger.
She chose to wear it. She chose me.
It takes guts to stroll into a room full of sharks and roar she's mine, and damn if Belle Donovan didn't do just that.
Something possessive and primal roars to life in my chest.
Our eyes lock across the room, and for a moment, it's just a man and a woman who can't look away from each other.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the mysterious Belle Donovan," my asshole of a brother breaks the moment, casually letting his gaze linger on Belle.
Belle blushes, and that's when I notice every man around is staring at her, at the ring.
Declan lingers longest. His gaze slides over her like he's testing me, a smile playing on his lips that's anything but polite.
And fuck me, I see red.
"Gentlemen, this is Belle Donovan," I say, moving to her side to make my mark.
My hand finds the small of her back, and she doesn't tense. "My fiancée."
We can hear a pin drop before the murmured congratulations start pouring in.
Sal looks at me like I've lost my brain. Marco and Vincent nod respectfully at Belle.
Nico grins, making some joke about me finally being tamed that I'll make him pay for later.
Declan, meanwhile, looks like the games have just begun.
He lets his gaze linger on Belle's body a beat too long, his smile more like a predator sizing up prey.
"Welcome to the family, Belle," he says, taking her hand, and I notice the way he caresses it before letting go. "You're exactly what my brother needs."
I step closer to Belle, a silent warning to my brother.
Mine.
When Declan walks away, Belle leans close, her breath warm against my ear. "Your brother seems… friendly."
"Stay away from him," I murmur back.
She looks up at me, surprised by the edge in my voice. "I thought he was family."
"That doesn't mean he's safe."
She looks bewildered, but the very next second, I see her face turn to steel.
Like she doesn't know what to do with this world, but she's fucking going to figure it out anyway.
"Let's just get this over with," she says.
There's something in the way she holds herself right now, in the steel that flashes in her eyes, that makes me think maybe she could survive here.
With me.
It's a dangerous thought.
She walks ahead and leaves me standing. Heads straight to the bar. Pours herself a drink.
I should be focusing on business, on plans, on the weight of the council breathing down my neck.
Instead, I'm watching Belle own this room as she talks to Sal.
I catch myself imagining a life with her that isn't just for show.
What would it have been like to meet her under different circumstances?
If I wasn't the Beast of New York and she wasn't the collateral for a debt I was owed?
Would she have looked at me the way she did that night, like she could give me her all?
Just then, the front door opens, and footsteps approach.
My security chief whispers, "Boss, there's a messenger here. Says it's urgent."
I nod, and a young man in a crisp suit enters, carrying a sealed envelope.
The seal is black wax, impressed with a symbol I know too well.
The Council.
The messenger's barely twenty, sweating through his Armani like he drew the short straw. Which he did.
Nobody wants to deliver bad news to the Beast.
"The Council requires your presence in Rome." His voice cracks on 'requires.' Smart boy. He knows it's not a request. "Regarding the matter of your... unexpected engagement."
The temperature in the room drops ten degrees.
'Unexpected.' That's Council speak for 'what the fuck were you thinking.'
Belle chooses that moment to laugh at something Sal says, the sound bright as champagne bubbles.
Every man in the room turns to look. She's wearing my ring like it weighs nothing, like she doesn't know it just painted a target on her spine.
"When?" I ask the messenger.
"Tomorrow, Don Moretti."
Of course. The Council loves their power plays.
Making me drop everything, fly across the Atlantic, prostrate myself before five fossils who think tradition matters more than survival.