4. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Luca
T he door shuts behind me, muffling the quiet chaos still unfolding on the other side of the wall.
A body to move. Two to clean. And a deal gone so sideways I should be putting a bullet in someone’s mouth instead of standing here, watching her.
She shouldn't be here. This room wasn’t supposed to be occupied. The entire fucking floor was cleared hours ago.
That’s what the Ravelli family pays good fucking money for. Privacy. Silence. Blood on sheets that never make it to housekeeping.
And still, I can't seem to drag her away and deal with the problem how I always deal with my problems.
With death.
I release her wrist, my roar of frustration echoing through the empty hallway. She flinches—they always flinch—but this one… her chin lifts. Defiant. Like she has any right to challenge me.
"Fuck." I slam my palm against the wall beside her head. She doesn't blink. "You're a problem."
"I'm a maid." Her voice shakes, but her gaze holds steady. "I clean rooms. I fold towels. I—"
"You're lying." I lean closer, inhaling the lingering scent of rain on her skin. "Your hands are too soft for manual labor."
She flexes her fingers against her thigh. "I use gloves."
"Try again. Liars get killed. Don't fucking lie to me."
The curve of her throat moves as she swallows. I track the motion, imagining how easily it would bruise under my grip. How simple it would be to silence her permanently.
I'm Luca fucking Ravelli.
I've ordered hits on men for less than what she's witnessed tonight. One word to my cleanup crew and she disappears. Another nameless body in the Thames, never to be seen or heard of again.
But something stops me.
Her uniform’s still damp and crumpled on the floor—one sleeve inside out like she tore it off in a panic. The shitty hotel robe is too big for her, barely tied around her waist, and her eyes are glassy and red-rimmed. Mascara streaks paint down her cheeks like war paint after the war is lost.
She looks like hell. She looks like prey. And I fucking hate that I notice.
I take a step closer. She flinches, almost imperceptibly, but still… not enough. Not enough to scream. Not enough to beg.
Interesting.
I let my gaze drift down, taking her all in. Her bare legs are hidden under the sheet draped around her shoulders, knees pressed together, chest rising too fast.
Still trying to hide.
Still thinking I’m the worst thing that’ll happen to her tonight.
I raise my arm slowly, like a man picking lint off a suit. Watching as her wild eyes grow bigger. I press the edge of my pistol against the sheet hiding her away from me, slipping it inside to reveal her skin beneath.
The cool metal of my loaded gun against her skin makes her breath catch, a sharp and audible inhale as I nudge the fabric back just enough to expose the smooth line of her inner thigh.
No bruises. No needle marks. Just bare skin, flushed and trembling. Still damp from rain or fear, but right now, I can’t tell which.
Her eyes widen, but still, she doesn’t pull away.
It's funny. My father says women are power in our world. Even laid out upon his death bed, he's made it clear he wants a wife at my side. A future. A legacy. Something softer to disguise the iron and bloodshed from prying eyes.
I told him love is a merciless distraction.
But standing here looking at this beauty, I wonder if love could be leverage.
I lower the gun, step back and let God's little gift breathe.
"What's your name?" The words scrape out of my throat.
"Why? So you can add it to whatever hit list you're planning?"
I bark out a laugh. "If I wanted you dead, piccola , you wouldn't be denying me your name right now."
Surprisingly, she doesn’t ask what I’m going to do to her. Doesn’t ask who I am. She just watches my every movement, barely blinking, like she already knows the answer and is waiting to see if I’ll prove her right.
"Bianca. My name is Bianca."
She’s not just scared. She’s wrecked .
With that name swirling in my mind, I settle into the armchair, the leather creaking beneath my weight. The sound of muffled activity filters through the wall - my men doing what they do best. Cleaning up messes. Making my problems disappear.
Except for the one standing before me.
The next Don needs more than a body count—he needs a bride. A life that looks stable on the outside, even if it rots underneath. I refused to parade around some heiress like a fucking accessory.
But maybe what I need isn’t an heiress. Maybe what I need is a ghost like her.
"Sit." I gesture to the bed with my gun, but she remains standing. Defiant little thing.
"I prefer to stand."
"That wasn't a request."
Ice coats my words, but I don't dare shout. My father taught me that men who raise their voices are already losing. So I just sit back, one ankle resting over my knee, and let the silence stretch as she does as she's told like a good fucking girl.
The Ravelli family has owned this hotel longer than she’s been alive. Not on paper, of course. But every marble tile, every corridor, every housekeeping cart that creaks past the wrong door at the right time? Paid for in blood, favors, and silence.
The entire third floor is reserved for our business. Always. Management knows better than to ask questions and it's no surprise that this woman doesn't know who I am despite claiming to be a worker here.
Tonight, the room next door was booked for a man who forgot what loyalty costs. He remembered just in time to scream as I pulled the trigger and splattered his brains across the floor.
But somehow, I still have a fucking witness wrapped in my sheets, looking at me like she might be more than a problem.
She’s a mess. Hair dripping onto her shoulders, sheet clinging to skin that’s probably still damp beneath it. But there’s something beneath the wreckage that stopping me from dealing with her in the way I normally would.
I let the quiet drag out just long enough to make her sweat.
Then, I keep my voice low before I say, “So tell me, why are you here? In this room?”
“I told you. I work here.”
A knock at the door makes her jump. Enzo Ravelli, my cousin, enters the room. His suit is pristine despite what I know he's been handling next door. That place was a fucking mess, but that's what you get when you think you can outsmart the family that runs this city.
I snap my fingers. "Enzo. Perfect timing. Water for our guest. Something sweet, too. She's starved."
Bianca looks at me like I shouldn't have a say in how she's feeling. Lucky for her, Enzo returns moments later with a bottle of water and chocolate bar.
I toss them onto the bed beside her.
"Eat. Drink. You'll need your strength for our conversation."
Her hands shake as she reaches for the water. "What conversation?"
Her lips wrap around the bottle cap as she twists it open, and for a second, I catch a glimpse of what she might look like if this cruel fucking world hadn’t just crumbled around her.
Messy, yes.
But I have no doubt she's fucking beautiful in the right light. The kind of beauty that haunts men after they’ve already ruined it.
"The conversation where you tell me why you're really here. In an empty room. On a floor that was supposed to be cleared." I tap my fingers against the leather armrest. "The one where you explain what you heard through those very thin walls while Mr. Malenko learned the price of betraying my family."
She nearly chokes on her water.
"Ah." I smile coldly. "So you did hear more than you're admitting."
The bottle crinkles in her grip. One small tell in a sea of them. She's an open book written in a language I've spent my life learning to read.
And every page screams trouble.
Still, Bianca doesn’t answer right away.
She just stares at the bottle in her hands, like the label holds some kind of answer. Her thumb runs over the condensation and her lashes are still spiked from dried tears, but she’s not crying anymore.
She’s just… empty.
“So, what’s his name?” I ask.
Her eyes snap to mine. Caught.
“What?”
“The man who broke you.”
Her jaw tightens. “You think I look broken?”
“No. I know broken. I know what it smells like, sounds like, bleeds like.” I gesture toward her with a flick of my hand. “And my sweet doll, you’re wearing it like perfume.”
Her laugh comes out hollow as she shakes her head, the movement making a trace of hair fall down across her cheek. I have to fight back the urge to slide it back behind her ear again.
"My fiancé. Well… ex -fiancé now, I suppose. Marcus Forbes."
The word catches in her throat like broken glass, and I take note of that name for another day. I lean forward, elbows on my knees. Something dark and oh-so familiar stirs in my chest – the taste of betrayal.
"Now we're getting somewhere. And what did he do?"
"I caught him." She wraps her arms around herself. "With my best friend. On our couch. Came home early, and there they were, barely even looking sorry for themselves."
I lean back, studying her like a painting no one’s touched in years.
And suddenly, everything fits.
The reason she didn’t run when a man with a gun broke down her door. Because in her world? That wasn’t the worst thing that had happened that day.
She was already bleeding. I just showed up in time to watch.
I run my tongue across my teeth and shake my head once.
"When did all this happen?"
"Tonight. I walked in after I finished here and..." She shakes her head. "I couldn't stay there."
I don’t know why the thought of some slick-haired prick cheating on this woman makes my knuckles itch, but it does. It’s not sympathy. I don’t do that.
But something about the way she’s still sitting there, still upright, still not begging me to let her live— that earns a reaction.
I've seen a thousand forms of betrayal. Written them into contracts. Delivered them with bullets.
But this...this feels different. Personal.
And I don’t like how much I want to offer her something more than just survival.
"So that's why you were sleeping in my hotel," I murmur, studying the soft curve of her neck, the steel in her spine even as she breaks. "You poor thing."
Shifting in the chair, I lean down to draw a blade from my ankle holster. I move slowly, trying to make it obvious this is not a threat. Just a test.
"Stand."
Her eyes widen, but to my surprise, she rises without argument this time, the sheet clinging to curves that shouldn't interest me.
Moving closer, I let the blade slide against the sheet, parting the fabric again like water. Her chest rises above me as I reveal a pale tank top and simple cotton underwear.
Nothing special. Nothing that should make the blood rush to my cock.
But those eyes. They burn with something beyond terror. Recognition, maybe. Of what I am. Of the danger and power I possess.
"You're not very good at hiding fear, little rabbit." I trace the flat of the blade along her collarbone, watching her pupils blow wide. "But you don't run, either. Why is that?"
Her throat works, swallowing whatever response she's considering. Most witnesses I've encountered fall into predictable patterns—screaming, begging, bargaining for their lives.
This one just... watches. Waits.
The blade catches on the strap of her tank top. One quick motion and I could slice through the thin fabric, watch it fall away like surrendered armor. It would be so easy—a whisper of movement, barely more than a breath.
Instead, I pull back.
A witness in my world is a loose end, nothing more.
Clean. Simple. Final.
But she's not acting like a witness. No desperate pleas. No attempts at escape. Just controlled breaths and defiant silence that makes my teeth itch.
I don't like surprises. They complicate things.
I stand, the blade still loose in my grip. The space around her shrinks as I circle, towering over her as I examine every inch of her delicious body.
She's beautiful in her vulnerability—wet hair clinging to her neck, skin flushed with fear and something darker. Something that mirrors the heat unfurling in my chest.
I could take her right now. Pin her against the wall. Make her scream—in pleasure and then in pain.
No one would hear. No one would stop me. No one would even fucking know .
Except me.
I've killed men for less than what she's witnessed tonight. Ordered deaths with a nod, watched the light fade from eyes that dared to cross my family.
My fingers flex around the blade, mind drifting to my father. Vito Ravelli. The man who taught me power comes from silence, from control .
Now cancer eats through his bones like acid through metal.
I watch him waste away in that mansion, surrounded by doctors who can't save him, by loyal sons who can't protect him from his own body's betrayal.
The empire he built bleeds money. Our rivals circle like vultures, testing boundaries, pushing limits. They smell weakness in the air as the throne begins to rot. First it was mom who faltered at the throne, now my father faces the same fate.
I could fix it all.
One word from me and heads would roll. One signature and alliances would strengthen. One fucking promise of succession and the Ravelli name would strike fear across Europe again.
But he won't give it. My own damn father won't name me heir. He just sits in that leather chair, staring at me with those dark fucking eyes that see straight through my armor.
" Power isn't taken through blood, Luca. It's earned through thirst."
I've earned it. With every contract signed in blood. Every rival eliminated. Every fucking night spent building his legacy while he grows weaker.
The girl shifts in front of me, drawing my attention back. Her eyes hold that same defiance I see in the mirror—that hunger for control when everything else slips away.
"Are you going to kill me?" Her voice barely breaks the silence, a whisper edged with resignation rather than panic. It's the first sign of emotion I've caught, subtle… but there nonetheless.
My father would kill her. No hesitation. No mercy. Clean up the mess and move on.
But I'm not my father.
And maybe that's exactly why he won't give me the crown to our empire.
My father thinks I’m incapable of love. That I’ll never find a woman willing to kneel without chains.
Maybe he’s right.
Or maybe… she’s standing right in front of me, too exhausted to run.
I don't answer her question.
Instead, I slide the watch from my wrist—sleek black titanium, custom-made for Ravelli men. The watch face catches the dim light from the city my family rules outside the window, its diamond markers glinting like tiny stars against pitch black darkness.
I place the watch on the table and look to the girl.
"Unfortunately, our time is up. So, I leave you with a choice."
I take a breath and look at her as her brow creases.
“Take the watch. Run. Sell it for enough to start over somewhere far from this city. Disappear and don't mumble a word about what you've seen or heard tonight.”
I pause. Let her breathe in the illusion. Let her taste the fantasy she wants to believe she still has.
“Or…”
I lean in, my voice dropping into something darker—lower than threat, deeper than a warning.
“Leave it. And become mine.”
Her breath catches.
“Not just for tonight. Not just until this all blows over. Permanently. ”
Her eyes dart to the watch, then back to me. The temporary fantasy of her freedom cracks in her eyes.
“You want protection?” I nod to the gleaming black face. “You want power?” I gesture to myself. “Then you take my name. You wear it like a bulletproof vest.”
“You’re insane.”
“No,” I say, letting the edge in my voice slice between us. “I’m offering you the only way you walk out of this room.”
Her silence says everything. She knows what this really is.
A performance. A transaction. A sentence dressed up like a choice.
I step back.
Just one step. Enough to give her space to decide.
Her eyes drop to the watch. She stares at it, then at me. Like she's even considering it for a moment.
The room goes silent. Not even the echo of blood being scrubbed from tile next door can reach us now.
It’s just me. Her. And the weight of what I’m offering.
The illusion of a choice hanging in the air. One path ends in silence. The other in surrender.
A quick, clean death she won't see coming, or my name, worn like a collar for the rest of her life.
"Well then? What will it be?"