11. Pietro
Pietro
The bow tie is too tight. I loosen it—let it hang.
Or maybe it's not the tie—maybe it's everything else.
The black tuxedo hangs perfectly on my frame, tailored within a millimeter of arrogance. But no amount of fabric, silk, or stitched bravado can dull the gnawing behind my ribs.
I check the time.
Seventeen hours ago, one of the perimeter drones went dark. Vanished off the map like a ghost swallowed by fog. No explanation. No alert from the intelligence team supposedly running point on this entire operation. Just silence.
I don’t like silence.
I’ve seen what it hides.
The gala is a trap waiting to be sprung, and Luca—damn Principe Luca—still wants to walk into it with bravado as a show of power. Hard to believe he was once the rogue of the underground. I jab the cufflink through the slit, picturing bullets instead of diamonds.
Security is in place, they keep saying. As if repeating it will make it true.
I swipe open my encrypted comm.
It rings once.
“Pietro,” Luca answers, his voice wrapped in that princely calm that usually pisses me off. “Tell me you’re not bleeding.”
“Not yet. Tell me you're not flying without security,” I snap, straightening my jacket.
“Security is onboard. We lifted off twenty minutes ago. I knew you’d want your own team. Unit Seven is an hour ahead of us. What’s going on?”
“One of the drones blinked out. Villa perimeter, north side. Could be nothing. Could be a test. Either way, I don’t like it.”
There’s a pause.
“Do what you need to,” he says. “But keep Emiliana safe. And Valaria.”
I don’t answer. Not because I don’t agree—but because I do.
Luca hangs up.
I pocket the device and grab another handgun from the drawer. Just in case. No gala in the world is worth walking into unarmed—especially not one dripping with diamonds, diplomacy, and dirty motives.
I take the side hall, away from the main corridor where the staff buzz around like anxious bees. The evening hums through the villa like the prelude to a storm. Everyone senses it. Few know why.
I stop at her door.
It's open.
I shouldn’t look.
But I do.
Valaria stands before the mirror, turned slightly sideways, her gown an inferno of blood-red silk pooling around her feet.
The zipper is undone, gaping just enough to reveal the smooth cut of her spine and the sculpted line of muscle beneath the softness.
She's not delicate—but she's not hardened either.
She's... dangerous in a way that doesn’t beg to be noticed.
My eyes follow the curve of her shoulder, the strength in her back, the slope of her waist as the dress clings and shimmers with every breath she takes. She’s not trying to seduce anyone.
Which makes her all the more dangerous.
I don’t move.
She hasn’t seen me. Not yet.
And for just this breath—this one, burning, split-second breath—I let myself look.
Let myself want.
Before the mission takes it all away.