Lucia #2
My shirt shifts under his hands. Buttons give under fumbling fingers. Not careful. Not patient. His mouth moves down my throat, teeth grazing, and I make a sound I hate myself for because it’s need, it’s surrender, it’s mine.
His hand slides under my waistband, and I jolt, breath catching sharp. I grab his face, force him back up. Look at him.
His pupils are blown wide, swallowing the dark until his eyes look almost black. Not cocaine. Not Marco. Something else. Something just as dangerous.
Want.
Grief.
Relief.
“Lucia…”
My fingers move on instinct, finding his belt, tugging. Undoing. The sound of the buckle is obscene in the quiet room. He inhales like it hurts.
His hand slips lower, inside my underwear now, and my whole body arches off his lap, heat flooding through me so fast I go dizzy.
“Turo…”
He swallows my name with his mouth, his lips crushing mine, and I grind against his thigh, desperate and reckless and furious at myself for how badly I need this.
Papers on the table shift with the movement. A folder slides down. Court documents spill like we’re knocking the world apart.
Good.
Let it fall.
Let it scatter.
Because I can’t hold it all anymore.
His hand closes on my hip, and I feel him, hard and undeniable, against me through fabric. My brain goes blank with want.
“I need you,” I whisper, the words spilling out before I can stop them.
His mouth brushes mine. “Yes.” His voice breaks on the word like it costs him.
His hands slide under my thighs like he’s about to lift me, like he’s about to pull me fully onto him.
And then…
The alarm screams. Not a soft chime. Not a warning beep. A shriek. Metallic and violent, ripping through the room like a blade. Red lights flash in the hall outside the door, strobing through the glass.
For half a second, we freeze. His hand is still inside my underwear. My shirt is half unbuttoned. His belt is undone. My heart is pounding so hard, it feels like it might split my ribs.
Turo’s face changes in one second. The man holding me disappears. The don snaps into place. Armor. Control.
War.
His hand withdraws fast, not rough, not careless. Precise, as if he has to put distance between us before the danger can see us. His phone rings, and he answers without looking away from the door.
“Yes.”
A pause. Everything in him goes still.
“Where?”
Another pause. His jaw tightens, a muscle jumping.
“Again?” he bites out.
My stomach drops. Cold replaces heat so fast, it’s nauseating.
Turo stands, shifting me off his lap with controlled urgency, like he’s trying not to jolt me but also trying not to waste time.
“Sir,” a voice crackles through the phone, tight and clipped. “Multiple breaches. Southwest perimeter. At least three armed contacts. This isn’t a probe.”
My blood turns to ice. Not a probe. Not just circling. Not just watching. Real. Here. Now.
Turo is already moving, fixing his belt with one hand, gripping the phone with the other. “Lock down the family wing,” he orders. “No one in or out. Move teams to intercept. Do not let them reach the house.”
He pauses. His gaze snaps to me. Sharp. Fierce. Terrifyingly calm.
“Where’s Nico?”
“Asleep with guards,” the voice replies immediately. “Two on the door, one inside—”
“Good,” Turo says, and it isn’t from relief. It’s calculation. “Hold. Do not move him unless I order it.”
He ends the call. And then he turns fully to me. For one heartbeat, the man comes back. The one who asked permission. The one who listened. The one who held my face like it mattered.
His hands grip my shoulders, steadying me. “Lucia,” he says. “Get to him.”
My throat closes. “I…”
He shakes his head once. No room for panic. No room for argument.
“Lock the door,” he continues. “Do not open it for anyone but me. Understand?”
My whole body is shaking again, the way it did after the gala. Only this time, it isn’t because of humiliation. It’s fear. Real fear.
I nod, because my voice is gone. Turo leans in and kisses me.
“Go,” he says against my mouth.
And I do. I yank my shirt together with shaking hands as I stumble for the door. My fingers fumble with the buttons like they’ve forgotten how to work.
The hallway is chaos. Lights flashing, footsteps pounding, voices sharp in radios. I run. Barefoot. Heartbeat in my ears like gunfire. Every part of me screaming one name.
Nico.
Behind me, somewhere deeper in the house, I hear Turo’s voice snapping orders. Cold. Controlled. Deadly. He goes to war like it’s nothing.
And I sprint down the corridor toward my son’s door, terror clawing my throat, one thought carving through everything else.
This timing isn’t coincidence.
Someone waited. Someone watched. Someone chose the exact second we stopped being careful. The exact second we were distracted. The exact second I let myself believe, for one stupid moment, that safety could be more than just survival.
And as the alarm keeps screaming and the red lights strobe across the polished walls like blood,
I realize with brutal clarity that this isn’t just an attack on the estate. It’s an attack on us. On what we are. On what we could become.
And someone out there doesn’t want us to have the chance. Not even for one more night.