Chapter 23 - Luca
Seven PM, Friday.
The dining room walls pulse around me, or maybe that's the exhaustion making everything shift.
Ninety-seven hours since she fled the compound.
Since she saw what I really am. My brain counts obsessively, each second another proof that time means nothing without her in it.
My hands shake against the mahogany table, worse than an addict in withdrawal because at least junkies can find another hit.
There's only one Faith, and my cells scream for her proximity like a chemical dependency I'll never break.
My throat burns like I've been screaming, but I haven't made a sound in days. Stomach cramping from refusing food. My cock throbs painfully, the only part of me that refuses to die, staying hard despite exhaustion, like my body's biological imperative to claim her overrides even starvation.
The car engine cuts through the mansion's silence.
I know it's her before the door opens, my body responding to her nearness with violent recognition.
Heartrate spiking, temperature rising, pure chemical reaction to her proximity.
She enters through the kitchen, the back entrance Sofia must have suggested, avoiding me.
The black dress stops my heart. Her mother's funeral dress, still carrying death.
She's lost weight, shadows under those hazel eyes that match mine. Good. We're both dying by degrees.
The black dress clings to curves I've marked with my mouth, hips I've gripped while fucking her until she screamed. Every inch of her belongs to me, even if she's pretending otherwise.
She takes the chair furthest from me, the distance deliberate as a blade.
Won't look at me, shoulders rigid while Marco arranges papers.
My family fills the spaces between us but they might as well be furniture.
Every atom of my attention locks on her refusal to acknowledge I exist. The shaking gets worse, my nervous system shorting out from withdrawal and need fighting for dominance.
The chandelier light fractures into prisms, each crystal becoming Faith's eyes judging me. Can smell her phantom jasmine even though she's across the room, my brain creating sensory ghosts.
Marco slides the tablet across polished wood toward Faith. "Ms. Winters. Thank you for coming." His voice carries the authority of a Don who's never questioned. "Sofia mentioned you had thoughts about approaching Neumann."
Faith nods, producing her own tablet. "I've been thinking since yesterday's call," she says, fingers steady despite everything.
"He has a type. Women who reject him. Makes him aggressive, sloppy.
" The photos she shows make my vision fracture: three other women, all dead or missing after refusing his advances. She's never told me about the others.
"I could trigger that response," Faith continues, voice flat as autopsy notes. "Approach him as bait. Women who reject him become his obsession."
My vision starts fracturing when she says "bait." Red bleeding into the edges. Hands clenching and unclenching.
Sofia's eyes light with interest. "There's a pharmaceutical conference this weekend. You could play the traumatized daughter having recovered memories. He'll want to control that narrative, get you isolated to talk."
"You'd wear a wire," Nico adds, tactical mind engaging. "We could control the conference security. Could isolate him in fifteen seconds once he takes the bait."
Sofia's words trigger something primal. The third time hearing 'bait' breaks something in me. Not my sister anymore, just another voice suggesting Faith should be dangled like meat for a predator.
I'm on my feet before conscious thought, the chair clattering backward. My hand slams on the table hard enough to make glasses jump, knocking one over. Red wine spreads across the white tablecloth like blood.
"No." The word comes out shredded, raw. "Absolutely fucking not."
"Luca—" Sofia starts.
"You want to send her in there alone?" My voice is rising, control slipping. "With Neumann? After what he did to her mother? After he's already threatened her?"
The room goes silent.
"And you think he'll just… what? Politely wait for us to arrive?" I'm shaking now, hands braced on the table, every muscle locked. "You think he won't hurt her the second he has her alone?"
I shove away from the table, pacing like a caged animal. Five days without sleep making everything sharper, more desperate.
"He killed her mother with his bare hands. Strangled her while a twelve-year-old Faith watched. And you want to give him another chance?"
Marco stands slowly. "Luca. Sit down."
"No." I round on him. "You don't get to decide this. None of you do."
Dante's on his feet now too, positioning himself between me and the others. Not threatening, just… ready. His expression says he'll stop me if I lose control completely.
Sofia holds her ground, chin up despite the danger crackling in the air. "Your protection is suffocating her. She can't even breathe without you monitoring it."
The words hit like a physical blow. I grab the back of my overturned chair, knuckles white, fighting the urge to throw it through the window.
"Better suffocated by my protection than dead by his hands," I manage, voice breaking.
"You don't understand," I continue, each word scraping out. "He's obsessed with her. The way he looked at her, talked about her mother… He won't just kill her. He'll make it last. Make it hurt. And I'll be too far away to stop it."
Faith's voice cuts through, cold as February: "So what, Luca? You'd rather he stays alive forever?"
Everyone turns. She's still studying those schematics like we're discussing dinner plans, not her potential murder.
"I'd rather you stay alive," I say, staring at her. "Is that so fucking unreasonable?"
She finally looks at me, empty eyes in a face going hollow from her own obsession. "I need him dead. Everything else is secondary."
"Including you?" I move toward her. Dante shifts to intercept but Marco raises a hand, stopping him. "You'd walk into his trap? Let him put his hands on you? Just to get close enough?"
"If that's what it takes." Her voice is flat, emotionless. Not my Faith at all.
"You're insane," I breathe.
She almost smiles. "You would know."
Faith stands, approaches me for the first time since the compound massacre. My body locks, every nerve ending screaming at her proximity.
"Luca." My name in her mouth after five days of silence makes my knees weak. "I need him dead. You understand need, don't you?"
She's close enough to touch but doesn't. I can see the slight tremor in her fingers, the way her breath catches. Her body remembers us even if her mind's chosen this path.
"You're killing yourself for me. I'm destroying myself for revenge. We're both obsessed past salvation."
"If you do this," my voice drops to something dangerous, desperate, "I'll kill everyone in this room to stop you. Family or not. I'll burn this whole mansion down if it means keeping you away from him."
Nobody laughs. My family knows I mean it. Every word.
Dante signs something sharp. Ana translates quietly: "He says you need to calm down before you do something you'll regret."
"Regret?" I let out a broken laugh. "The only thing I'll regret is not locking her somewhere safe when I had the chance."
Sofia speaks carefully, maintaining distance. "Your protection is suffocating her worse than any threat from Neumann."
"Good." The word comes out savage. "Let it suffocate her. Better than the alternative."
Faith's expression shifts, something flickering in those empty eyes. Anger, finally. "Your protection is a cage, Luca."
"Then be caged." I step closer, and this time Dante does move between us, one hand raised in warning. "Be caged and alive. I don't care if you hate me for it."
"You don't get to make that choice for me."
"Watch me."
Faith walks toward the door, each step deliberate. "I'm doing this with or without Rosetti help. Choose."
She pauses at the threshold, not looking back. "I've waited twelve years. I won't wait anymore because you've decided I'm too precious to risk."
The door closes with finality that sounds like a death knell.
I stand in the destroyed dining room, chair overturned, wine spreading like blood across the table, my family watching me like I'm a bomb about to detonate.
"Luca," Marco starts, but I'm already calculating: every way to track her, every way to stop this, every way to keep her away from Neumann even if she hates me for it.
"You don't understand," I tell them, hands shaking. "He won't just kill her. He'll make her suffer first. Like her mother. And I'll have to live with knowing I could have stopped it."
"Your protection is suffocating her," Sofia says again, carefully. "You're proving her point."
"I don't care." My voice is raw, honest. "I'd rather she hate me and live than love me and die."
Marco's expression hardens. "And if we don't help, she'll do it alone. Which outcome do you prefer?"
The room tilts. Exhaustion crashes over me, five days of no sleep finally catching up. My legs threaten to give out.
"Twenty-four hours," I manage, voice scraping like broken glass. "She has twenty-four hours to change her mind before I handle this my way."
"What does that mean?" Nico asks, but I'm already walking out, following her scent trail.
"It means I'll lock her in my room before I let her walk into Neumann's trap." The words come out raw, desperate. "And if any of you help her do this, you'll have to go through me first."
I don't wait for their response. My legs move on instinct, following her through the mansion. Five days of dying without her, and she's walking toward death like she's already accepted it.
Not on my watch. Not fucking ever.
The thought of Neumann's hands on her makes my vision red. The thought of her willingly walking into danger makes me want to chain her somewhere only I have the key.
She thinks I'm suffocating her now? She has no idea what real possession looks like.
But she's about to learn.
Twenty-four hours to make her understand she belongs to me, not revenge. Twenty-four hours before I take choice out of the equation entirely.
The front door is closing when I reach it. Her taillights disappear down the drive, red bleeding into darkness.
My hands shake, but not from withdrawal anymore. From anticipation. From desperation.
She thinks she's choosing revenge over safety.
She's wrong.
And I'm done asking permission.