Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Rocco
Angelo had paid my rent at the Mardi Gras Hotel for the next two months.
Generous of him, considering he was the reason I'd lost my job at Bernie's. He'd offered me a room at Crescent Manor instead—something with silk sheets and a view that didn't include a broken neon sign. I'd turned him down.
I wasn't one of his men.
I wasn't an enforcer.
I wasn't even his damn chauffeur.
I was the guy he'd made an offer to. The kind you don't refuse. The kind that comes with a threat wrapped around your mother's throat.
So here I was, still in this shithole hotel with its sagging mattress and mildew-stained walls, staring at a row of suits I hadn't asked for and didn't want.
Six of them. Pristine. Charcoal, navy, black, slate gray—all hung neatly in the closet like they belonged to someone else.
Someone who still had a life worth dressing up for.
Angelo's tailor had shown up two days ago, measured me without a word, and delivered these yesterday in garment bags that rivaled the suits I used to own back when being a prince still meant something.
I ran my fingers over the fabric of the nearest jacket. Italian wool. Soft as sin.
I hated how good it felt.
Tonight was black tie. Julienne’s birthday party was at Red Rose Academy. The vampire, wolf shifter, and Unseelie elite would be there in their gowns and jewels, toasting to eternal love while I played errand boy for a mafia king.
And Selena would be on my arm.
I caught my reflection in the cracked mirror above the dresser. The tuxedo fit perfectly—of course it did. Angelo didn't do anything halfway. I looked like a prince again. Like the man I used to be, before the demon crawled inside my skin and ruined everything.
The man I was pretending to be.
I straightened my bow tie and tried not to think about the way Selena had looked at me in that coffee shop.
But I couldn’t help it.
She’d been standing in line, phone in hand, completely unaware I was watching her.
Her dark hair had fallen in soft waves past her shoulders.
She’d been wearing something simple—a blouse, fitted pants—but it didn’t matter.
She could’ve been wearing a paper bag, and she still would’ve stolen the breath from my lungs.
God, she was beautiful. More beautiful than I remembered. The years had only sharpened her features, added a confidence to the way she held herself. She wasn’t the uncertain girl I’d rejected anymore. She was a woman. An assistant professor. Someone who’d built a life without me.
And when she’d looked up and seen me standing there—the hope she’d tried to hide. The hurt underneath it. The way her heartbeat had spiked, even as she’d kept her voice steady.
She'd pulled at me like a fist around my chest. My fangs ached to taste her blood. It had taken everything I had not to reach for her.
But I couldn’t. Not when I was there to use her.
She didn't know what I was. What I was being forced to do.
And if everything went according to plan, she never would.
A knock on the door.
I groaned. My carriage had arrived.
I crossed the room and pulled open the door. Dimitri leaned against the frame, arms crossed, that infuriating smirk already in place. His gaze flickered over me—the tuxedo, the polished shoes, my dark hair falling loose over my shoulders—and he let out a low whistle.
"You clean up nice, Rocco."
"Shut up."
His smirk widened. He tilted his head toward the limo idling at the curb, its black paint gleaming under the streetlights. "Rose and Valentin are already at the party."
My stomach dropped.
That meant the limo would be empty. That meant the entire ride to Red Rose Academy, it would just be me and Selena. Alone. In the back of a car. With this unbearable tension crackling between us like a live wire.
I gritted my teeth. “Why?"
Dimitri shrugged. "Angelo's idea. Wants it to look real."
"You mean Selena and I."
"Who else?" He pushed off the doorframe and gestured toward the stairs. "Come on, Prince Charming. Your date's waiting."
I didn't move. "Dimitri."
He paused, glancing back.
"What happens if I can't pull this off?"
The smirk vanished. For a moment, Dimitri looked almost serious—which was more unsettling than anything else he could've done.
"Don't disappoint him, Rocco." His voice was low. Quiet. "I've been in his little secret room at Crescent Manor. Believe me." His dark eyes held mine. "You don't want to go there."
He turned and headed down the stairs without waiting for a response.
I stood in the doorway, heart pounding, and tried to remember how to breathe.
I locked the door out of habit. Not that I owned anything worth stealing—except for the suits Angelo had bought me. And honestly, if someone wanted to break in and take those, they could have them.
Dimitri opened the back door of the limo and I slid onto the leather seat. The interior was cold, the air conditioning cranked up against the New Orleans humidity. I stared out the tinted window as we pulled away from the Mardi Gras Hotel.
Get it together.
After tonight, I could go back to my sad, pathetic life. Flip burgers at some other greasy spoon. Stare at water stains on the ceiling. Pretend I didn't exist.
Mom would be safe. She wouldn't even know how close she'd come to dying. And that was all that mattered.
Dimitri made his way down Chartres Street, past wrought-iron balconies dripping with ferns and the soft glow of gas lanterns flickering against old brick. This part of the Quarter was quieter—residential, historic, the kind of neighborhood where money whispered instead of shouted.
The limo slowed and pulled to a stop in front of a townhome.
I leaned forward, taking it in.
Three stories of pale yellow stucco with forest-green shutters.
A narrow balcony on the second floor, overflowing with potted jasmine and trailing ivy.
The front door was painted a deep burgundy, flanked by antique sconces that cast warm pools of light onto the worn brick steps.
It was elegant without being flashy. Classic.
The kind of place that had been here for two hundred years and would be here for two hundred more.
So this was where Selena lived.
It suited her.
My chest tightened. She'd built a life here. A real one. While I'd been rotting in a flea-trap hotel, she'd been teaching at the Academy, living in this beautiful townhome, moving on.
Without me.
Good, I told myself. That's good. She deserves better than you.
I shoved that thought down and reached for the door handle.
Dimitri opened it before I could. He winked. "Go get her."
I glared at him but didn't bother with a response. He'd only enjoy it.
I stepped out of the limo and made my way up the sidewalk, my shoes clicking against the worn brick. The jasmine from her balcony drifted down, sweet and heady in the evening air. I stopped in front of the burgundy door, took a breath, and rapped my knuckles against it.
Footsteps inside. The click of heels on hardwood.
The door swung open.
My brain went blank.
Selena stood in the doorway, and every thought I'd ever had evaporated like mist in the sun.
She wore a long black gown that clung to her curves like it had been painted on, the fabric shimmering faintly in the lamplight.
Her dark hair was swept up into an elegant twist, exposing the slender column of her neck—the place where, if things had been different, my mark would be.
Diamond earrings caught the light as she tilted her head. Her lips were painted a deep red. Her eyes—those dark, devastating eyes—met mine, and I forgot how to breathe.
I tried to say something. Anything. You look beautiful. You look incredible. I'm sorry for everything I ever did to hurt you.
What came out was nothing. Just silence, and me standing there like an idiot with my mouth slightly open.
Smooth, Rocco. Real smooth.
She slid her palms down the front of her gown—a nervous gesture that made my chest ache. She was anxious. About tonight. About me.
"Hi." Her voice was steadier than her hands. "Angelo sent the limo?"
I cleared my throat. "Yes. You look..." Exquisite. Breathtaking. Like every dream I didn't deserve to have. "...stunning."
A flush crept across her cheeks. She smiled—a real smile, not the guarded one she'd given me at the café—and something cracked open in my chest.
"Thank you." Her gaze traveled over me, lingering on the tuxedo, the loose hair, before meeting my eyes again. "You look amazing too."
I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't deserve the warmth in her voice. Didn't deserve the way she was looking at me like maybe, just maybe, she'd forgotten all the ways I'd hurt her.
She held a black sequined purse. Angelo said that she kept her house key and the keys to Iris Hall on the same ring. How he knew that, I didn’t know.
But I was supposed to steal her key and let myself into the hall.
Hopefully, I could do this without Selena ever knowing. God, I felt like such a dick.
But I was a selfish bastard. So I let myself have this moment anyway.
She slipped her arm through mine, and heat shot through me like lightning. My skin burned where she touched me, even through the layers of fabric. Every instinct screamed at me to pull her closer, to bury my face in her neck, to claim her as mine.
I didn't.
I escorted her down the steps and along the sidewalk toward the limo, hyper-aware of every place our bodies touched. The click of her heels. The whisper of her gown against my leg. The soft scent of her perfume—something warm and floral that made me want to do very stupid things.
You can't have her.
I used to think she wasn't good enough for me. She'd been a traitor—or so I'd believed. I'd looked at her with contempt, called her a disgrace, told her she wasn't worthy of being my mate.
What a fucking fool I'd been.
Now the roles were reversed. She was the respectable one—the professor, the protégé, the woman with the beautiful townhome and the life she'd built from nothing. And I was the disgraced prince who'd beaten his own mother and exiled himself to a flea-trap hotel.
She deserved better. She deserved someone who wasn't broken. Someone who wasn't using her to pay off a debt to a mafia king.
Let her go, I told myself. After tonight, make sure she never sees you again.
It was the right thing to do.
So why did it feel like ripping out my own heart?