Chapter 2
LUCA
Earlier that day
The Ciresa mansion often feels more like home to me than my own apartment.
I've been here a thousand times, maybe more. I know which floorboards creak, which doors stick in their frames. I know how the house feels when something goes wrong, that tension that settles into the air and precedes violence.
Tonight's tension is different—softer around the edges, but somehow more dangerous.
I’ve been hanging around for a few hours, waiting on Romeo.
Right now, I’m leaning against the dining room doorway, bored and watching the staff set the table with a precision that comes from the fear of disappointing Dante Ciresa.
Crystal glasses catch the light from the chandelier.
Silver gleams against white linen. Everything is perfect and polished to a high shine, exactly as it should be.
Just like the daughter they're putting on display tonight.
I shouldn't be thinking about her. I've spent the last year since she came home from boarding school not thinking about her, and I've gotten pretty fucking good at it. Or at least, I've gotten good at pretending.
The problem is that Giulia Ciresa isn't the girl I remember anymore.
She's not the awkward teenager who used to trail after Romeo and me during summers, asking too many questions and getting in the way. She's not the kid with scraped knees and messy hair and a book always in her hands.
I remember the last summer before she left for boarding school.
She was sixteen, all gangly limbs and too-big eyes, following us around like a puppy.
I'd ruffle her hair, and she'd swat my hand away laughing.
She'd ask me about my work with Romeo, and I'd deflect with jokes because she was too young to know the truth about what we did. Too innocent.
She'd looked at me like I hung the fucking moon, and I'd been careful—so careful—to keep that distance. To be the older brother figure, nothing more.
Now she's nineteen. A woman. And she's so goddamn beautiful it makes my chest tight just being in the same house as her.
And I’m going to have to spend all night at this dinner party with her. I need a moment to get my shit together before I have to look at her.
I make some rounds outside, trying not to think about her. When I come back inside, just before the party is supposed to start, I hear her and Romeo talking in the living room.
Fuck. I’m supposed to find Romeo before all of this, but she’s with him. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to see her yet. In fact, a part of me doesn’t want to see her tonight at all, looking gorgeous and grown-up and being courted by other men.
I step into the living room, and for a moment I forget how to breathe.
She’s wearing an emerald green dress that slithers over her curves like water, the cut and neckline probably meant to be stylish yet modest, and yet just the sight of her makes my cock twitch and swell, my suit trousers becoming uncomfortably tight.
I clench my teeth, willing my half-erection away before anyone can notice or before it can become worse, but it’s so goddamn hard.
I’ve somehow managed to never once let myself think about Giulia Ciresa while jerking off.
I’ve forced myself to never picture her, never think about her when my cock is in my hand, and for fucking certain to never let myself think of her when I come.
But in this moment, I feel like I’ve been struck by fucking lightning looking at her, and I know I’m going to fail at that tonight.
I’m going to think of stripping that dress off of her, and…
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. My teeth grind together. I’m hard as hell, and I hang back in the dimmer light of the room, desperate to get in and out before anyone realizes.
This is Romeo's sister. Romeo's little sister.
The same Romeo who once broke a man's fingers for looking at her the wrong way. The same Romeo who has a possessive streak a mile wide and a complete absence of mercy when someone crosses a line, and no emotions whatsoever except for the two women in his life… his sister and his wife. I know he respects me and considers me a friend, but I also know he’s a fucking sociopath.
And Giulia isn't just across a line. She's so far beyond it she might as well be on another fucking planet.
I know what her duty is. I'm part of this world too—I've been part of it my whole life.
I know how things work. I know that daughters are currency and marriages are transactions, and that love is a luxury people like her can't afford. Romeo was lucky, because he was the heir. She won’t be afforded that privilege.
I know where the lines are drawn.
But then she turns and looks at me, and I fucking ache everywhere.
“The first car just pulled up,” I tell Romeo. Then I look at her, and keep my tone as professional and cold as I can. “Giulia.”
“Luca.” There’s a faint tremor to her voice, and I hate it. I hate that this is happening to her. God knows she’d never choose me, but I wish she could choose someone. That she wasn’t being auctioned off to the highest bidder just to make her father look better.
“I should go greet our guests,” she says quickly, her heels clicking against the wood as she hurries past me. I catch a whiff of her floral perfume as she passes, and that white-hot lust snakes down my spine again, my cock so hard it hurts.
I let out a slow breath, trying to get myself under control. I need to get my head on straight. I need to remember who I am and who she is and why this can't ever be anything more than a passing attraction that I'll get over eventually.
I've killed men without feeling a fraction of what I feel when I look at her, and that fucking terrifies me.
It’s the only thing that ever has.
—
The dinner party is exactly what I expected: a carefully orchestrated performance designed to show Giulia off to potential husbands while maintaining the illusion that she has some say in the matter.
She doesn't. We all know it. Even the men sitting at the table, watching her with varying degrees of interest and entitlement, know it.
I’m seated next to Romeo, two seats down from Dante Ciresa, a place of clear favor.
It’s a reminder to me of just how much favor has been given to me in this organization because of my proximity to Romeo, and how easily it could be taken away if I were to fuck up by, say…
letting on that I’m lusting after the Ciresa heiress.
Marco Ferri is the first to really engage her in conversation.
He's twenty years older than Giulia or more.
He's not handsome—his face is too hard, his eyes too calculating, his hairline receding in a way that makes him look even older than he probably is.
But he has a fortune that rivals Dante's and a standing in the organization that makes him a valuable ally.
"Tell me, Giulia," Marco says, cutting into his steak with precise movements, "what did you study at school? Your father mentioned you were at one of the finest schools money can buy.”
“I had a well-rounded education, of course, but I focused on as many literature classes as I could take.” Her voice is steady, polite. The perfect daughter.
Marco's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "That's refreshing. So many young women today have no appreciation for the finer things. They're too busy with their phones and their social media to understand real beauty."
He's talking to her like she's a child. Like she's something to be molded and shaped into what he wants. I watch Giulia's fingers tighten slightly around her fork, the only sign that his condescension bothers her.
"I think every generation finds beauty in different forms," she says carefully. "Art evolves, just like everything else."
"Perhaps." Marco takes a sip of his wine, studying her over the rim of his glass. "But there's something to be said for traditional values. For understanding one's place in the world. Your father has done an excellent job raising you to understand duty and family obligation."
The words make my jaw clench. He's not even pretending to see her as a person. She's just a well-trained asset, a daughter who knows her place.
"I have holdings in three states now," Marco continues, shifting to talk about himself. "Real estate, mostly, but I've been diversifying into shipping. The profit margins are excellent, and with the right connections—which your family has, of course—the potential for growth is substantial."
He goes on like this for several minutes, listing his properties, his investments, his connections. Giulia nods along, making appropriate sounds of interest, but I can see the emptiness in her eyes. She's not interested or impressed. She's just enduring.
Marco leans forward slightly. "I think you and I could have a very comfortable life together, Giulia. I have a house in the city, another in the Hamptons, and I'm considering purchasing a villa in Tuscany. You'd want for nothing."
Except for a husband who sees her as more than a trophy. Except passion. Except for any fucking choice in her own life.
"That's very generous," Giulia says, and the words are hollow.
My hands curl into fists at my sides. The violence that lives in me—the part of me that Romeo has honed into a weapon—stirs restlessly.
Enzo Gallari is different. He's younger, maybe thirty, and handsome in a way that probably works on most women. He's been watching Giulia since he arrived, his gaze tracking her movements with an intensity that makes my skin crawl.
"So, Giulia," Enzo says, leaning in closer than necessary, his voice dropping to something more intimate. "Four years away, only coming back for summers and holidays. That must have been quite an experience. All that freedom, away from family obligations."
The word freedom hangs in the air like a challenge. Like he knows exactly what kind of cage she's been living in, and he's testing to see if she'll acknowledge it.
"It was educational," Giulia says carefully.