Chapter 12 Damon
Fuck.
I stare at the ceiling in the dark, Viviana curled against my side, her breathing finally even and deep. She's asleep, trusting and warm, her head on my shoulder like she belongs there.
And all I can think is: fuck, fuck, fuck.
Because the sweet, little tease beside me was a virgin.
And I just fucked my enemy's eighteen-year-old virgin daughter.
I close my eyes, but that makes it worse. Makes me remember the way she felt, so tight it was almost painful. The way she tensed when I first pushed inside her, the small sound she made that I thought was just adjustment but now realize was...
Christ.
How did I not know?
Because she acted like she knew what she was doing, that's how. Because she kissed me back like she'd done it before, because she touched me like she wasn't afraid, because she looked at me with those big dark eyes and begged me to "fuck me" like she understood exactly what that meant.
But she didn't understand.
Not really.
She was a virgin, and I treated her like she was just another woman I wanted to fuck. I took what I wanted without thinking about what it meant for her.
Without thinking about what it means, period.
Because in our world, a woman's virginity isn't only about her. It's about honor. It's about family. It's about the kind of shit that starts wars between families who are already on the edge of one.
Roberto Bonacci trusted me with his daughter's safety, and I repaid that trust by taking something that can never be given back.
He will kill me.
Slowly.
Probably with his bare hands.
And he'd be justified.
I shift slightly, trying to ease the guilt crushing like a weight, and Viviana makes a small sound in her sleep, her arm tightening across my ribs. Even unconscious, she's holding onto me like she doesn't want to let go.
Which makes this a thousand times worse.
Because the smart thing to do would be to end this. Right now. Make it clear that what happened was a mistake, put some distance between us, go back to the professional boundaries that should have kept this from happening in the first place.
But looking at her now, hair spread across my pillow, lips slightly parted, looking younger and more innocent than she has any right to – I don't want to end it.
I want to keep her.
Permanently.
Make her mine in every way that matters.
Which is completely fucking insane.
She's Roberto Bonacci's daughter. The enemy's princess.
In a few weeks, maybe a month, this will all be over and I'll have to hand her back to her father.
Back to her real life, where she'll marry some nice Italian boy from an appropriate family and forget all about the dangerous man who held her captive.
The dangerous man who took her virginity and then convinced himself it didn't mean anything.
Except it does mean something.
Whether I want it to or not.
Being someone's first isn't something you walk away from unchanged. It creates a bond, a connection, a sense of responsibility in our world that goes deeper than just physical attraction.
It makes her mine in a way that has nothing to do with this fucked-up situation and everything to do with the most primitive parts of human nature.
And that possessiveness, that sudden surge of ownership I feel when I look at her – that's dangerous as hell.
Because it makes me want to do stupid things. Like fuck her every way I know how. Like tell her father the truth when this is over. Like burning down everything I've built my life on for a girl I've known for a week.
A girl who gave me something priceless without even telling me.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, pulling me out of my spiral. Text message. I reach for it carefully, trying not to wake Viviana.
It's from my father: Meeting tomorrow, 10 AM. Updates on the Bonacci situation.
Right. The situation. The reason Viviana is here in the first place, the reason we're working with her father instead of killing each other.
For a few hours tonight, I forgot about all of that. Forgot about the threats, the investigation, the temporary truce that's the only thing keeping both our families from going to war.
I forgot about everything except the way she felt in my arms.
I type back: Will be there.
Then I set the phone aside and look down at the woman sleeping against my side.
In the moonlight streaming through the windows, she looks even younger than eighteen.
She looks like what she is; a girl who should be worrying about college and boys her own age, not international crime families and men who kill people for a living.
Not men like me.
Definitely not dangerous men like me.
But it's too late for those regrets. What's done is done, and now I have to figure out how to handle the consequences.
I can pretend it never happened. Go back to professional boundaries, treat her like a job, hand her back to her father when this is over and never look back.
Or acknowledge what happened but frame it as a one-time thing. Stress relief, proximity, whatever excuse makes it easier to live with. Keep things physical but don't let it get complicated.
The last option is to admit that this changed something fundamental and deal with whatever comes next. Which is off the table. Has to be. Because admitting this meant anything will end in my certain death and possibly her too.
Which leaves the first two options.
And option one feels impossible when she's lying here naked in my bed, smelling like sex and my cologne, looking like she belongs here.
So, option two it is. Keep it physical. Don't make it mean more than it needs to mean. Enjoy what we have while we have it, and then let her go when the time comes.
No matter how hard that might be.
Viviana shifts in her sleep, and her hand slides across my abs, fingers curling against my skin like she's anchoring herself to me. The gesture is unconscious, innocent, but it sends a jolt of possessiveness through me that's anything but innocent.
Mine, some primitive part of my brain insists.
I too her first which makes her only mine.
Now and forever.
I push the thought away, but it keeps coming back, stronger each time.
Because the truth is, regardless of what I tell myself about keeping this simple, about not letting it mean anything, Viviana Bonacci is under my skin now in a way that has nothing to do with physical attraction and everything to do with the fact that she trusted me with something precious.
Something she can never get back.
And I took it without even realizing what I was taking.
The guilt of that is going to eat me alive. But not as much as the thought of giving her up.
Which means I'm well and truly fucked.
Because there's no scenario where this ends well. No scenario where I get to keep her without destroying everything else in my life. No scenario where loving Roberto Bonacci's daughter doesn't end with me dead or exiled or worse.
But lying here in the dark, with her warm weight against my side, I'm starting to think it might be worth it anyway.
And that terrifies me more than any threat her father could make.
Because I've never wanted anything enough to risk everything for it.
Until now.
My phone buzzes again. Another text, this time from my cousin Timo: Heard the meeting went well. The girl giving you any trouble?
I look down at Viviana, at the way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks, at the small smile playing at the corners of her mouth like she's having good dreams.
No trouble, I text back.
But as I hit send, I know I'm lying.
She's not giving me trouble.
She’s the fucking definition of trouble.
The kind of trouble that changes everything, whether you want it to or not.
The kind of trouble that makes a man forget who he's supposed to be and start thinking about who he could become instead.
And I'm not sure I'm strong enough to resist that kind of trouble.
Especially when it's curled up naked in my bed, trusting me to protect her from the world when the thing she really needs protection from is me.