Six
Ciro
I don’t invite dates, distractions, or anyone into my domain.
My house is the one place that belongs only to me.
It isn’t about secrecy. It’s about control.
There’s a difference. The club is public, the restaurants are transactional, hotels are neutral.
Home is not neutral. Home is where the walls know things.
Yet here I am, watching the city blur past the window with Chiara sitting a foot away from me in the backseat of my car.
She hasn’t said much since we left the restaurant. Her hands are folded in her lap. There’s basil still tucked into her canvas bag, the green leaves peeking out. A strand of hair keeps falling over her shoulder, and she pushes it back absently.
I should have sent her to a hotel.
That would have been the clean solution. Secure, discreet, and temporary.
I saw her across the outdoor market and was approaching her. At first glance I thought he was her boyfriend. But when I saw him grab her wrist and she froze, something in me moved before I did.
The memory slides back in without invitation. My jaw tightens.
He said he was her brother.
Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. Blood doesn’t mean harmless. I’ve seen enough families to know that.
Whatever he is, he put his hands on her like she was something he could control. The look in his eyes wasn’t protective. It was possessive.
That’s the part that hasn’t sat right.
She glances out her window now, her reflection sliding across the glass while the city lights move over her face.
I wonder what’s turning over in her head—embarrassment, fear, suspicion, maybe all three at once—and whether she’s already trying to decide what accepting this ride from me is going to cost her.
I’m aware of her in a way that’s distracting. The faint citrus scent of her soap. The way she holds herself upright, composed, even after being manhandled in public. There’s restraint in her. Discipline. It isn’t weakness. It’s containment.
I’ve built my life around containment.
The problem is that I recognized something in her when he touched her.
Something in me decided it was my problem. I didn’t appreciate that.
I don’t interfere in other people’s messes. I certainly don’t absorb them. Yet when I stepped between them, it didn’t feel like interference. It felt inevitable.
She isn’t going back to a hotel tonight, and somewhere between the restaurant and the quiet stretch of Pacific Heights, I realize my decision to bring her here stopped being entirely about security.
The car turns into the alley, headlights sweeping across trimmed hedges and stone walls behind stately homes that make privacy look effortless. When we stop in front of my garage door, the engine settles into a low hum beneath the silence filling the backseat as the door rolls up.
Beside me, Chiara goes very still.
The reaction is subtle enough that most people would miss it. Her shoulders straighten slightly against the leather seat, and her fingers tighten around the strap of her bag before she forces them to relax again. She keeps her expression neutral, but I can feel the shift in her anyway.
I tell myself it’s about security—controlled access, locked gates, a system I trust. That’s the rational answer. The less rational one is proximity. If she’s here, I know she’s safe. If she’s here, I can see for myself that no one is putting their hands on her again.
She studies the entrance a moment longer than necessary.
The back door opens before we reach it.
Katie Dunbar stands there, composed as always, her expression steady and perceptive. She’s my personal chef and housekeeper, but she’s also former military police with enough executive protection training that I trust her to carry a weapon and keep her head when things go sideways.
“Good afternoon, Ciro.”
“Afternoon, Katie.” I step slightly aside. “This is Chiara. She’s going to be staying with us.”
Katie’s gaze shifts to her immediately. “Welcome, Chiara.”
Chiara smiles politely. “Thank you. I promise it’ll only be for the night.”
That’s exactly what I offered. Practical. Contained. No complications. Yet hearing it framed that way makes it sound transactional, as though she assumes she’s temporary in more ways than one. I don’t like the implication, even if it’s accurate.
Katie steps back to let us in. The entryway carries the faint scent of polished wood and something citrus from the kitchen. Afternoon light filters across the floors. The house is quiet, but not empty. There’s a difference.
“Can I arrange dinner?” Katie asks.
Chiara shakes her head before I answer. “We had a big lunch in North Beach. I’m fine.”
She slips the canvas bag from her shoulder and hands it over. “You may already have these. Sorry.”
Katie peers inside and smiles. “This looks like the start of a very good red sauce.”
Something changes in Chiara’s face at that. It isn’t dramatic. It’s subtle. A softening around her mouth, a shift in her posture that suggests familiarity instead of caution.
“I’ve been craving my mother’s lamb ragu,” she says. “She makes it the long way.”
“The long way is usually the best way,” Katie replies. “Roast or ground?”
“Ground when I cook. But traditionally, it’s a roast. She braises it low and slow for a full day before she even makes the sauce. Then the sauce cooks another day. And after that, she insists it has to sit. She’d tell you it needs time.”
Katie nods in approval. “That sounds wonderful.”
I remain near the doorway, listening.
At the farmer’s market, Chiara had been controlled. Measured. The man who grabbed her wrist had triggered stillness in her, not chaos. Here, in my kitchen, she sounds grounded. Rooted in something that predates whatever complication brought her into my car.
“You’ll have to make it for us,” Katie says.
Chiara hesitates. “I don’t want to impose.”
“You won’t,” Katie replies. “Leave me a list. We’ll start in the morning.”
Chiara glances toward me, as if expecting me to correct that assumption.
I don’t.
“If we’re doing it,” I say evenly, “we may as well do it properly.”
She studies me briefly and then nods and moves to the island. Katie hands her a notepad. Chiara writes with deliberate care, her handwriting steady. Garlic. Lamb shoulder. Good olive oil. Pecorino. All to add to her basil, tomatoes, and fresh rosemary.
The act itself is ordinary, but the setting isn’t.
Watching her stand at my kitchen island, planning a dish that takes days to complete, unsettles something in me I can’t neatly categorize. It isn’t about the food. It’s about presence. About the way she inhabits the space without shrinking from it.
She doesn’t look like someone passing through.
When she finishes, she slides the paper toward Katie, who studies it with interest. “I’ll have everything delivered first thing.”
Chiara thanks her quietly.
I check my watch.
I have plans tonight. Long-standing ones. My brothers will already be at the club in a bit. The San Francisco Club opens in a few hours, and I had been considering not going, but with Chiara under my roof, I need to go.
I lead Chiara to the guest room. “You should be good. I’ll have Katie get your sizes, and we’ll get you a few things. And I’ll have my driver, Victor, go to your apartment and pick up your things.”
She nods. “I don’t have much there.”
“No worries. If you change your mind later, you can get anything out of the kitchen. Katie usually has some meals ready to just heat for me. Help yourself. She’s an excellent chef—trained at Le Cordon Bleu.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Um,” I look around. “If you need anything, just let Katie or Victor know. They’ll be able to get it for you.”
“Okay.” She looks at me, and I don’t know what to do.
“I need to change,” I say. “I’m meeting my brothers.”
“Have fun.”
I walk down the hall toward my office and close the door behind me.
The quiet inside is immediate.
For years, this house has run the same way. People don’t show up unannounced, and they don’t linger once business is finished. The gates stay closed, the staff keeps to routines, and every room stays exactly the way I left it. It’s the only place in my life where nothing happens unless I allow it.
I still have time before I’m supposed to meet my brothers, but sitting in my office feels impossible now.
Every time I try to settle, my mind keeps circling back to Chiara at the farmer’s market—the sunlight catching in her dark hair, the sharp edge in her voice, the way she looked at me like she didn’t trust me and still couldn’t quite look away.
Even with everything that happened, she was distractingly beautiful.
So instead, I change into workout clothes and head downstairs to the gym.
I spend too long wrapping my hands before I even touch the heavy bag.
Then I hit it harder than necessary, working through combinations until the impact starts echoing up my arms and sweat drips down the center of my back.
Normally, the repetition helps. Count the movement.
Control the breathing. Empty the noise out of my head.
I drive my fist into the bag again, hard enough to send it swinging across the mat. Twenty minutes later, my shoulders ache, my knuckles are throbbing through the wraps, and the noise in my head has finally dulled enough to breathe through.
I head back upstairs to the kitchen, pull a bottle of water from the fridge, and finish the entire liter while cold air spills across the tile and sweat cools against my skin. My heart rate has slowed, but Chiara is still there at the edge of my thoughts anyway.
“Are you back already?” Chiara asks quietly from the doorway.
I look up, thrown enough by the question that it takes me a second to answer.
She’s changed into one of the guest robes, the sleeves pushed back slightly at her wrists, her dark hair still loose around her shoulders.
Her gaze drops briefly to my bare chest before snapping back to my face, and the quick inhale she takes is subtle but noticeable.