Chapter 72
Lucian
Celebrations are useful because people always tell the truth at them.
Not with words. Most people are too disciplined for that, especially around my family, especially in a room like this where power sits in every corner and smiles are rarely just smiles.
But they tell the truth in other ways.
In who they stand beside. In who they keep looking at when they think no one notices. In who they touch too casually, and who they don’t touch enough.
That kind of truth has always interested me more.
I stand near the edge of the terrace with a glass in my hand I haven’t touched in the last ten minutes, watching the party settle into itself now that the main moment has passed.
The ceremony is done. The congratulations have softened into clusters of conversation.
People are eating, drinking, relaxing into the afterglow of a private celebration wrapped in money, family, and the kind of quiet power that doesn’t need to announce itself.
Christian is off to one side with our uncle, both of them in conversation that looks casual from a distance and absolutely is not.
Uncle Vittorio never wastes words, and Christian never wastes expression, so between the two of them there’s an entire negotiation happening behind faces calm enough to fool anyone who doesn’t know better.
I know better. I also know that if I walked over there right now, neither of them would need to say it aloud for me to understand I wasn’t needed in that particular discussion. That’s the shape of my life more often than not.
Useful. Respected. Trusted when things need moving, fixing, negotiating, smoothing over, threatening quietly, or finishing cleanly. But rarely central. Rarely the one people instinctively turn toward first when the room shifts.
Christian is the strategist they rely on.
Elijah is the man they’ve finally realized they can put weight behind.
Even tonight, with all this celebration wrapped around family and vows and champagne and property transfers dressed up as wedding gifts, the axis of the room keeps settling around other people.
I don’t resent it.
Resentment is for men who need to be seen to feel important. I’ve never needed that. But I notice it. I notice everything. And right now, what I notice is Evelyn.
She’s standing across the room beside Mark, who has one hand resting at her waist in that absent, proprietary way men use when they think they’ve already earned a place.
He’s speaking to someone from sponsorship, smiling, nodding, looking every bit the polished public-facing executive he’s supposed to be, and she’s turned toward him just enough to look like part of the picture without ever fully becoming part of it.
That’s what catches me every time. She never disappears into the role other people expect her to occupy. Even when she’s standing beside someone else. Even when she’s smiling. Even when she’s being agreeable.
There’s always something held back. A line. A blade. A refusal.
It’s in the way she carries herself, in the set of her shoulders, in the intelligence in her eyes that makes most men underestimate her because they’re too distracted by the rest of her to realize what they’re actually looking at.
And God, she is beautiful.
That part isn’t in question, it never was.
But beauty by itself has never held my attention for long.
Beauty is everywhere if you have money and the kind of life I do.
Beauty can be bought a hundred different ways.
Beauty turns up at your table, slides into your lap, says your name like a prayer, and leaves before morning without taking anything with her except the illusion that she mattered.
Evelyn is not that kind of woman. She’s sharp enough to cut and smart enough to know where to place the blade.
She has her own gravity. And for the last few weeks, while all of us have been pulled into Houston and into the Bellandi mess here, into helping Elijah claw his way through blood and panic and fury to get his woman back, I’ve found myself watching her far more than I should.
Not because she invites it, because she doesn’t. Not because she flirts, because she mostly doesn’t do that either.
But because every time she opens her mouth, I get the sense that there’s more there than the room is giving her credit for, and every time I see her beside Mark, the contrast irritates me more than it should.
He doesn’t look at her the way a man should look at a woman like that. He looks at her like she completes the image he wants for his life.
Like she fits. Like she polishes something in him. And that, more than anything else, tells me he doesn’t understand what he has.
A woman like Evelyn is not an accessory.
She isn’t the final button on a well-tailored suit or the pretty thing on a powerful man’s arm that tells the room his life is in order.
She is the prize. The sort of woman you are proud to stand beside because everyone in the room should know you somehow earned her attention.
Or stole it. Or survived long enough under her gaze to keep it.
Mark rests his hand at her waist again, and something in me goes still.
Not jealous, I’m not built that way.
Jealousy is reactive, messy, beneath me, this is colder than that. More precise. Assessment. Dissatisfaction. Recognition.
He is handling her wrong. And then, as if she can feel the weight of being observed, she glances across the room and catches me looking.
I don’t look away. Her expression changes only slightly, but I see it.
A minute sharpening around the eyes. A warning disguised as composure.
She says something to Mark, I can’t hear it from here, but I can tell from his face that he assumes she’ll be back in a moment, and then she turns and walks toward me.
I set the untouched drink down on the nearest table and wait for her to close the distance. She stops close enough that this could still pass for polite conversation if anyone chose not to listen too closely.
“You’re still here,” she says, one brow lifting. “I thought men like you slipped out the second family obligations were over.”
The corner of my mouth turns. There she is.
“Men like me?” I ask lightly.
Her gaze moves over me in a way that would be flattering if it weren’t so clearly evaluative.
“Yes,” she says. “The ones who always seem like they’ve got somewhere better to be.”
“Maybe I do,” I reply. “And maybe I haven’t found it yet.”
That earns me the smallest pause. Not enough for anyone else to notice. Enough for me. She folds one arm loosely across her waist, fingertips brushing the opposite elbow. Defensive posture disguised as casual. Clever.
“This is still a family event,” I add. “I’d be rude to disappear too early.”
“Somehow,” she says dryly, “I don’t imagine rudeness is what keeps you up at night.”
“No,” I say. “But boredom does.”
Her eyes narrow just slightly, and I enjoy that more than I should. We let the silence sit between us for a moment, not empty, just weighted, and then my attention flicks once toward Mark before returning to her.
“He doesn’t deserve you.”
The words land exactly the way I intend them to. Direct enough that there’s no pretending she misheard me. Her jaw tightens.
“That’s a bold thing to say about a relationship you know nothing about.”
“I know enough.”
“And what exactly is enough?”
“That he touches you like you’re there to complete the picture,” I say. “Not because he’s afraid the room will notice if he lets go.”
Her expression hardens.
“You’re making a lot of assumptions.”
“I’m making observations.”
She laughs once, but there’s no softness in it.
“And in your expert opinion, what should I be treated like?”
I hold her gaze.
“Like a woman men should feel lucky to stand next to,” I say. “Not like something arranged to flatter them.”
That hits. I can see it. Not because she agrees. She doesn’t want to. But because she knows there’s truth in it, and truth is always most irritating when it arrives through the mouth of someone you don’t want to validate.
“You don’t know anything about my relationship with Mark,” she says again, but this time it sounds more like she’s reminding herself than correcting me.
“No,” I concede. “Not everything.”
Her chin lifts a little higher.
“Then maybe keep your opinions to yourself.”
“I could,” I say. “But then I’d have to watch him continue to waste your attention, and I find that more annoying than silence.”
That does it. A flush touches her chest, not soft and rosy, but alive, reactive, sharpened by anger and something else underneath it she has no intention of naming.
“And what,” she asks, each word clipped and deliberate, “makes you think you’d do any better?”
I don’t hesitate.
“I don’t think, Evelyn. I know I would.”
That stops her, not fully, just enough. I step slightly closer, not enough to crowd her, not enough to force retreat, just enough that the air changes.
“I wouldn’t look at you and see something decorative,” I say quietly.
“I wouldn’t stand beside you and think about how well you completed the image.
I’d stand beside you and know the room was watching because you were in it and be the one who lifts you higher for all of them to see that you were mine. ”
Her breath shifts, barely, but I hear it.
“That’s very polished talk,” she says, recovering quickly, “for a man who’s already going back to New York.”
I had wondered when she would use it. I smile slowly.
“I may be going back to New York,” I say, “but that doesn’t mean I won’t see you again.”
She gives me a look that would send weaker men backward.
“What makes you think we’d have any reason to interact?”
Because I want to. Because I’ve already decided you’re not done with me. Because women like you don’t say what you just said unless they’ve imagined the possibility too.
Instead I say, “I don’t need a reason. I just need interest.”
“And what makes you think you have mine?”
Now I do laugh, low and brief.
“Because you walked over here.”
Her eyes flash.
“That isn’t the win you think it is.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s more than that.”
The answer throws her for half a beat, and I can almost see her deciding whether or not to leave. Instead, she squares herself and says, “I’m aware of who you are.”
That interests me more than it should, but doesn’t surprise me. We spent too many hours going over everything in Paul’s past and walking in and out of rooms smelling of blood for her not to understand what I am a part of.
“Are you?”
“Yes.” Her voice lowers. “And I’m not naive enough to mistake a nice suit and family manners for something gentler than what you are.”
Now we’re somewhere. I tilt my head slightly.
“And what am I, Evelyn?”
This time there’s context enough between us that the question lands exactly where I want it to.
“You’re a bad man,” she says. “Who does bad things.”
There is no fear in it. Only judgment. Possibly fascination. Definitely awareness. And that, more than anything else tonight, makes my blood warm.
Because she sees it. Most women don’t. Most women sense danger and romanticize it or run from it. Evelyn sees it clearly enough to name it and still stands here.
I let the silence stretch just long enough to make her feel it, then I smile.
“Maybe,” I say. “But I think beneath all of this” I gesture faintly between us, the party, the polished people, the entire decorative shell of acceptable society, “you’re the kind of woman who’s tired of good men who only know how to be good in ways that make themselves comfortable.”
Her expression changes.
“Why would you think that?”
Because I’ve been watching you. Because every time you bite back, there’s disappointment underneath it. Because every time he touches you, you tolerate it instead of leaning in.
But I say, more softly now, “Because I think you’d rather have a man who would burn the world down and hand you the ashes than one who smiles nicely while asking you to stay small.”
Her eyes widen just a fraction. There it is. The reaction. Immediate and involuntary. And then it’s gone, replaced by composure rebuilt with impressive speed.
“I hope you’ve enjoyed Houston,” she says coolly. “I’m sure there are plenty of women in New York who would be more than happy to entertain you.”
I look at her for a long moment.
“At no point,” I say, “have I been talking about other women.”
That lands too. She hates that it lands. Good.
She steps back. Not retreating just ending the conversation.
“I’m sure whatever game you think you’re playing is very entertaining for you,” she says. “But I’m not interested in being one of your hobbies.”
I could tell her she wouldn’t be a hobby.
That she’d be an obsession. That I haven’t been genuinely interested in anything this much in a very long time.
That she should be careful about calling this a game, because I was raised in a world where winning is often decided long before anyone else notices the board has been set.
Instead I let her go with dignity.
For now.
“Enjoy your evening, Evelyn.”
She gives me one last look, half warning, half challenge, and turns away.
I watch her walk back across the terrace. Watch the shape of her settle again into the party, into the role she thinks she’s choosing, into the man beside her who still doesn’t know the difference between being near a woman like that and actually having her.
And I understand something with complete clarity.
She’s right about one thing, I am a bad man.
I do bad things. But what she hasn’t understood yet, what most people don’t understand until it’s too late, is that men like me do not lose interest once it’s real, and I do not walk away from something I want, and what I want more than anything, is Evelyn.
And one way or another, she is going to learn exactly what it means to be wanted by a man like me.
This is the end of Liana's story but you will see glimpses of her and her men in the rest of the series.
I hope you enjoyed Liana’s story with Elijah, Jackson and Zach..