CHAPTER 5
Luca stood in the warehouse, arms crossed as his men moved crates of weapons into unmarked trucks. The place reeked of oil, gunmetal, and smoke the familiar scent of control. It should’ve settled him. It didn’t.
Every sound grated at him lately. Every delay set his teeth on edge. Because his mind wasn’t here it was miles away, in a quiet sunlit house where his little sister drew flowers blooming from cracks in stone.
He checked his phone for the third time in fifteen minutes. No messages from Grayson.
Good. No news was good news.
Still, the silence needled him.
“Luca,” a voice called out behind him. Gio, one of Marcello’s lieutenants. Sloppy, greedy, and too curious for his own good. “You’re distracted, man. Everything good?”
Luca turned his head slowly. Calm. Blank faced. Dangerous.
“Say that again,” he said, voice low.
Gio shifted. “Hey, I meant no offense. Just saying, Marcello’s watching everybody harder lately, he wants clean work and no mistakes.”
Luca didn’t respond. He stepped forward, towering over the man with quiet threat in his eyes.
“You think I make mistakes?”
Gio held up his hands. “No. Of course not.”
“Then shut up and do your job.”
The silence that followed was louder than shouting.
Luca walked out of the warehouse and into the night air, inhaling deeply like it could clear the pressure from his chest. But it didn’t. It never did.
He wanted to go home.
No needed to. He needed to see Mia. Hear her voice. Make sure she was still untouched by this world, still smiling her soft, nervous smile, still safe in the life he’d built for her with careful lies.
He took out his phone again.
Luca: Coming home.
No one needed to know where “home” really was.
No one but Mia.
The city lights blurred behind him as Luca pulled off the main road and onto the long, winding drive that led to the safehouse.
To her.
He parked the car, engine low, and stepped out into the cool air. Quiet. Still. The way it always was here. The way he needed it to stay.
Grayson opened the door before he knocked. The man didn’t speak he never did when Luca came back late. Just gave a nod, then stepped aside and disappeared down the hall without a word.
Luca walked through the house like a ghost retracing old steps. Past the sketches on the hallway wall. Past the folded blanket Mia always left on the corner of the couch. Every little thing in this house had her in it. Every little thing reminded him what he was fighting to protect.
He stopped at her door.
It was slightly ajar, as always Mia never closed it all the way. She hated feeling shut in.
He knocked gently.
“Mia?”
A soft shuffle. Then her voice, quiet, sleepy: “Luca?”
He pushed the door open.
She was curled under a blanket, hair messy, eyes puffy with sleep, her sketchbook still open on her lap. She blinked at him slowly, like she wasn’t sure if he was real or just a dream she’d pulled from memory.
“You’re back,” she murmured.
“I told you I would be.” His voice softened as he stepped inside, closing the door halfway behind him. “Did you miss me, princess?”
She nodded without hesitation. “Always.”
He sat on the edge of her bed, brushing his knuckles gently down her cheek. Her skin was warm. Safe.
“I drew something for you,” she said quietly, reaching for the sketchbook with both hands.
He took it from her, flipping it open. It was a drawing of a knight tall, cloaked in shadow standing in front of a castle, arms spread like a shield. And behind him, in a window tower, a girl with her hand pressed against the glass.
Luca stared at it.
“It’s you,” she whispered. “You’re the shield.”
He swallowed hard.
Sometimes she didn’t even realize what her drawings meant. What they did to him.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said, more to himself than to her.
But Mia shook her head.
“You’re all I have.”
And that was it.
That sentence. Those four words.
He pulled her gently into his arms and held her close. She fit there like she always had like the one soft thing left in his blood-stained life.
“You’re safe,” he murmured into her hair. “As long as I’m breathing, princess… you’ll always be safe.”
When Luca pulled her into his arms, Mia closed her eyes, breathing in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat deep and sure, like an anchor in the storm.
For so long, she’d lived wrapped in silence, hiding behind walls she built from fear and doubt. But with Luca, all that melted away.
She let herself be fragile. Allowed the tears she usually swallowed to trickle down, warm and quiet.
Because here, in his arms, she didn’t have to be brave.
She could just be her.
A shy girl with shaky hands and too many thoughts spiraling in her mind.
But his presence whispered a promise she held onto tighter than anything else: no matter how dark the world outside was, here was a light that wouldn’t go out.
Her voice was barely a whisper. “I’m scared sometimes, you know.”
Luca’s fingers brushed her hair back, gentle as always. “I know, princess.”
“And… I’m afraid I’ll never be strong enough.”
He held her tighter. “You already are. More than you think.”
Mia buried her face into his chest and let herself believe it.
For once, the weight inside her eased just a little.
Because love like this was rare. Fierce. Unbreakable.
And maybe, just maybe ,it was enough.