Chapter 34
Victor
The study in Moretti Manor felt heavy, the air thick as lead, pressing down on everyone inside.
Luca stood before my massive walnut desk and slid a thick manila envelope toward me.
"These are the shots our watcher took this afternoon behind the Manhattan private high school, along with the kid's full background check."
I said nothing, simply tore open the envelope with a cold flick of my fingers.
The first thing that slid out was a high-resolution photo.
In the center was my daughter, Luna, the person I had protected most fiercely in this life, pure as an angel sent down to earth.
Yet now, her hand was gripped tightly by some punk.
The bastard had his head lowered, whispering something into her ear.
They were pressed close together, so close it made my vision darken with rage.
I set the photo down slowly and reached for the rest of the contents—a neatly bound background report.
I flipped open the first page and scanned a few lines.
Arthur Lind. Seventeen. Single-parent household.
Mother a high school teacher. President of the literature club.
Above-average grades. No family connections. No meaningful social ties.
In other words, an utterly ordinary kid who couldn't even protect himself.
And this nobody had dared to touch my daughter.
"Go get Dante," I said, my voice dangerously quiet—the usual prelude to bloodshed. Luca practically scrambled out of the room.
Less than a minute later, Dante was pushed inside. My fourteen-year-old son, who had already begun showing a frighteningly sharp mind for the family business, froze the moment our eyes met. He stood in the doorway as if he had stepped on a landmine.
"How much do you know about what's in that photo?" I didn't waste words. I hurled the picture and the damn report onto the carpet in front of him. Pages scattered like a silent verdict.
Dante swallowed hard. He glanced down at the mess on the floor, and his previously steady expression collapsed. A flash of guilt he couldn't hide crossed his eyes. "Uh, well..."
"Tell me the truth!" I slammed my hand on the desk. The solid wood gave a dull, skin-crawling thud. "You're in the same school with her every day. Don't tell me you don't know!"
Dante straightened his spine, mustering all the composure a boy his age could manage, but his voice still stuttered. "The guy's name is Arthur Lind. He's in the literature club... Luna told me not to tell you. She said if you found out, you'd chop him up and throw him into the Hudson..."
"She knows her old man well." I stood up and yanked off the tie that was choking me, fury surging wildly in my chest. "Luca! Tell the crew to get ready. Tonight, I want Arthur Lind erased from New York completely!"
"You wouldn't dare!"
The study door flew open with a loud bang, slamming against the wall before bouncing back.
Luna burst in like an angry lioness. She had clearly heard every word from outside. Her eyes—those deep, beautiful green eyes she had inherited from Evelyn—held none of their usual sweetness. They burned with defiance, stabbing straight into my heart.
"You had me followed? You even ran a background check on him?" Her voice shook with pure rage.
"If I don't have you followed, am I supposed to just sit back and watch you get tricked by some gutter rat?" I strode around the desk like a territorial lion closing in. "End it with him right now. I won't say it twice."
"Arthur isn't a rat! He's a good person!
" Luna refused to back down. She lifted her chin and stared me dead in the eye, her spine ramrod straight, the very image of her mother in her younger days.
"You can't keep controlling my life with your mafia tactics!
I'm not some delicate hothouse flower you keep locked away. I'm not as fragile as you think!"
"He's just a kid who can't even protect himself!
" I roared, dark violence flashing in my eyes.
I jabbed a finger at the scattered report on the floor.
"If my enemies find out about him, all it takes is a gun to his temple, and he'll shove you out as a shield in a heartbeat!
You think the real world is one of those romance novels you read in literature club? "
"You're nothing but a control freak!" Luna's eyes reddened, her voice trembling from emotion, yet she refused to let a single tear fall. "You think every man outside your own crew is worthless. You have no right to interfere with who I date! Even if you kill him, I will never give him up!"
"Say that again?"
I finally snapped. I grabbed the back of the leather chair beside me, nails digging into the fabric. Dante instinctively took half a step back, his face pale. A family storm strong enough to tear the roof off was about to erupt—
"What's all this noise? I could hear you tearing the house down from the other end of the hall."
A soft, languid female voice drifted in from outside the study. It wasn't loud, but it instantly doused the powder keg that the room had become.
Evelyn walked in wearing a flowing, soft moss-green silk dress, moving gracefully down the corridor. Time had been kind to her; she was still so beautiful that a single glance could make my heart skip— even while I stood on the edge of fury, my eyes instinctively followed her.
She was even holding a cup of floral tea, looking as elegant as if she were attending a high-society afternoon salon, completely ignoring the thick tension and gunpowder scent filling the study.
Evelyn bent down, picked up the photo from the carpet, and casually nudged the scattered background report with the toe of her shoe.
She would stand with me. After all, this was our daughter.
Yet as Evelyn studied the photo, she actually raised an eyebrow.
"Oh? Good taste, Luna." She tapped the boy's face in the picture with a slender finger, her tone light enough to drive me insane. "He looks clean-cut—much nicer than those thugs who work for your father. Don't you think, Victor?"
"Evelyn!" I raised my voice in disbelief, feeling the vein in my temple throb violently.
Luna immediately ran over and clung to her mother's arm like she had found her ultimate ally. The tears she had been holding back finally fell.
"There, there, sweetheart. Don't cry." Evelyn stroked Luna's long hair with incredible tenderness. "Your father is just venting his ridiculous old-man jealousy."
Then she turned to me. Those beautiful green eyes locked onto mine without flinching.
"Dante, take your sister back to her room. Luca, you too." Evelyn issued the order to clear the room in a cool voice.
No one dared defy Mrs. Moretti. Luca and Dante looked as if they had been granted amnesty. They dragged the still-fuming Luna out of the study. Dante, ever considerate, closed the heavy wooden door tightly behind them.
Luna's voice carried through the door, stubborn and fierce: "I will never back down! Even if you kill him, I won't break up with him!"
Her footsteps gradually faded.
Only Evelyn and I remained in the study.
My chest heaved like a beast trapped in a cage with no way out.
I was about to speak again, to emphasize how dangerous that Arthur kid was, how worthless his background was, and how letting Luna stay with him was the same as throwing her onto the chopping block—but Evelyn calmly set her teacup on the desk, stepped around the mess on the floor, and walked straight toward me.
"Come with me."
She took my hand and led me through the hallway, up to the glass terrace on the top floor of the manor.
The night breeze carried a cool touch that swept across my face, clearing some of the rage boiling in my mind. In the distance, Manhattan's skyline glittered brilliantly, but right now those bright lights looked like nothing but traps and hidden threats to me.
Evelyn pushed me into a wide wicker chair, poured a glass of my favorite whiskey, and pressed it into my hand.
She then stepped behind me naturally. Her ten fingers began to slowly massage my temples, which were stretched as tight as steel wires. That familiar scent of hers wrapped around me, curling into my nose like an anesthetic that could heal every wound.
"You're still shaking, Victor," she said softly, a hint of heartache in her voice.
I took a long swig of whiskey. The liquid burned down my throat, but it was nothing compared to the fire raging in my chest.
"I'm just scared, Evelyn. That kid has no background. He can't protect her—he can't even protect himself."
Evelyn didn't answer right away. Her fingers slid from my temples through my hairline with reverent gentleness.
Then she moved in front of me and straddled my lap without hesitation.
The warmth of her thighs seeped through the thin silk and my suit pants, making my tightly wound body tremble instinctively.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her forehead to mine.
"I actually hope she dates an ordinary boy. A pure, sunny romance would be good for her," Evelyn interrupted. "Victor, she doesn't need anyone to protect her. She's our daughter. She's much stronger than you think."
I looked into Evelyn's eyes. There was a power in them that could hold everything, vast enough to contain the entire Atlantic. The hard, cold stone in my chest began to crack and melt inch by inch under her gaze.
I wrapped my arms around her slender waist and buried my face deep in her chest, greedily breathing in her scent. That warmth nearly swallowed me whole.
"If that little bastard makes Luna shed even one tear," I growled through gritted teeth, making what was probably the biggest concession of my life, "I swear I'll skin him alive myself."
"Alright, alright, whatever you say." Evelyn stroked down my back with indulgent tenderness, her fingertips sending pleasant shivers across my skin. "My tyrant. My husband."
Those words struck me like a spark, instantly igniting the anxiety I had suppressed all day and a deeper, more primal desire.
I lifted my head and kissed her fiercely.
I pried open her lips and drank in her sweetness. Evelyn offered no resistance. She cooperated fully, parting her soft lips and tightening her arms around my neck. She even deepened the kiss, sweeping away the last scraps of my sanity.
"Mmm..."
When we finally broke apart at the edge of breathlessness, the corners of Evelyn's eyes had flushed a seductive pink. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. The shoulder straps of her silk dress had slipped down her arms, revealing a large expanse of skin that glowed almost ethereally in the moonlight.
"Victor..." Her voice had grown husky and sweet, like honeyed poison. "Do you know how incredibly sexy you look right now?"
My remaining self-control snapped completely.
I scooped her up and carried her with long strides toward the wide velvet chaise lounge deeper on the terrace.
Outside, the night sky pressed down heavily, and distant thunder rumbled across the horizon, as if the city itself were gathering strength for tonight's storm.
Inside our private world, everything beyond was shut out—only me and the woman I had spent half my life stealing, protecting, and loving with reckless abandon.
I laid her down on the soft velvet and looked down at her. Moonlight poured through the glass dome, tracing every exquisite line of her body. There was no fear in her eyes, only love for me—complete and unconditional.
"Evelyn." My voice was rough to the breaking point. My fingers slowly loosened the ties of her silk dress, each movement filled with dangerous, restrained hunger.
"I love you," she whispered. She cupped my face with both hands and pulled me down to her. Those green eyes reflected my image, drawing all of me into her world. "Victor."
"Then prove it to me."
Rain began to patter against the glass dome. The fresh air that followed washed away the heat inside me.
The outside world was still full of blood, power, and unknown dangers. Enemies still lurked in the shadows, and the children would eventually leave our protection to face their own lives and storms. But after surviving so much death, betrayal, and madness, we still had each other.
As long as Evelyn was in my arms, it was enough.
THE END