Chapter 13 NORA
NORA
My lips are still tingling from the kiss Luca pressed against my mouth in the shadows of the courtyard terrace. The heat between us has not cooled down even as he leads me through the grand villa, past armed guards with rifles, and up the private stairs to his personal wing.
He shuts the heavy oak door behind us, cutting off the noise from the rest of the house. For a man running a dangerous syndicate, he moves without any rush, slipping his dark coat off and watching me like a problem he intends to handle personally.
He points toward the dark leather couch under the tall arched window. "Sit. You want the truth instead of jokes. I will explain the Brotherhood and the Bellini war once. Then you can decide what to do next."
I drop onto the leather cushions because my legs still ache from the flight. The room smells like cedar and gun oil, lined with tall bookshelves and not a single family photo. "You're offering me an exit strategy after kidnapping me into Italian airspace? Bold sales pitch, Moretti."
He splashes two fingers of amber whiskey into a tumbler he doesn't touch, setting the heavy crystal on the table between us like a physical boundary.
"The Brotherhood isn't a corporate hierarchy with quarterly reviews.
It's blood, collateral, and the silent agreement that if one of us drops, the rest dig the hole.
" He remains upright, dark jacket tossed over an armchair, sleeves rolled high enough to expose a pale scar tracing the curve of his forearm.
"Matteo handles the supply chains because he chats too much for assassinations.
Enzo commands the street outfits because he has to prove he isn't just the baby brother I dragged up by the collar.
Adrian keeps our perimeters intact. Sofia stays clean of the ledger or I level entire neighborhoods. "
"Fascinating organizational chart." I tilt my chin up, tracking the deliberate line of his jaw. "Where does the slide come in explaining why knowing this won't get me shot in a ditch?"
"If I wanted you dead in a ditch, I wouldn't have brought you to my private quarters or poured you top-shelf liquor." He steps closer to the mahogany table, sliding both hands into his pockets.
"You didn't pour it out of kindness. You poured it to keep your hands busy so you don't snap my neck for talking back." I lean back against the leather, crossing my legs.
His mouth sets in a hard line. "The Bellini attacked our family twenty years ago.
They murdered my father, my mother, and Matteo's parents in one night.
Uncle Vittorio lived through it, but the attack broke his body and stole his life.
Watching him waste away in a secure bed while carrying the ghost of everyone we lost shattered what was left of our home.
My grandfather passed soon after from the sheer weight of that grief, and Nonna never recovered.
" He sits across from me, his dark eyes fixed on mine.
"I took over the syndicate at eleven to keep the Brotherhood from bleeding out.
Everyone who steps inside this house either protects what remains of us or becomes an enemy. "
The silence in the room turns heavy, thick with the weight of twenty years of blood.
I slip my heels off, letting them drop against the parquet floor because staring down a grieving killer does not work in a four-inch Louboutin.
I hold his cold gaze. "And where do I land on that list?
Level with me, Luca. You just laid out your whole cemetery. Tell me why I'm still breathing."
His jaw tightens as the shadows cut harsh angles across his face.
"Because you look straight into the dark and try to bargain with it.
You broke my man's foot on the London pavement, cracked another's throat, and walked into my dining room treating killers like bad clients.
Normal hostages break, beg, or bleed out quietly.
You weigh my family's cemetery like debt you can negotiate.
That doesn't make you an innocent bystander, Nora. It makes you a threat I want to own."
"I didn't bully her, I complimented her olive oil. Learn some manners." I tap my fingers against the armrest.
"She hasn't smiled for years. You're a security breach in silk." He rubs the bridge of his nose.
"You're making me blush, Don Moretti." I slide toward the edge of the cushions, propping my elbows on my knees to narrow the distance between us.
"Why explain the machinery to me now? You could have locked me in the east wing with a nondisclosure agreement, wired a severance wire to my firm, and pretended I was an inconvenient hallucination. "
"You notice too much to ignore." His stare sharpens, stripping away every ounce of casual humor until the room shrinks down to the space between our chests. "And feeding you convenient fabrications became inefficient the exact moment you quit flinching whenever I entered a room."
A strange, inconvenient warmth pools low in my ribs. I mask it by rolling my eyes with practiced corporate disdain. "Flinching left the itinerary when your idiot cousin fought me for scrambled eggs in a floral apron like we were college roommates splitting rent. Give me the real reason."
"The real reason?" He stands in one fluid, terrifyingly controlled motion, closing the gap between our seats until his boots touch the tips of my toes. "I told you because I wanted you to know who holds your leash. That's the only variable on my desk lacking a strategic purpose."
"Nobody holds my leash, sweetheart." I arch my neck, refusing to lean back into the cushions as his shadow drops over me. "Your pitch needs heavy revision. Normal men at least attempt pasta and cheap wine before demanding emotional surrender."
"Do I look like a normal man to you?" He raises a single dark brow, towering over me.
"You look like a walking felony with an attitude problem." I scoff right up at him.
"Most men would have sent you packing to London the day you were bought.
" His fingers lift, unhurried, giving me every opportunity to slap them away before his palm settles against the side of my neck.
His thumb rests right over my pulse, heavy, warm, calculating every rapid beat.
Not cutting off air. Just staking a claim.
"And you aren't most women. You brawl when you ought to retreat.
You negotiate term sheets when you ought to bargain for your skin. You're an absolute headache."
Heat roars through my bloodstream, stubborn and demanding. "Then close your mouth and handle the headache before I start billing you five hundred pounds an hour for retained advisory services."
His mouth slams down over mine, hard and bruising, cutting off the last word before it clears my lips.
I grip the collar of his linen shirt, pulling him down until his weight pins me into the sofa cushions.
His fingers tighten around my throat, fingers pressing firm against my pulse point, trapping the breath in my chest until the room spins.
"Moretti," I shudder against his lips the second he gives me room to inhale. "Do that exact thing again."
"Ask properly." His tone drops into a low, gravelly scrape right against the shell of my ear. Over my pulse point, his thumb applies a steady, delicious press that sends a jolt straight between my thighs.
"Fuck your manners." I sink my teeth into his bottom lip hard enough to draw the sharp tang of copper. "You opened this portfolio. Close the deal or get off."
A low, predatory noise vibrates deep in his chest. The steady ring of his fingers around my throat relaxes for a heartbeat before tightening again in a rhythmic cadence that syncs with the ruthless way he works my mouth open.
His free hand weaves through my hair, gripping the roots to tilt my chin at the precise angle he wants.
I arch up into him, abandoning the calculated composure I maintain for boards and crisis rooms, entirely unraveled by a man who treats restraint like a personal insult.
He scrapes his teeth along the sensitive curve below my ear while keeping my throat pinned under his palm. "Look at you. The London fixer who runs every room she walks into, panting because I won't let you turn your head."
"Don't flatter your technique, Moretti." I dig my fingernails into his forearms, feeling the corded strength beneath his skin.
"You're dripping wet for a man holding your throat, little bird. Don't lie to me." He drags his thumb over my chin to pry my lips apart.
"Don't psychoanalyze my kinks while you're rock hard against my hip, Luca. It's entirely unprofessional."
A dark chuckle vibrates against my skin. He rocks his hips forward once, heavy and unmistakable, proving without a single word how completely undone he is. "Then tell me to pull back, little negotiator. Invoke your clause."
"Worst counteroffer you've made all week." I wrap my legs tighter around his waist, locking him in place. "Harder. Don't you dare let go."
His teeth catch my lower lip, dragging until a sharp gasp catches in my lungs.
He bears down heavier, pressing me flat against the leather cushions as his mouth cuts a bruising path across my jaw to the sensitive dip beneath my ear.
The steady, iron clamp of his thumb against my windpipe traps my breath in short, ragged hitches, sending a dizzying surge of static humming through my ears.
I hook my fingers into the hem of his dress shirt, yanking the linen free from his waistband to slide my bare palms over the tense ridges of his ribs and the rough, jagged scar tissue running across his flank.
"Nora." His voice fractures as his forehead collides with mine, his grip on my neck flexing with raw tension. "If we don't pump the brakes this second, I'm ripping these trousers off you right here."
"Is that supposed to scare me?" I pull his mouth back down to mine, grazing his lips with mine.
"It should, because I won't stop until tomorrow." His fingers bite deeper into my nape.
"Then don't stop, you stubborn bastard." I pull him down harder against my pelvis, completely consumed by the friction. "I'm the hostage here. I get to dictate terms. Keep your hand right there and make good on that threat."
His fingers press into the hollow of my throat, cutting the air down to a thin, sharp rasp.
The leather sofa creaks under our weight as my head falls back against the cushions.
My heart thumps against his palm in hard, frantic beats.
I bring both hands up, curling my fingers around his wrist not to push him off, but to pull him down tighter.
A low, broken sound rattles in his chest, vibrating through the fabric of his shirt against my ribs.
Our breaths clash together in hot, ragged bursts.
His mouth leaves mine and drags down the line of my jaw, teeth grazing the sensitive skin right beneath my ear before sinking hard into the curve of my collarbone.
A sharp sting flares across my skin, and a breathless oath slips past my teeth.
Above my pulse, his thumb bears down, tightening the pressure until dark spots dance across my vision and heat rushes straight to my fingertips.
"Fuck, Luca..."
The door flies open.
Matteo barrels through the doorway mid-sentence, bruised face beaming with whatever operational crisis he came to report, before skidding to an abrupt halt so violent his boots squeak against the hardwood.
"Oh sweet mother of God. Oh hell no. I did not...
Adrian swore you two were looking at spreadsheets!
I am gouging my eyeballs out. I am currently blind. "
Luca freezes for three agonizing seconds. Then, with excruciating slowness, his hand releases my throat, fingers curling into a fist as he drops his forehead against my shoulder to draw a ragged breath. "Matteo." His voice could freeze boiling water.
"I knocked! In my mind, I knocked twice!" Matteo throws both hands over his face, peeking through his fingers with shameless curiosity.
"You have three seconds to turn around before I put a round through your knee." Luca doesn't even lift his head.
"Evacuating immediately!" Matteo backpedals frantically toward the hall, bumping his elbow hard on the doorframe.
"Just so the room is aware, Nonna is going to detect this unholy energy all the way from the pantry and she will begin drafting a wedding guest list. Also, Enzo requires your presence downstairs in five minutes.
Actual five. Something about a Bellini shipment. I am walking into the ocean now!"
The door slams. Somewhere down the hall Matteo shouts something that sounds a lot like "I knew it" followed by distant laughter.
I sit up slowly, staring at Luca while he straightens his spine. My throat still throbs with the glorious ghost of his hand.
"Do you people ever knock on wood, or is home invasion just a family tradition?" I smooth my wrinkled blouse.
"We don't knock when there's an active gang war, no." He rakes a hand through his dark hair, looking thoroughly murderous.
"Well." I blow a stray strand of hair out of my face, fighting off a breathless, unhinged smirk. "That was an Olympic-level cockblock. Do we tip him twenty percent or put a bounty on his head?"
"Neither option is off the table." Luca pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling a slow, lethal hiss through his teeth as he reassembles his composure.
He stands, offers me a hand up like we weren't just seconds from doing something irreversible on his sofa, and the smirk he gives me is pure trouble.
He buttons his cuffs, dark gaze locked onto mine with devastating precision. "This conversation is unfinished. And Nora? Next time my hand is around your neck, we bolt the heavy iron lock."
"I'll bring the key." I wink, thoroughly unrepentant.
The smirk fades from my lips as the silence settles between us again, heavy and charged. I reach out, catching the edge of his unbuttoned cuff before he can turn toward the door.
I meet the dark intensity in his eyes without blinking. "All jokes aside, Moretti. Before we actually finish what we started on that couch, I need one thing from you."
Luca pauses, his fingers stilling against the linen of his sleeve. "Name the price, Blake."
"I want the real you," I say, voice steady even as my pulse skips. "Not the mob boss, not the ruthless syndicate heir, and not the guy wearing a mask for his soldiers. If you want me in your bed, I need to know the actual man underneath all the blood and armor."
A slow, dangerous spark flickers deep in his dark eyes. He tilts his head, studying my face as if searching for any sign of hesitation.
His voice drops to a low, rough rumble. "You might not like what you find in the dark, Nora."
I lift my chin with absolute certainty. "Try me. I don't sign contracts without reading the fine print."