Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“Yes, sir. Eyes on target.”
Thomas’s voice crackled through the encrypted line, so quiet that Luc could hear the leather creak as his enforcer shifted in the surveillance car.
“She’s good. Keeps herself in crowds, uses cash only, and mostly keeps to herself. She started to wait tables at a local diner, but only two days a week.”
Luc flexed his hand around the phone, the gold signet ring biting into his palm.
His runaway fiancée was smart, much more so than men in this life who had tried to run.
She was adapting. Not enough to matter—not against his resources—but enough to send dark approval curling through his gut. His little dove had fight in her.
“There is something else,” Thomas said, a slight hesitancy in his tone.
“Oh?” Luc drawled.
The word was a quiet blade, and he heard his man swallow through the line.
“The diner owner seems sweet on her,” Thomas said. “Earlier, when she had lunch… he joined her and she… well… she laughed a few times at whatever he said. The man seemed damned please with himself afterward.”
Luc smiled, humorless. “Go on.”
“Apartment’s clean,” Thomas continued after clearing his throat. “She wouldn’t think of or know to check the vents or sweep for listening devices. Still thinks four locks make her safe.”
The unspoken poor thing hung between them.
She shouldn’t have to. The thought came unbidden, and Luc stilled, annoyed at the errant thought. “Maintain distance and do nothing to scare her. One shadow lost, one photo missed, and I’ll peel the skin from your flesh myself.”
“Yes, boss.” The call died with a click.
Luc leaned back into the cathedral-like silence of his surveillance suite, where twelve monitors glowed like stained glass in the predawn dark.
Center screen: Mia’s shabby apartment, all thrift store furniture and sun-faded curtains.
He watched her bare feet pad across the threadbare rug she’d bought for five dollars at a garage sale.
Luc knew her every step, every habit, every secret—his surveillance left no part of her life untouched.
The remote clicked in her hand. Then, there was explosive pop music, the kind that used to make his father sneer about degenerate youths, as Luc secretly tapped his fingers under the dinner table.
Mia’s hips swayed, off-rhythm and glorious, her tank top riding up to reveal the scar not mentioned in the report from John.
Luc wondered how a girl who lived such a sheltered life could get such a scar.
“Christ,” he muttered as she leaped onto the couch armrest, arms windmilling, laughing when she nearly toppled.
His body moved before his brain—leaning in, hand outstretched—as if he could catch her through the screen.
The phantom weight of her body flashed through his mind: how would she feel in his arms?
Her body appeared petite and lithe with subtle curves, invoking carnal thoughts no sister of a nunnery would comprehend.
Then her laughter curled through him. There it was again—that slow, insistent pulse of fascination that bled through his veins whenever he watched her. It had only been three weeks since he started watching her, yet to Luc it felt as though he already knew her.
She liked scrambled eggs and strawberries, eating them every morning with the same relish and delight as if she were eating them for the first time.
She’d discovered music in the kind of way that made him ache; he still remembered the look of wonder on her face the first time she sat listening to old soul records from the sixties.
She particularly loved The Drifters, her voice always lifting in a soft, imperfect rendition of Under the Boardwalk while she showered.
Yes, he even had eyes there. He told himself he only watched when she bathed for safety reasons—but when the water slid over her skin, when her hands smoothed soap along her body as she stomped and sang Elvis’s songs, lust surged hot and hard through him.
He knew she had never done such things at the convent, not with such abandon, not with such joy.
She liked thrillers and crime dramas, stacked them neatly by her bedside, and devoured them late into the night.
She laughed at romantic comedies, adored old black-and-white films, and was captivated by cartoons.
On Sunday afternoons, she buried herself in classic literature, letting the words carry her far from the small, careful life she led.
That week, she reread Pride and Prejudice three times, savoring Elizabeth’s wit, and returned to Anna Karenina four times, her chest tightening at the tragedy, whispering consolations to the characters as if they might hear.
Luc had smiled at the ridiculousness of it all, and yet, to his surprise, there was a part of him inexplicably charmed.
There were days when she sat curled on the sofa, one foot tucked beneath her, her dark blonde hair falling loose around her face as silent tears traced down her cheeks.
In those moments, she looked achingly small, fragile in a way that stirred something violent in him.
He saw her loneliness then, the fear that her life was changing beyond her control, that she lacked the strength or the means to stop it.
And in those moments, the urge in him deepened into something darker, more consuming.
He wanted to tell her he could lay the world at her feet, watch those silly cartoons with her if it pleased her, and slaughter anything that dared to bring her pain.
The thought of her sadness stirred not pity but possession—an unrelenting need to keep her close, to keep her his.
Even if he was the one who had put tears in her eyes, he wanted to be the only one allowed to wipe them away.
Luc thought it was fucking ridiculous.
The monitors flickered. Now she was curled in a nest of blankets, shoveling popcorn into her mouth while some Hollywood romance played. When the hero dropped to one knee, Luc saw the way her breath hitched, how her fingers crept to her own left hand, touching where a ring might be.
This was why he’d let her run. His world was brutal, unforgiving.
There was no space for softness, no room for freedom.
Giving her this was his way of offering something before he claimed her—because once she belonged to him, there would be no leaving.
The dark possession he kept shoving aside all week surged now, and this time, he didn’t fight it.
He liked watching her dance alone in that tiny apartment—moonlight spilling through the narrow window, painting her in an ethereal glow that made her seem untouchable. She looked like something rare and distant, a jewel meant only to be admired, never possessed.
He liked seeing her bite her lip at love stories, catching the sweet, private smiles, and the way she tossed her head back when she laughed. His phone vibrated.
A text from Thomas: Boss, Miss Bonino received a full-time offer at the diner today but turned it down. She said it’s because she’s leaving soon. Should we bring her in?
Luc’s thumb hovered over the screen.
Planning on running again, little dove? He could let this charade continue for longer. Let her run again and keep watching her blossom in captivity like a hothouse flower. He pressed a number and brought the phone to his mouth. “Thomas.”
“Sir?”
“Scatter the team. I’m bringing her home myself.”
The monitors showed Mia pressing a hand to her smiling mouth as the credits rolled. Luc reached out, tracing her glowing face on the glass. He could order his jet and have her within hours. But for now, he would let her keep her illusions of happy endings.
Tomorrow, he would shatter them.
The apartment carried the soft trace of floral shampoo, laced with the faint sweetness of lavender—the same delicate scent he had noticed on Mia the first time they met.
Luc stepped inside without a sound, gloved fingers trailing over the chipped counter.
A mug still steamed by the sink. She’d been here minutes ago.
He was taking her to New York. Two layers of private security protected the family estate in the Hamptons; she would be safe there.
There, under his mother’s watch, Mia could be taught about their life properly and be protected thoroughly.
His mother, Rosina Valachi, had a gift for taming wild things without breaking them.
She would know what to do with a frightened woman who didn’t yet understand who she’d been promised to.
His phone buzzed once. Thomas: She’s on her way up, boss. She only collected a delivery.
Good. He flicked on the light by the stove. The lock turned. The door cracked open.
She hummed a song under her breath.
“How lovely you sound, mia colombina,” he drawled.
Mia gasped, then froze in the threshold like a startled doe. Her keys slipped from her hand as the small grocery bag hit the floor—apples scattered, forgotten. Luc caught the tiny hitch in her breath.
“How did you find me?”
It nearly made him laugh. She wore a simple blue dress with thin straps, the kind that skimmed her figure with effortless grace, accentuating every soft curve without seeming deliberate.
The color deepened the glow of her skin, and for a moment, she looked almost serene—beautiful in a way that asked for nothing yet commanded every glance.
Her hair tumbled over her shoulders in loose waves, and there was no trace of makeup—yet she was so lovely his damn heart lurched like he was a fucking teenage boy again.
Fire burned in her eyes as she glared at him.
Still, she seemed small yet defiant. Good.
He preferred her like this. Unvarnished. Real.
Luc crossed the room slowly, savoring each step as anticipation curled through him.
She didn’t retreat—smart girl. When he reached her, their bodies brushed, the faintest contact sparking through him.
Her scent rose to meet him, soft and feminine, a whisper of lavender and something uniquely her own.
Heat coiled low in his gut as his chest pressed to the delicate curves of her body, the shape of her waist fitting perfectly beneath his touch.
“Mia.” He murmured her name into her hairline, lips grazing her skin. “I never lost you.”
“What?”
Her choked gasp whispered through him. Luc could feel the thrum of her pulse, rabbit-quick. He felt the fight coiled tight under her skin. “You heard me… I knew every step since you left the convent.”
She jerked back and lifted her gaze to his, fury brimming in her dark blue eyes. “Get out! If you knew where I was…” Her voice was soft but sharp. “Why didn’t you come sooner? Why did you let me believe I had a chance?”
He tipped her chin up so she did not look away from him, let her see the truth—that he’d watched her test her leash like an unbroken filly. That he’d allowed it. That her false freedom had entertained him as much as it infuriated and also charmed him.
“Did you enjoy it?” he asked, tracing the fine line of her jaw. “Your little taste of running.”
“It wasn’t freedom,” she said, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “I looked over my shoulder every day, and now I understand why this feeling of being watched and hunted never left me alone. You were there… in every shadow.”
She whirled to run through the still-open door, and when he grabbed her hips, she rammed an elbow into his ribs. Pain bloomed, sharp and fleeting. Luc laughed into her hair, spun her to the wall, wrists pinned high, her pulse pounding so loud he could taste it.
“Still fighting?” He nudged her thighs apart with a knee, the motion unhurried, humiliating in its certainty.
“I’ll never stop,” she choked out, her eyes flashing with anger.
His hand cruelly fisted in her hair, jerking her head back to bare her throat. He sank his teeth into the delicate curve, hard enough to make her gasp, then soothed the sting with a slow lick.
“I haven’t touched another woman since I laid eyes on your picture,” he growled against her skin. “Keep testing me, and I’ll shove up your skirts and bury my dick inside your virgin pussy and ride you right here.”
A strangled sound slipped from her lips, her body going still. He lifted his head, his gaze locking with hers, feeling that dark, merciless throb. “Perhaps I should do just that,” he murmured.
Her eyes widened. “Don’t you dare.”
“Do you command me?”
Her cheeks flushed red, and her eyes glistened with an emotion he couldn’t name.
“I—”
Luc caught her mouth with his, devouring her in a kiss that stole her breath. He groaned as her sweet, hot taste crashed into him like a shot of whiskey—heady, burning, impossible to stop.