Chapter 7
LUCA
She knows.
I can tell before she even opens the door. I can tell by the way she takes too long to answer my knock. By the way I can hear her breathing on the other side, shallow and quick. By the way the deadbolt slides back slowly, like she's deciding whether to make this easy or hard.
Smart. Too late, but smart.
The door opens only halfway and there she is.
My Francesca. She's wearing jeans that hug her hips the way my hands will later.
A burgundy sweater that makes me want to peel it off her slowly just to watch her skin flush underneath.
Her hair is down instead of up—she let it dry wild after her shower.
I know because I've been outside the building for a while, watching her shadow move past the window.
She's not wearing the black dress I told her to wear. She's defiant already. Good. That means when she finally surrenders, it'll be real.
But it's her eyes that confirm what I already know. She's terrified. Furious. Betrayed. And underneath all of it, buried so deep she probably doesn't even recognize it yet—she's aroused.
I can smell the fear on her. That sharp, metallic scent of adrenaline. I can read every micro-expression on her face like she's an open book written just for me.
She knows... or at least she thinks she does. And now the real game begins.
"You've been following me." Not a question. A statement delivered with the kind of controlled fury that makes my cock twitch. She's magnificent when she's angry.
I'm not a weaker man who'll step back from that fury. I'm the man who's going to teach her what it's for.
"Yes," I say, because there's no point in lying now. I've been waiting for this moment since the day I decided she was mine. The moment she learns the truth and I can stop pretending to be civilized.
She doesn't move. Doesn't invite me in. She stands there blocking the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest, and I realize she has something clutched in her right hand. Pepper spray.
Adorable.
She thinks that will stop me. She thinks anything will stop me.
"Can I come in?" I ask, even though I don't need permission. Even though I've been in her apartment multiple times without it. Even though this is just a courtesy before I take what's mine.
"No."
I step forward anyway. Not aggressive—I don't need to be. Just inevitable. Like gravity. Like death. She backs up instinctively because her body knows what her mind hasn't accepted yet: I'm the predator here. She's the prey. And the hunt is already over.
I'm through the door, closing it behind me with a quiet click that makes her flinch. The lock engages. She's caged in here with me now.
Perfect.
She retreats further into her living room and I let her. I let her think she has space. I let her think she has options. It makes the moment I take them away so much sweeter.
I set the roses I brought—deep red, expensive—on the small table by the door.
"Get out." Her voice shakes but her hand is steady on the pepper spray. My foolish girl. "Get out or I'm calling the police."
I shake my head. "No, you won't."
I don't say it like a threat. I say it like a fact. The sky is blue. Water is wet. She's not calling the police. We both know it.
"Yes, I am. You've been—" She stops, takes a breath, steadies herself. When she speaks again, her voice is harder. "How long?"
She wants the truth? I'll give her the truth. All of it. Every dark, obsessive detail until she understands what she's dealing with.
"Months."
The word hits her. She processes the timeline, and I see the exact moment she realizes how deep this goes. She realizes that the coffee date wasn't the beginning. That the mugging wasn't random. That every moment between us has been orchestrated by me.
"You've been watching me for months."
"Every day." I move closer. She backs away. "I watch you every morning when you leave for work. Every night when you get home. Every coffee run. Every trip to the bodega. Every moment you thought you were alone."
Her face goes pale. She's exquisite.
"The mugging." She's putting it together now, piece by piece, and I can see her brilliant mind working. "That was you. You set it up."
"Yes."
"Why?" The word comes out strangled. "Why would you do that?"
"Because I needed a reason to touch you." I watch her face. "I couldn't just approach you on the street. You would have been wary. But if I saved you from danger I created, you'd be grateful. You'd let your guard down. You'd smile at me the way you did over coffee."
"You're insane." It's barely a whisper.
"Obsessed," I correct. I take another step closer. She takes another step back. Her spine hits the wall. There's nowhere left to run. "There's a difference, piccola. Insane implies I don't know what I'm doing. I know precisely what I'm doing."
"Don't call me that. Don't—" She holds up the pepper spray like a weapon. "Stay back."
I stop, but only because I want to see her from here. I want to see the way her chest rises and falls with each breath. I want to see the moment she realizes that pepper spray won't save her.
"You've been in my apartment," she says. Not a question. She knows. "Multiple times. Moving things. The chair in my kitchen. The book on my coffee table."
"I have." I don't apologize. I'm not sorry. "I picked your lock in less than a minute the first time. It was easier every time after that."
She's testing the weight of it. She's understanding the violation. "You broke into my home."
"I didn't break anything. I was very careful." I tilt my head, studying her. "I stood in your bedroom doorway, watched you sleep and counted your breaths. I learned everything about you while you dreamed a few feet away from me. I opened your drawers and touched your things. I sat in your kitchen."
She makes a sound—half fury, half fear. Her knuckles are white on the pepper spray.
"I needed to know you were safe," I continue, my voice soft.
Reasonable. "That you were real. That you were still here, still waiting for me, even if you didn't know it yet.
I took photos of you and they helped, but they weren't enough.
I needed to be close to you. I needed to breathe the same air.
I needed to see you vulnerable and soft and perfect. "
"I'm not yours." But her voice wavers when she says it. She knows she's lying.
"You are." I move closer. She's pressed against the wall now, and there's nowhere to go. "You have been since the moment you touched me in that hospital. Since you looked at a stranger covered in blood and saw someone worth saving. Since you lied to protect me without even knowing who I was."
"I didn't lie to protect you. I just—" She stops. She realizes what she's admitting.
"You reported my gunshot wound as a construction accident," I say softly. "You protected a criminal. You saved my life. And in doing so, piccola, you made yourself mine."
"That's not how it works. That's not—" She shakes her head like she can shake away the truth. "You're a criminal. You've been stalking me. Breaking into my home. Following me.”
She stops. She stares at me.
I pull out my device, show her the pictures and send them to her phone. Her at the bodega. Walking to work. Standing at her window.
"How many pictures?" she whispers.
I could lie. I could soften the truth. I could make it easier to swallow.
But I don't lie to her. Not about this.
"Hundreds. I started the first day. Every time I see you, I take another. I can't help myself."
"You're sick," she says, but this time it sounds different. Like she's trying to convince herself as much as me.
"Obsessed," I correct again. "I think about you every waking moment.
I dream about you when I sleep. I see your face when I close my eyes.
I've memorized the way you move, the way you smell, the way you tuck your hair behind your left ear when you're nervous.
You're all I think about, Francesca. You're all I want. "
"That's not love. That's—"
"Obsession," I finish for her. "I know. Does it matter? Love, obsession, possession—they all end the same way. With you belonging to me."
"I don't belong to anyone."
"You do now."
She moves toward the door, like she actually thinks she can leave.
Cazzo. She still doesn't understand.
I'm there before she takes two steps, blocking the door with my body. I'm immovable. Inevitable.
"You'll what?" I ask quietly. Too quietly. It's the kind of quiet that makes grown men nervous. "Call the police? Tell them what? That the man who saved you from a mugging has been admiring you? That you invited him for coffee? That you agreed to have dinner with him tonight?"
"The pictures—"
"On your phone now. I sent them but I can claim you downloaded yourself from a cloud you gave me access to?" I tilt my head. "The ones on my phone show a woman in public places where anyone could photograph her? What law have I broken, piccola? What crime can you prove?"
She stares at me, and I can see her brilliant mind working through it. She's working through the legal angles. The reality of her situation. She's smart enough to know I've thought of everything.
"You can't keep me here," she says, but there's less certainty now.
"I'm not keeping you here. You're free to walk out that door." I gesture behind me. "But you're not staying in this apartment tonight. That's not negotiable."
"You don't get to—"
"Your lock is a joke. I picked it in less than a minute the first time. I've been walking in and out for months. How long before someone else figures that out? How long before someone with worse intentions than mine gets inside?"
"You're the one with bad intentions!"
"No." I let her see it now. The darkness. The violence. The thing I am underneath the expensive suits and charming smiles. "I'm the one who wants to own you. And I will have you. One way or another."
She backs away from me but there's nowhere to go. Her back hits the wall next to her bookshelf. She's trapped. Cornered. Mine.