Chapter 32 Nicolo
NICOLO
THREE DAYS LATER
The storm hasn’t stopped in three days. It crawls over the Castello like a living thing: gnawing at the stone, seeping through the cracks, making the air thick and heavy with the scent of rain. Lightning flashes through the window, cutting through the dark in clean, merciless lines.
I haven’t slept. My desk is a graveyard of half-empty glasses, open files, and a phone that won’t stop vibrating. When it rings for the third time in ten minutes, I pick it up without checking the screen.
“What?”
Silence first, then a voice I know too well. Emiliano Folonari.
“Keep your end of the deal, Esposito.” His tone isn’t angry. It’s measured. Deliberate. Calmer than it has been for months.
I lean back in my chair, dragging a hand across my jaw. “What deal are we talking about, exactly?”
“The one where you keep my sister safe. And alive.”
My eyes flick to the rain sliding down the window in slow, silver rivers. “She’s alive. You can just give her a call.”
He exhales sharply. “Don’t fucking push me. I heard Nestor was at your property three days ago.” His voice drops an octave. “You promised she wouldn’t be within reach of that kind of trouble. You know what will happen if you fail.”
The muscle in my jaw tightens. “I don’t fail, Folonari.”
“Everyone fails at some point.”
I almost smile at that. “Not me.”
He pauses, then says quietly, “Don’t make me rethink our deal, Nicolo.”
The line goes dead before I can answer.
My office hums with leftover static from the call.
I set the phone down, slow and deliberate, then stare at it like it just insulted me.
Emiliano thinks he can threaten me when he’s the one who wanted my help to begin with.
He thinks he can remind me what’s at stake, as if I don’t already feel it every goddamn time she walks into a room.
I stand and stretch the tension from my shoulders. The rain drums harder, wind scraping at the glass as if trying to claw its way inside.
And beneath it all—faint, familiar—the soft scent of her perfume. Sweet like temptation made tangible.
I turn toward the sound of footsteps before the knock even comes. The door opens. No hesitation. Of course not.
“Mara.”
She’s framed in the doorway like something the storm conjured: barefoot, hair a wild halo from the humidity, a sheer pink nightgown clinging to her skin.
The fabric moves with her breathing, whisper-thin, almost translucent where the light hits.
The outline of her nipples, tight from the chill, presses against the gauze of the fabric.
She doesn’t speak. She just walks in, the sound of rain swallowing her steps.
“You shouldn’t be here.” The words come out quiet, almost calm, but the air between us thickens like smoke.
She tilts her head. “I’m always somewhere I’m not meant to be.”
Her voice—soft, tired, threaded with defiance—hits something in my chest that shouldn’t exist.
“Then leave.”
“No,” she says, eyes flicking over me. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
“I don’t have that luxury.”
“Right. Too busy brooding.”
“Watch it.”
I should tell her to leave. I should remind her who she’s talking to. But she crosses the room before I can speak, the lamplight brushing over her skin. The pink tulle darkens when it touches her body. Her bare feet are silent against the rug.
“You know you don’t have to deny yourself. We both want it.” She sounds breathless when she utters the sentence, and I choose to ignore the fire that her words light in my lower abdomen.
“And what is it, exactly?” I slide my hands into my pockets watching her down the length of my nose.
She swallows. “Sex. I’m legal. We’re both adults.”
The words are soft, but deliberate, like she’s testing how far she can push.
A humorless breath leaves me. “Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it ethically or morally correct, nixie.”
Her lips twitch at the name. “And when have you ever been one to follow ethics and morals?”
The room shrinks around us. Her scent, the rain, the faint hum of electricity in the air…it all coils tighter, until the only sound left is her breathing and the storm.
I move before I can think, closing the distance until the desk is the only thing separating us. My hands flatten against the wood.
“Careful,” I say, voice low enough that she has to lean in to hear it. “I’m not the type of man you want attention from. Because I will ruin you beyond comprehension. And it won’t be a pretty sight.”
Her gaze doesn’t waver. “Maybe you already have.”
That…that hits harder than it should.
Lighting flashes, washing her in white light for half a second, and for that moment, she doesn’t look like a threat. She looks like an angel tempting a devil.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I manage.
Her chin lifts. “Then explain it to me. Show me what you mean.”
“Don’t. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
She’s close enough now that I can feel the warmth of her skin, the slow drag of her breath. There’s no innocence in her eyes anymore, only desire.
“This isn’t a game, Mara.”
“Then stop playing it,” she whispers.
Something in me cracks. Not loudly. Just enough to let the doubt slither its way deeper. I drag a hand through my hair, step back, and force the space between us open again.
“Go back to your room,” I say, the words clipped. “Now.”
For a moment, she doesn’t move. The lightning flickers again, silvering her hair, painting her in a light too cruel for softness. Then she turns—slow, deliberate—and leaves without another word. The door shuts, soft but final.
I stand there, gaze burning a hole into the door, pulse still too fast. The storm outside rages harder, rain hammering the glass until it sounds like the Castello itself is coming apart.
I’ve dealt with death knocking on my door. Betrayals. Men with guns and grudges and more ambition than brains. I’ve buried threats that would have eaten lesser men alive.
But none of them—none—feel as dangerous as her walking into my office in the middle of a storm, hair a mess and in that almost see-through nightgown, looking at me like she already knows I won’t last long.
I grab my jacket from the chair, shove away from the desk, and head down the corridor before I do something I can’t take back.
Sleep. I need to sleep. I just need to sleep.
The marble floors echo under my steps, the sound too sharp in the quiet. Every inch of this place smells like her—faint perfume, rain, and something sweet that won’t wash off no matter how hard I try.
By the time I reach my room, my pulse hasn’t slowed. My tie feels like a noose. I rip it loose, yank it off, and toss it somewhere in the dark.
The storm outside flashes white against the windows, thunder rattling the glass. I press a hand to the dresser, breathing hard, trying to remember why restraint ever felt like control.
Then…the door creaks open behind me.
I freeze. The sound is soft, but it cuts through the thunder like a blade.
I don’t turn. I don’t breathe. For a long, suspended heartbeat, the only sound left in the room is the rain…
and the faint, deliberate click of the door closing again.
Sealing us away from the rest of the world—and from reason.