Adriane
Matteo didn't say a word when I slid into the backseat. He didn't have to. The look on his face told me he'd seen the whole thing through the glass.
"You're wasting time," he said finally, pulling into traffic.
I stretched my legs out, settling into the leather. "I'm investing it."
"She is trouble."
I let out a low laugh. "That's the point."
The streets blurred past, sunlight catching on the glass towers like they were burning. But all I saw was her sitting across from me, eyes sharp, chin lifted like she thought she could stand her ground. Most people in my world either cowered or challenged outright. Alessia did neither. She didn't know yet that standing still in front of a predator was its own kind of invitation.
I'd watched her fingers linger on the box before she'd tucked it away. She'd keep it. Not because she wanted the jewelry, but because she wanted to know what it meant. Curiosity was the first crack in the wall and once I was through, she'd never close it again.
"Romano's going to be a problem," Matteo said.
"He's already a problem," I replied. "The difference now is that I have leverage."
"You mean his daughter."
"I mean my girl."
Matteo glanced at me in the rareview mirror but didn't push it. He knew better than to question me when I'd made up my mind. She wasn't ready yet. But she would be. I'd give her a taste of what it meant to be mine—just enough to leave her wanting, not enough to let her walk away.
Then, when she was caught in the web, I'd pull and she'd come to me, not because she had to… but because she wanted to
She moved like a contradiction — careless glamor braided with a stubbornness that smelled like adrenaline. I'd spent half my life learning to read men; women were an art I'd taught myself to master. Alessia was a painting I wanted to ruin and preserve at the same time.
When we left the café, I could have let her walk away with nothing more than a card and an image burned behind her eyes. That would be the sensible thing. The ruthless thing. The thing the business taught you was survival. But sense and ruthlessness had nothing to do with the way she made areas of my body go taut and my mind go useless in the best possible way.
Matteo was patient in the way a wolf is patient — teeth hidden, muscles ready. He didn't speak unless he had to; his silence was a tool I liked. He watched her from the car as if cataloguing what might break first. Good man. Dangerous men at our side tended to be the sharpest mirrors.
The choice was simple: make a move that would force her father's hand, or play a long game, letting curiosity devour her until she came to me as a hunger. I liked the idea of taking my time, of letting the ache grow until it was unbearable. But I was not a man who enjoyed not having the world bend on my terms. So I did both. Fast small moves to unsettle; a slow inevitable pressure to bend.
I gave orders. Quiet ones. Matteo handled the logistics; Carlo in operations nudged a shipment into delay at the pier; one of our men "misplaced" a crate that belonged to the Romanos. Little pains that would whisper to Luca that someone was tightening a noose. It wasn't violence — not yet — but it would be enough for a man like him to pick up the phone and bargain. Men with pride moved differently when their livelihood trembled.
But the leverage I wanted couldn't be only business. That was blunt and cold. I wanted a lever with a face, a heartbeat between its ribs. So I orchestrated a "chance." Aria's café was close to an alley where Matteo's cousin "ran out of gas." A fender bender would appear to be a mundane life irritation, not an engineered inconvenient miracle. He'd offer to help; he'd carry her purse; he'd brush the hair from her mouth with the pretense of politeness. That was how traps were often set — not with iron chains but with hands she trusted to steady her knees and a laugh that sounded like safety.
But I didn't want to be bowed by simple theatrics. I wanted her to feel the shape of me before she understood why. So I lingered in places she walked past. I made my car idling where she might see it. I had Matteo order the wolf pendant delivered to her building in the middle of the afternoon: no note, no message, only the symbol and an implication. The pendant would sit between her keys and the cheap lipstick she always carried. A little weight she couldn't ignore.
There's an art to obsession: you don't suffocate, you direct. You don't roar, you whisper until the world leans close enough to hear. I whispered. I watched, and in watching I discovered the small inconsequential things that made her human — the way she chewed the corner of her lower lip when thinking, the small furrow between her brows when she tried to keep some secret smile from escaping, how she stabbed at coffee with a plastic spoon, as if time could be poked into submission.
I also learned her defenses. The quick barbs she threw up like improvised armor. The sarcasm that was mostly a dare for someone to try and break her cool. I took a perverse satisfaction watching her attempt to be untouchable. It made me want to be the hand that proved otherwise.
Back at the office that afternoon, I mapped the next steps. Luca Romano would call. He'd be loud and indignant, his voice a public mask for whatever he'd been told by my subtle disruptions. He would demand we stop. He would be outraged — performative outrage was something fathers like him were practiced in. I would offer him a deal in which a daughter was currency. It would be presented with surgical precision, and the underlying threat would be a shadow in my tone. He would sulk, negotiate, bargain — he always did.
I wanted the drama. I wanted him to feel exposed. More importantly, I wanted something else to happen: I wanted Alessia to choose. Men who thought they could command everyone around them always underestimated the delicious humiliation of watching something be wanted rather than taken. If she chose me because she was scared, the victory would be hollow. If she chose me because she found the taste of me preferable to the world she'd been handed — then the victory would be mine in the way that matters.
By night, the city became a softer predator — lights bleeding, footsteps echoing. I let my car slow at a corner where I could watch the Romano building. There she was, a silhouette framed in the glow of her hallway. She paused. She looked down. I thought, briefly and absurdly, of stepping out and crossing the margin into the light to make some grand motion. Instead, I watched her tuck the pendant into the side pocket of her bag. A small, private act. It pleased me.
Possession is not always about ownership. Sometimes it's about initiation. I planned to initiate her into a world she'd thought was only a story told in bad whispers. I would be kind enough to teach her its rules and merciless enough to make her respect them. The duality was delicious.
There are moments in life you know will be referenced later like a sacred line in a song. I thought of one now: when she turned, the faint smirk of someone who believed she might have the upper hand. I smiled at the same time. Two predators trading promises.
Matteo's text came across my wrist — Luca had called. His voice was a red flag sewn into cotton; he wanted answers, threats, assurances. I poured another glass, slow, and let the ice speak as it melted. The game had officially begun.
I set my jaw and picked up the phone.
When I spoke, my voice was a dry promise. Calm. Unhurried.
"You want to make this easier on yourself, Romano? We can. Or we can make it… unpleasant. Your choice." I laid out terms that tasted like inevitability. I let him flinch, then bargain.
After I ended the call, the city felt too small and not at all small enough. There were men to be told, lies to be rearranged, a girl to be courted into a cage she would soon mistake for sanctuary. I liked the plan and the plan liked me. God help me, so did she.
Before slept, I walked to the edge of the terrace and looked out over the lights. I thought of the wolf pendant lying on her dresser now, or in her pocket, or hidden under a sweater. I imagined the weight of it at her throat when I was the only one who knew how to remove it properly. The thought should have disgusted me. Instead, it sharpened me.
She would have to learn a simple truth: I did not want for long. I wanted for absolute.
And I never wanted anything half-heartedly.