The De Luca estate was a gilded prison.
Too beautiful to escape. Too dangerous to stay.
Every hallway was silent, every door watched. Guards didn't wear uniforms—they wore Armani suits and icy stares. I wasn't chained, but I wasn't free either.
Still, I was restless.
I wandered past the piano room, through a vast corridor lined with oil paintings of people who looked half-alive and fully terrifying. There was one painting that stopped me cold: a boy—maybe thirteen—with the same storm-colored eyes as Luciano.
He looked too sad for a child. Too dangerous for a teenager.
No plaque. No name. Just… forgotten.
I turned to go, but the quiet voice behind me made me jump.
"You found my brother."
Luciano.
I hadn't heard him approach—how did he always do that?
I turned slowly. "He looks like you."
"He was better than me." His tone was flat. "Which is why he's dead."
I swallowed, unsure what to say. "I'm sorry."
Luciano didn't move. His jaw tensed. "Don't be. Everyone I care about dies. So stop trying to get close."
"I'm not trying," I said sharply. "I'm just surviving."
He stepped forward. "Then keep surviving, Aria. That's all I need from you."
I tried to stay in my room the rest of the day. Tried not to think. Not to wonder. But the walls were closing in.
Around sunset, I slipped out again.
Downstairs.
Through the marble halls.
Then—
I saw it.
A side door. Cracked open slightly. No one in sight.
My breath caught. My heart started racing.
Was this it?
A chance?
I crept toward it, silent as a shadow. I could see the garden beyond—lush, endless green with tall hedges and iron gates at the far end. The air smelled like citrus and rain.
I stepped outside.
One step. Two.
I made it halfway across the stone path before a voice sliced through the dusk.
"Where exactly do you think you're going?"
I froze.
Luciano.
Of course.
He stepped out from the shadows like he belonged to them.
I turned slowly. "Just needed air."
His expression didn't change. But his eyes… burned.
"Air?" he echoed. "You thought I wouldn't notice you slipping out like a thief?"
"I'm not a thief."
He walked toward me, slow and deliberate.
"No, you're worse. You're brave. And that gets people killed."
He stopped just inches away. Close enough to feel the tension coiling off him like heat.
"You want to run?" he said quietly. "Go ahead. Run."
I blinked. What?
But then his hand closed around my wrist—not hard, not bruising. Just firm. Unavoidable.
"But know this," he whispered, "if you ever try to leave without my permission again, I won't lock you in a room. I'll lock you in me."
My heart slammed in my chest.
"What does that even mean?"
He leaned closer, lips brushing my ear. "It means I'll make you mine in ways you can't walk away from."
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
I hated him. Feared him.
But I couldn't deny the part of me that… felt something else. Something dark and shameful and magnetic.
He released me slowly.
"Go back inside."
I should've run. I should've screamed.
Instead, I walked.
Back through the garden.
Back into the house.
Back into the storm.
That night, I dreamt of cages wrapped in silk and kisses that tasted like danger.
And when I woke up, my lips were tingling.
Like they'd already been claimed.