The mansion slept beneath a heavy shroud of silence, its gilded halls dimmed to shadows, the night air thick with secrets. Aria sat curled near the window of her room, staring at the stars beyond the iron bars of her gilded cage. The gala still clung to her skin—the whispers, the heat of Lorenzo's hand on her back, the dangerous precision of their dance. She had told herself she would forget it, that it was nothing but performance. Yet her pulse still remembered the rhythm of his steps, her body still recalled the press of his palm, and her mind still heard the echo of strangers daring to say the one thing she couldn't face: He cares for her.
She pressed her forehead to the cool glass, wishing the night could erase it all, when the soft knock came. Three deliberate taps, measured, followed by the click of the door opening before she could answer. Only one man in this house entered like that, as though every door already belonged to him.
"Still awake," Lorenzo said, his voice low, roughened by exhaustion.
Aria tensed, straightening as he stepped into the room. He had shed his jacket, his black shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms marked by faint scars that disappeared beneath the ink of veins and muscle. His tie hung loose around his neck, as though he had torn it off rather than untied it. He looked different in the shadows—less the untouchable don, more a man shaped by battles both fought and buried.
"You don't sleep either," she said quietly, forcing steel into her voice.
He studied her for a moment, then crossed the room without asking, taking the chair opposite her by the window. For once, he didn't demand she move, didn't order her closer. He simply sat, his gaze drifting beyond the glass to the stars she had been watching.
"When I was a boy," he began, his tone almost too soft, "my father would drag me out of bed in the middle of the night. He'd make me stand barefoot on the stone floors of the cellar until I couldn't feel my toes. And then he would ask me questions. About loyalty. About strength. About what it meant to be a De Luca."
Aria's breath caught. She hadn't expected this. She waited, silent, afraid that if she spoke, he would retreat behind his mask again.
"If I answered wrong," Lorenzo continued, his jaw tightening, "he would strike me. Not once. Not twice. Until I bled. He said weakness was a disease, and if I carried it, I would kill us all."
Aria's fingers clenched in her lap. She wanted to look away, but she couldn't. His words painted images she didn't want to see—Lorenzo as a boy, standing small and barefoot on stone, bracing himself against cruelty that should never have been inflicted on a child.
"He broke bones to make me strong," Lorenzo said, his voice colder now, sharper, "and burned lessons into my skin so I would never forget. He wanted me to become fire. To destroy before I could be destroyed." His eyes shifted to hers, dark, unreadable. "And I did."
The silence that followed pressed thickly between them. Aria's chest ached with something she couldn't name—pity, sorrow, fear. She saw him then not only as the man who had stolen her freedom, who wielded violence like a blade, but also as the boy forged in pain, taught that love was weakness and cruelty was survival.
"I swore," he murmured, leaning back in the chair, shadows carving harsh lines across his face, "that I would never be weak again. That I would never bow, never break, never let anyone see my scars as anything but armor."
Her throat tightened. "And me?" she asked before she could stop herself, her voice trembling. "Am I part of that vow? Another piece of armor? Another cage you built so no one could hurt you?"
His gaze locked on hers, intense enough to steal her breath. He didn't answer immediately, and that silence terrified her more than any words could have.
Finally, he leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees, his voice low, steady, lethal in its honesty. "You are the only thing in this house that makes me remember I still bleed."
The words struck her like a blow. Her heart stuttered, her breath catching in her chest. Sympathy twisted inside her, sharp and unwanted, tangling with fear until she couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
She wanted to hate him. She wanted to scream at him for daring to bare his scars when he had shackled hers. But she couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't tear her gaze from his.
And when he rose from the chair, looming above her, his hand brushed against hers—barely a touch, a whisper of heat—before he turned and walked into the dark, leaving her trembling, torn between pity and terror.
Aria pressed her palm to her chest, feeling her heart race beneath her skin. She had seen his fire, his fury, his cruelty. But tonight, in the dark, she had seen something far more dangerous.
His vow. His scars. His weakness that wasn't weakness at all.
And she realized, with a shiver that sank into her bones, that sympathy for the devil was just another chain.