“You shouldn’t keep secrets.”
He lowered the page then, and the smile was practiced, the kind that could negotiate a treaty or conceal a threat.But also scared the shit out of me.Sometimes I forgot the things he did.That even though he was my father, the other side of him had plenty of blood on his hands.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Nothing formeto worry about.The same phrase he used when our cousins went missing last spring, when a body turned up by the docks.His calm always meant someone else’s disaster.
“I’m not a fucking child.”
“No, you’re my daughter.Which is why you’ll stay out of this.”
He returned to his paper as though the conversation had never happened.
The morning burned itself into a hard, bright noon.Sunlight poured over the estate.I needed air.
The gardens were immaculate.Every hedge trimmed to obedience, every rosebush pruned.I knelt beside the nearest one, letting my fingertips brush a bloom the color of spilled wine.
Perfection is just another cage.
A thorn caught my skin.A bright bead of blood welled against the petal.I pressed my thumb to it, red stained the white lace of my sleeve.The sting was small, grounding.
That was the problem with this life: pain was the only thing that still felt real.
Somewhere beyond the garden, engines growled.
Enrico Di Fiore.
I should hate the name.It should taste of everything that threatened my family.Instead, it lingered.I could still feel the imprint of his hand at the small of my back, the way he guided me across that ballroom floor.The warmth of him seeped through silk and skin, past caution, straight into the place where reason lived.
He’s dangerous.He’s everything you promised yourself you’d never want.
And yet … When I closed my eyes, the music returned—the waltz threading through memory, his breath at my temple, that voice roughened by power and patience.
The wind shifted, carrying the scent of roses and something faintly metallic.I was shaking.Not from fear—something far more treacherous.
I don’t want this.But the lie of it ached.I wanted to feel alive.Even if it meant wanting the man who could ruin me.
Evening slipped in, I hadn’t left the garden for hours; by the time I returned inside, the house was quieter.
Dinner never happened.No servants set the table, no music drifted from the parlor.Only the low hum of security radios echoed faintly through the corridors, each burst of static too loud.
Something was coming.
I found my father in the foyer, coat already on, speaking to one of his men.Both stopped when their eyes caught me.A black car idled at the base of the front steps, headlights cutting long bars of light across the floor.
“Where are you going?”
He hesitated just long enough to confirm everything I feared.“An important meeting.”
“With who?”
“The Di Fiore family requested an audience.”
The name hit like a spark.Every thought emptied out of me until only his name remained.Enrico.
My father gestured toward the stairs.“Go upstairs.This isn’t for you.”
“No,” I said before I could stop myself.“You said you wouldn’t?—”
