CHAPTER 1
Luca
The text came at 11:47 PM:She's moving. North exit as planned.
I pocketed the phone and checked my watch. Sienna Moretti was nothing if not predictable—intelligent enough to plan an escape route, stubborn enough to take it, and desperate enough to choose the path we'd left open for her.
My Maserati idled in the shadows beyond the church grounds, positioned exactly where our intelligence suggested she'd emerge. Three years of planning had led to this moment—started the day I walked out of prison and began rebuilding my father's empire. Three years of watching, waiting, maneuvering pieces on a board she didn't even know she was playing on.
The silk hem of her wedding dress tore under her heel as Sienna bolted into the night, a white flash against the shadows. I caught aglimpse of her—wild hair, frantic breath, defiance burning in every step—just before she slammed into me.
"Right on time,principessa," I murmured, my hands snapping around her arms before she could stumble back.
Recognition flashed in her storm-gray eyes—not just of my name, but of the night five years ago at the charity gala, before prison destroyed everything. When I'd looked at her across a crowded ballroom and felt something I had no right to feel. When she'd dismissed me with a single cutting glance that had burned into my memory through two years of concrete walls.
"You," she breathed, the word containing everything—recognition, fury, and something darker she'd never admit.
She reacted like a feral cat, nails clawing, fists flying, teeth bared in a snarl. I let her fight for a few seconds, savoring the raw, desperate energy pouring off her. It was almost a shame to end it.
Almost.
With one brutal twist, I pinned her against the side of the black Maserati, her palms flattened on the cold metal, my body caging hers. She struggled, muscles taut, heart hammering under my grip.
"Let me go, Luca!" she hissed, yanking against me.
I leaned in, my breath ghosting against the shell of her ear. "Not a chance."
Her storm-gray eyes shot daggers at me, pure loathing wrapped around a kernel of fear she tried so hard to hide. That fear tightened something low in my gut, a dark, protective instinct clawing to the surface.
No. Not now.
I slammed it back down, masking it with the icy ruthlessness that had gotten me this far.
"You're making a scene," I murmured, the hint of a smirk curling my mouth. "Daddy’s men are already on their way. Think they'll be as gentle as me?"
She stiffened, and there it was—that flicker of calculation behind the fury. Sienna Moretti wasn't stupid.
Brave, reckless, infuriating as hell—but never stupid.
"You're a bastard," she spat.
"Better a bastard than a corpse," I said smoothly, shifting my weight so she could feel exactly how thoroughly she was trapped.
Her jaw clenched. "What do you want?"
I chuckled, low and humorless. "Simple. You’re marrying me instead. Tonight if possible, tomorrow morning at the latest. Your father and I came to an... arrangement."
Her sharp intake of breath told me she understood. The pieces clicking together—my presence here, the timing, her father's unusual insistence on this particular wedding.
Her nostrils flared.
"But not the way you’re thinking,principessa," I added lazily, enjoying the way her eyes sparked at the nickname. "You’re coming with me. Tonight. You have two choices: get in the car willingly, or watch your father hand you over to the enemies already closing in."
Sienna’s breathing hitched, subtle, but there. Her mind worked furiously, weighing her nonexistent options.
Good.
"Make no mistake," I murmured, my lips brushing her ear in a mockery of tenderness. "You can hate me all you want. But I’m the only devil standing between you and a bloodbath."
