An idea starts to form—dangerous and reckless… and completely insane.
What if I could do that? What if I could disguise myself well enough that no one would recognize me? I could go to a place like that, choose someone, and have one night that's entirely mine before everything else is taken away.
One night, when I'm not Giulia Ciresa, the obedient daughter. Where I'm just a woman who wants something and takes it.
The idea should horrify me. I should be ashamed for even thinking it. But instead, I feel something that feels almost like hope. Because if I can't have Luca—and it's clear I can't—then maybe I could have this. One night of passion, a chance to feel something other than resignation.
One night that's mine.
I don't know if I'm brave enough to actually do it. I don't know if I can pull it off, if I can find this place Isabelle mentioned, or if I can disguise myself well enough that no one would recognize me.
But standing here and listening to the sounds of celebration from the dining room, thinking about the future that's being decided for me—I know I have to try. Because if I don't, I'll spend the rest of my life wondering what it would have been like to choose. To want someone and have them want me back.
To feel alive instead of justenduring.
4
LUCA
I'm losing my fucking mind.
I can feel myself unraveling thread by thread. Every time another suitor shows up at the Ciresa house, every time Giulia smiles politely at some bastard who doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as her, something violent and possessive rises in my chest like a beast clawing its way out of a cage.
I have no right to feel this way. No claim on her. No future where she's mine. But watching Alessandro touch her hand during yesterday's lunch—his fingers lingering on her skin, his thumb brushing across her knuckles like he's already memorizing the feel of her—it took everything in me not to break every bone in his hand. I imagined it in perfect detail: the snap of each knuckle, the way his face would contort, the satisfying crunch of cartilage giving way. I'd start with his index finger, the one that dared to stroke her skin, and work my way across. Slowly. Making sure he felt every second of it.
It feels that way with every single one of them—watching Enzo make her laugh two days ago, leaning in close with that predatory smile, whispering something in her ear that made her cheeks flush. I wanted to put my fist through his face until therewas nothing left but blood and broken teeth. I wanted to feel his nose collapse under my knuckles, wanted to see that smug expression shatter along with his jaw. I wanted to keep hitting him long after he stopped moving, until my hands were slick with his blood and there was no chance he'd ever smile at her again. Or when I saw Marco assess her like she's property he was considering purchasing, his cold eyes cataloging her worth. I've had detailed fantasies about what it would feel like to put a bullet in his skull. How the light would leave his eyes. How satisfying the silence would be after. I've imagined it so many times I can feel the weight of the gun in my hand, can see exactly where I'd place the barrel. Right at his temple. Close enough that he'd know what was coming in that final second. Close enough to see the fear bloom in his eyes before I pulled the trigger.
The violent fantasies about what I’d like to do to these men who would claim Giulia as their own are almost as prevalent as the other kinds of fantasies that I can no longer control, either, no matter how hard I fucking try.
I managed to not think about her with my hand around my cock after that first dinner party, regardless of how fucking hard seeing her in that green dress made me. I didn’t even touch myself that night; I just drank myself to sleep. But after she showed up in the sunroom, asking me to help her pick a dress…fuck.
I’m fucking ashamed to admit I didn’t even wait until that night. After she left, I found one of the bathrooms in that huge fucking mansion and locked the door behind me, got my cock out and stroked it thinking about her trying those dresses on for me, stripping each one off slowly before stepping into another, all while I sat sprawled in a chair with a glass of whiskey in one hand and my cock in the other. I imagined her stepping out of the second in lingerie, walking to me, and sinking down to her knees while I fed my cock between her lips…
I didn’t make it further than that. I came so hard I had to nearly crack my teeth to keep from groaning aloud, spurted into one of the fancy Ciresa mansion sinks, and watched all my guilt spiral down the drain.
I’ve jerked off thinking about her every fucking morning and night since. I can’t stop.
I haven’t gotten laid in weeks. For a while, I just didn’t have the time. And then, since that fucking dinner party and seeing her in that green dress, I haven’t been able to find the urge to go out and pick someone up. It would be easy—it’s always easy—but God, I don’t want just anyone. I want Giulia fucking Ciresa, and I’m going to end up rubbing my own cock raw while I go mad imagining what that would be like.
Or I’m going to commit homicide in front of the Ciresa family and get a bullet in my own skull for killing one of her suitors.
I need something to take the edge off. Drinking does it at night, but I need something else. Something to get her out of my fucking head for good, and I have no goddamn idea what that would be.
Otherwise, I’m going to make a mistake. A bad one.
I'm an enforcer. Violence is part of my job, part of who I am. I've done things that would make most people sick, and I've never lost sleep over any of it. In this life, violence is a tool. I've killed men before. I'll kill men again. It's never bothered me because it was never personal.
But this is personal. This is the kind of violence that comes from a place I've spent years keeping locked down, the kind that turns men into monsters. And what disturbs me most isn't the violence itself—it's how little it disturbs me. How natural these thoughts feel. How right.
I should be horrified. Should recognize this as a warning sign that I'm losing control, that I'm becoming exactly the kind of liability Romeo warned me about. Instead, I find myself refiningthe fantasies—making them more detailed, more satisfying. And I can feel it growing inside me every day, feeding on every smile she gives them, every polite laugh, every moment she spends pretending she's okay with this.
The images in my head feel like they’re driving me insane. Giulia in a wedding dress, walking down the aisle toward Alessandro. Giulia in bed with Enzo, his hands on her body, touching her in ways I'll never get to touch her. Giulia growing old with Marco, her light slowly dimming under the weight of a loveless marriage.
I don't sleep well anymore. If I’m not trying to slake the seemingly endless lust she makes me feel, I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, my mind spinning through scenarios I can't control and futures I can't prevent. When I do manage to drift off, I dream of her. Sometimes they're good dreams—her in my arms, her lips on mine, her body pressed against me. I wake up hard and aching, reaching for someone who isn't there. Other times, I dream of the wedding, and standing there watching her marry someone else. At the moment she says ‘I do,’ and I lose her forever. I wake from those dreams with my heart racing, my hands clenched into fists, and violence singing through my veins with nowhere to go.
I'm on edge constantly, my temper fraying at the seams. Romeo's noticed. I can see it in the way he watches me during meetings, like I'm a weapon that might misfire. He's not wrong.
And two days later, I go off.
