Episode 4: The Scar

365 Days to Fall in Love with Mr. Mafia Boss

Day three started with blood.

Not mine. Not yet.

I found it in the east garden. Daria had told me I was “permitted” to walk the grounds as long as I didn’t go near the boathouse or the north gate. So naturally, I went to the east garden.

The rosebushes were pruned to perfection, white petals untouched. Except for the drops of red leading to the stone bench. Fresh. And a torn piece of black fabric caught on a thorn—suit material. Expensive.

I crouched, fingers hovering over the blood. It was still wet.

“You’re trespassing.”

I didn’t jump. I’d already felt him. Alessandro could move silently when he wanted to, but he never hid his presence from me. It was another game. See if she notices. See if she runs.

He stood under the archway, shirt sleeves rolled up, one forearm bandaged. The white gauze was already spotting through.

“You’re bleeding,” I said.

“You’re observant.” He walked past me, sitting on the bench like the blood wasn’t his. “Does it bother you?”

“Should it?”

His gray eyes studied me. “Most people flinch at violence. You didn’t.”

“I grew up in Naples,” I lied. The truth was, I’d stopped flinching the day Luca came home with a broken nose and told me we couldn’t go to the police.

Alessandro leaned back, stretching his arm along the bench. The movement pulled his shirt tight, and I saw it—the edge of a scar, thick and jagged, disappearing under the bandage. It wasn’t new.

“Ask,” he said.

“Ask what?”

“Whatever question is burning a hole in your tongue. Rule seven: I don’t tolerate curiosity left to rot. It breeds lies.”

I sat on the other end of the bench. Close enough to talk. Far enough to run. Not that it would matter.

“Who stabbed you?”

His laugh was short. No humor. “Not stabbed. Cut. And it wasn’t today.” He nodded to the bandage. “This is from shaving. I nicked myself. The blood in the garden is from a rabbit. The gardener sets traps.”

Liar. The bandage was wrapped too professionally for a shaving cut. But I let it go.

“What about the scar?” I asked instead. “The one under there. And the one on your eyebrow.”

Silence. The lake lapped against the shore below us. Finally, he said, “You met Marco.”

“Your charming cousin.”

“Marco gave me this one.” He tapped his eyebrow. “When we were seventeen. Said I thought I was better than him. He was right.”

He said it like he was discussing the weather. No anger. No pain. Just fact.

“And the other?” I nodded to his arm.

Alessandro was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then: “My father gave me that one. The day I took over.”

He rolled his sleeve up. The scar was brutal—six inches long, ropey, bisecting a tattoo of a compass. It looked like someone had tried to saw his arm off and stopped halfway.

“He said a king needs to know how to bleed for his kingdom,” Alessandro said. “So he made me bleed.”

My stomach turned. “That’s not leadership. That’s abuse.”

“Is there a difference?” He looked at me, genuinely curious. “Power is violence, Isabella. Dress it up however you like—contracts, laws, votes. At the end, someone always bleeds.”

He stood, rolling his sleeve back down. “You’re reading The Art of War. Tell me what you’ve learned.”

“That all warfare is based on deception.”

“Good.” He stepped in front of me, blocking the sun. “So understand this: everything I do is war. This house. The contract. The rules. Even this conversation.”

He crouched so we were eye level. Too close. I could see the faint stubble on his jaw, the darker flecks in his gray irises.

“You think I’m a monster,” he said. “You’re right. But monsters are made, Isabella. Not born. And I was made by people who share my blood.”

He reached up, and for a second I thought he’d touch my face again. Instead, his fingers brushed a leaf from my hair. The contact was brief, clinical. Like he was removing lint.

“Rule eight,” he said, standing. “Stay out of the east garden before sunrise. The traps are set at night. I’d hate for you to lose a foot. It would make you less useful.”

He walked away without looking back.

That night, I couldn’t sleep again. I read The Art of War until the words blurred. If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Enemy. That’s what he called himself.

At 2 AM, I heard voices below my window. I killed the lights and went to the balcony.

Alessandro stood on the terrace with an older man. Salt-and-pepper hair, expensive suit, face I recognized from the news. Senator Giovanni Russo.

I couldn’t hear words, just tone. Russo was agitated. Alessandro was stone. Then Russo grabbed Alessandro’s bandaged arm.

Alessandro moved like a snake. He had Russo pinned against the balustrade in half a second, forearm across his throat. He wasn’t yelling. He didn’t need to. Whatever he said made the senator go white.

Russo nodded frantically. Alessandro let him go. The senator straightened his jacket with shaking hands and left.

Alessandro stayed there, looking out at the lake. His bandage had come loose, and I could see blood seeping through again. It wasn’t from shaving.

He looked up. Directly at my balcony.

We stared at each other across the dark. He didn’t look surprised to see me. He just raised his uninjured hand and pressed a finger to his lips.

Rule nine: What you see at night stays in the dark.

Then he walked inside.

I went to bed with my door locked and The Art of War under my pillow.

I dreamed of compasses and knives and gray eyes that didn’t blink.

When I woke, there was a first-aid kit on my desk. No note. Inside, on top of the gauze, was a single white rose. Thorns still attached.

From the east garden.

363 days left.

Rule one: Don’t fall in love with me.

Rule seven: Don’t let curiosity rot.

Rule nine: Night stays in the dark.

And rule zero, the one he didn’t say out loud: Alessandro De Santis always knows when you’re watching.