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THE DEVIL’S SHOWPIECE
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2025-07-30 21:12:05I didn’t know where we were going until the car stopped in front of a velvet-rope nightclub.
The kind of place where women in designer dresses stood in line behind men with cold eyes and heavy wallets. Paparazzi flashed cameras like fireworks. The doormen looked like ex-military.
Luciano stepped out first.
He didn’t glance back to check if I followed.
He didn’t have to.
The moment I stepped out behind him, the flashbulbs turned on me like I was royalty. Or a scandal.
I clutched my borrowed clutch tighter.
The dress I wore was blood red, satin, and slit up to the thigh — a weapon disguised as fashion.
“Why are we here?” I hissed, trying to keep up as he led us past the line and straight through the doors.
He didn’t answer.
Inside, the music throbbed like a heartbeat. Men smoked cigars in glass booths. Women with cruel eyes whispered behind flutes of champagne. And every single one of them looked when they saw me on his arm.
I suddenly realized what I was.
A symbol.
A message.
A trophy.
Luciano didn’t stop until we reached a corner booth guarded by two men with earpieces.
A man was already sitting there.
Tall. Polished. With skin like honey and a scar running down his jaw like a signature.
He smiled when he saw me.
Not a warm smile.
A dangerous one.
“I thought you didn’t take pets, De Luca,” the man said in a voice too soft to be friendly.
Luciano’s arm slid around my waist possessively.
“This one’s not for sale, Marzio.”
Marzio.
I’d heard that name before.
He ran the Southern ports. Imports. Weapons. Rumors said he once stabbed a man with a wine glass and finished his drink after.
His eyes raked over me, slow and deliberate.
“I didn’t ask if she was for sale,” he said. “Just wondering what kind of leash you’re using these days.”
Luciano’s jaw tightened, but he smiled like he was amused.
“My kind of leash doesn’t break.”
I suddenly felt like I was standing in the middle of two lions, both circling the same prey.
Me.
Marzio leaned forward, locking eyes with me.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
I glanced at Luciano, unsure.
He didn’t say a word.
He wanted me to speak.
I straightened my shoulders.
“Aria,” I said. “Not sweetheart.”
Marzio’s grin widened. “Pretty and mouthy. I like that.”
Luciano’s hand flexed at my hip.
Possessive.
Hard.
I wasn’t sure if it thrilled me or terrified me.
Probably both.
The night dragged on.
The men talked business in veiled threats and elegant insults. I sipped sparkling water and tried not to squirm under Marzio’s stares.
Then it happened.
Luciano excused himself for a call.
Marzio wasted no time.
“Does he hit you?”
I blinked. “What?”
“You look like someone waiting to run.”
I didn’t answer.
Because I was.
He slid a card across the table.
“If you ever want to disappear, I’m good at making people disappear.”
I stared at the card.
No name. Just a number.
“I’m not yours to save,” I whispered.
He smirked. “No, you’re his to break.”
Luciano returned seconds later, and the look in his eyes told me he knew something had happened.
We didn’t stay long after that.
In the car, silence stretched between us.
Until he spoke.
“Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Did he give you something?”
I hesitated.
Luciano’s eyes flashed.
“Aria.”
I pulled the card from my clutch and handed it over.
He took it. Tore it in half without looking at it.
Then, quietly, he said, “You don’t take offers from men like him. Ever.”
“I didn’t ask for his card.”
“But you didn’t throw it away.”
I turned toward the window. “Why did you bring me tonight?”
Luciano was quiet for a long time.
Then he said, “To remind them you’re mine.”
“Am I?”
He looked at me like I’d slapped him.
“You were bought.”
I swallowed.
“But that’s not the same as being yours.”
His fingers brushed my thigh, slow and calculated.
“No,” he said darkly. “It’s not. But one day… it might be.”
Back at the penthouse, I didn’t wait for him to undress me or bark another order.
I marched straight to the guest bedroom and slammed the door.
If he thought I was going to melt just because he got jealous?
He didn’t know me at all.
But as I lay there, staring at the ceiling, I realized something worse.
I wanted him to get jealous.
I wanted him to burn.
And I didn’t know what that made me anymore.
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BOUGHT,TAMED AND TAKEN QUIET BEFORE THE STORM
The jet sliced through the clouds like a blade, silent except for the faint hum of engines and the occasional clink of ice settling in a glass. Aria sat by the window, arms wrapped around herself as the Alps rose beneath them—cold, sharp, merciless.Zurich lay not far now.Luciano hadn’t said a word in hours. He sat across from her, legs wide, hands clasped together as if holding something invisible in his grasp. His gun sat on the seat beside him, within reach but untouched.Aria broke the silence.“You haven’t told me what you’re going to say to him.”Luciano’s gaze remained locked on the clouds. “That depends on whether he walks into that room as my father… or as my enemy.”“Do you believe he’s really alive?”“I didn’t,” he said, finally turning to face her. “But now I do. And that changes everything.”A shadow passed across his features. Aria knew that look. The one he wore when he was calculating outcomes, loss, leverage. It wasn’t just a meeting. It was a battle with a man who’d
BOUGHT,TAMED AND TAKEN THE WEIGHT OF TRUTH
The silence in the room was deafening.Aria sat on the velvet couch, her knees drawn to her chest, the oversized robe Luciano had given her wrapped tight around her frame. Her hair was still damp from the cold shower she’d taken, as if she could wash away what she’d heard—what she’d seen. But nothing could rinse it off.Luciano’s father—Don Emilio Moretti—was alive.Luciano stood by the bar, his back to her. One hand clutched a crystal tumbler filled with dark scotch. He hadn’t taken a sip. Not since Isadora had left hours ago, her heels clicking against marble like war drums.“Say something,” Aria whispered, her voice hoarse.He didn’t turn. “What do you want me to say?”“That you’re not going to spiral again. That this time, you’ll let me in.”He exhaled—sharp, jagged. “My father was supposed to be dead. I buried what was left of him in a sealed casket. For years, I’ve lived like he was a ghost that haunted me.”“Luciano…”“Do you understand what this means?” He finally turned, eyes
BOUGHT,TAMED AND TAKEN THE MEMORY THAT BLEEDS
Aria sat stiffly at the war room table, her knuckles white where they gripped the edge. The entire estate buzzed with alarms now silenced, and the cold clarity of threat hung heavy in the air. Screens blinked with updated feeds. Guards were being repositioned. Blood was being mopped off the marble in some distant hallway.But nothing, not even the presence of safety, could quiet the noise in her head.Luciano stood beside her, one hand resting protectively on her shoulder. His other held the message they’d taken off the guard’s corpse—written in blood, on a torn page of an old book.The words scrawled across the page were unmistakable:She remembers what she was made for.“What does it mean?” Aria asked finally, her voice quieter than a whisper.No one in the room answered right away.Isadora shifted on her feet near the screens, arms crossed tightly. Mateo leaned against the back wall, eyes dark and unreadable.Luciano answered without looking at her. “I think he’s talking about your
BOUGHT,TAMED AND TAKEN BENEATH THE SURFACE
Aria’s heart slammed against her ribs, each beat echoing louder in the suffocating silence. The screen remained black, the faint mechanical hum of the vault’s systems eerily absent. But it was the voice—that low, gravel-slick whisper—that rooted her to the cold concrete floor.“You should’ve stayed mine.”She spun toward the corner where the sound had hissed from the ceiling speaker. “Show yourself,” she said, though her voice trembled more than she wanted.No response.Her fingers hovered near the emergency panel on the far wall. But it wasn’t lit. Disabled. Just like everything else.She grabbed a knife from one of the weapon racks, her fingers white-knuckled. She moved with her back to the wall, eyes darting across the room—corners, ceiling vents, behind shelves. There was nowhere to hide. The room was small, sterile, impenetrable.And yet someone—or something—was in here with her.The lights flickered once. Twice. Then shut off completely.Total darkness.Aria clamped a hand over
BOUGHT,TAMED AND TAKEN WHAT THE DARKNESS HIDES
The world slowed.Outside the window, beneath the moonlit shroud of trees, the shadow didn’t move—but Aria’s breath caught as if it had already stepped inside her bones. The glass pane between them suddenly felt too thin, too breakable.Luciano pulled her behind him in a blink, one arm tight around her waist as he turned toward Mateo. “Get eyes on that figure. Now.”Mateo was already speaking into his comms, barking orders. A flurry of guards rushed into motion, some storming out toward the north gate, others sweeping the hallways.Luciano turned back to the window just as the figure stepped back into the trees and vanished.He didn’t wait. He dragged Aria toward the hallway, tension thick in every movement. “We’re going underground.”She struggled to keep pace. “Where are we going?”“There’s a vault below the estate,” he said without looking back. “One of the few places only I can access. No signal. No sight lines. He won’t find you there.”“But—what about your people? Your sister? L
BOUGHT,TAMED AND TAKEN THE VOICE OF A GHOST
The pitch-black silence swallowed the room whole.No one moved. No one breathed.Antonio Moretti’s voice had slithered into their ears like poison—low, calm, measured… and real.Alive.Luciano’s hand instinctively went to Aria’s waist, pulling her close, shielding her with his body as the darkness pressed in around them.Aria could barely hear her own thoughts over the pounding of her heart.The voice from the speaker repeated, now softer—mocking.“You took everything from me once. And now you’ve brought it all back together. How poetic.”Then static.Then silence.The emergency backup lights flickered to life a few seconds later, casting the dining hall in a sickly red glow. Shadows crawled along the walls. The air smelled faintly of electricity and fear.Isadora stood calmly at the end of the table, her expression unreadable, like she’d known this moment was coming.Luciano turned to her slowly. “How long have you been in contact with him?”She didn’t answer.Instead, she smiled fai
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