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THE FLAME BETWEEN US
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2025-08-01 06:06:09It had been days since Luciano stepped into Aria’s room and chose not to kiss her.
But that moment… it hadn’t faded. It had deepened. Like a quiet storm building in the distance, waiting for the right second to strike. — Breakfast came late. Aria didn’t go down to the grand dining room—not when she knew Luciano would be there. Not when the air between them was still charged with something unspoken and sharp. Instead, she sat near the window of her room, cradling a mug of tea and staring out into the endless garden. How could something look so beautiful and still feel like a cage? The estate was gold and marble and silence. The kind that settled deep into your bones. But her thoughts weren’t quiet. They spun with him—Luciano. His voice, his nearness. His pain. And her own. Because she didn’t know what scared her more: his darkness… or how much of it she was starting to understand. — Clara knocked around noon. “Missed you at breakfast,” she said, slipping in without waiting for an invitation. Aria smiled faintly. “Didn’t feel like being stared at by Armani-wearing statues.” Clara chuckled. “Fair.” Then, after a pause: “Something’s changed between you two.” It wasn’t a question. Aria looked down. “I think he’s trying. I just don’t know what for.” Clara sat beside her. “Luciano doesn’t try for anyone. He controls. Threatens. Owns. So if he’s hesitating… it’s because of you.” Aria turned to her. “And if I fall for him? What then?” Clara didn’t answer right away. Finally: “Then you better be sure he’ll catch you. Because men like Luciano… don’t love halfway. They consume.” — That night, the dream came again. Except this time, it wasn’t a dream—it was a memory. She was back in that hotel room with her mother’s screams echoing down the hallway. Back in the helplessness. The fear. Aria shot up, gasping. And standing in the doorway, silent and still, was Luciano. She didn’t ask how long he’d been there. He stepped inside slowly, eyes on her. “You were crying in your sleep.” “I’m fine,” she lied. “No,” he said gently, “you’re not.” She didn’t speak. He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, like he belonged there. Like the storm in her chest had called him in. “I used to dream about Adriano,” he murmured. “Same nightmare, over and over. His voice. His eyes. The way he begged me not to leave him behind.” Aria’s heart clenched. “I never said goodbye,” he whispered. “I never even buried him myself.” “Luciano…” He shook his head. “Pain doesn’t make us good, Aria. It just teaches us how to hide it.” She reached for him, not with words, but with touch—her hand on his. And for once, he didn’t pull away. “I’m tired of hiding,” she said softly. He turned his hand to hold hers. “Then stop.” And in that silence, there was no cage. Just two broken people, holding on to each other like a match and a fuse. — They didn’t kiss that night. But the space between them? It burned.
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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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