LOGINShare
THE RULES WE BREAK
Last Updated:
2025-08-01 16:40:13The next morning came slow and grey, like even the sun was unsure it wanted to rise over the De Luca estate.
Aria didn’t leave her room right away. She sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, still in her sleep shirt, the silence pressing in around her like a second skin. Her fingertips brushed her wrist, the one Luciano had held two nights ago—the imprint of his touch still lingering, invisible but undeniable. She’d told him they could learn. She meant it. But she hadn’t expected that kind of truth from him. Not from a man who seemed built of secrets and sharpened control. Not from someone who looked at the world like it owed him blood and silence. Yet there he was last night… unraveling. And now, so was she. ⸻ When she finally left her room, the house was quiet. Too quiet. Usually, by this hour, footsteps echoed through the halls. The staff murmured in the distance, a blend of routine and restraint. But today, there was none of that. Just the sound of her own heartbeat as she walked down the corridor barefoot. She didn’t know where she was going until she found herself outside his office. Luciano’s. She hesitated. The door was ajar, barely. She pushed gently. He wasn’t there. But something else was. A folder. Thick, unassuming, left sitting wide open on his desk like an invitation—or a trap. She shouldn’t have looked. But she did. The first page was a photo. Of her. One she didn’t remember being taken—probably from her first night here. Then another. Her walking the grounds. Sitting alone in the garden. Sleeping. A chill skated down her spine. She flipped to the next page. Notes. Details. A profile. Her full name. Her birthday. Her college. Even the names of her old professors. It was like reading the police file of a woman she no longer recognized. Her hands trembled. He didn’t just take you, Aria, a voice whispered inside her. He studied you. Before she could stop herself, she kept reading. And what she found… wasn’t just about her. There were names she didn’t recognize. Bank transfers. Property blueprints. A coded ledger that looked like it belonged to a criminal empire, not a man pretending to sip whiskey in quiet rooms. She wasn’t just caged in silk. She was standing in the heart of something darker. And Luciano… wasn’t just a broken man. He was dangerous. More than she wanted to admit. ⸻ The sound of footsteps snapped her out of it. She slammed the folder shut just as the door creaked open. Luciano. His eyes locked on hers. Everything in the room went still. He didn’t speak right away. Didn’t even look at the desk. Just her. “What are you doing in here?” he asked, voice low, unreadable. Aria didn’t answer. Because what could she say? That she’d read the pages he never meant her to see? That she knew now—truly—how deep his world ran? “I came to find you,” she lied. “Didn’t realize you weren’t here.” He stared for a long moment. Then his eyes flicked to the desk. He knew. Of course he did. But he said nothing. Instead, he walked past her, picked up the folder, and slid it into a drawer without a word. Then locked it. The sound of the key turning was louder than thunder. “I don’t like people in my office,” he said quietly. “I don’t like being spied on,” she shot back. The air between them snapped tight. Luciano turned to her then, slowly. “You think this is about control?” he said. “About watching you like a possession?” “It feels like it.” He took a step closer. “I’ve kept you alive.” “Against my will.” He stopped inches away from her, his eyes dark with something between fury and… heartbreak? “No one else would’ve protected you the way I have,” he said. “You don’t know what I’ve kept you from.” “Then tell me,” she whispered. “Stop hiding everything behind locked drawers and cryptic warnings. Let me see the truth.” He stared at her like she was a puzzle he’d never learned how to solve. Then, in a voice softer than she expected, he said, “The truth is… I don’t know how to love you without ruining you.” Aria blinked, throat tightening. “Then don’t love me like that.” Luciano didn’t touch her. Not this time. But his eyes never left hers as he spoke. “I’ll try.” It was the first promise he’d ever made that sounded like a vow. ⸻ That night, Aria couldn’t sleep again. She sat by the window, knees to her chest, watching the clouds break apart over the garden. Everything had changed. Because now she didn’t just fear the man who held her. She pitied him. She understood him. And maybe—God help her—she still wanted him. That was the problem with monsters. Sometimes, they wore their grief like a crown. And sometimes… it was beautiful.
Latest chapter
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
You may also like
Surrender To Me
Chickennugget80.8K viewsYou Can Run But...
AmonAvHs228.4K viewsThe Light In His Dark
Kjess115.3K viewsMafia Lord's Innocent Bride
Rabia Sajal Niazi104.2K viewsWill You Marry Me?
Rosa Kane19.6K viewsBound To The Devil's Heir
Angel179 viewsObsession of the Mafia King
Ayana Stories270 viewsDon Maxim's Plaything
Melaniewrites6.1K views
