BOUND TO THE BEAST

AriaThe Moretti mansion wasn't a home. It was a fortress disguised as one. High walls. Guard towers. Men with guns at every corner. As we drove through the iron gates, I counted at least a dozen security cameras tracking our movement. The building itself rose from the darkness like something out of a gothic nightmare, all sharp angles and cold stone windows that reflected nothing but blackness back at me. Beautiful. Soulless. Just like its owner.Luca hadn't spoken since we left my estate. He sat across from me in the car, perfectly still, watching me with those calculating eyes while I tried not to fall apart. The handcuffs bit into my wrists. My designer dress, the one I'd worn to dinner just hours ago, was torn at the hem, stained with ash and God knows what else.I wanted to scream. To cry. To claw his eyes out. Instead, I stared back at him, refusing to blink first. The car stopped. The door opened. Luca stepped out with fluid grace and extended his hand toward me like we were

AriaI spent three days studying him. Luca woke at five every morning. Coffee, black. Thirty minutes in his private gym. Shower. Breakfast alone in his office while he reviewed reports. By seven, the meetings started, men in suits discussing shipments, territories, problems that needed solving.He was a creature of habit. Precise. Controlled. Predictable. And predictable meant vulnerable."Mrs. Moretti?" Elena appeared in the doorway of the library where I'd been pretending to read. "Mr. Moretti requests your presence at dinner tonight. He's entertaining business associates.""Tell him I'm not feeling well.""He said you'd say that." Elena's expression was sympathetic. "He also said it wasn't a request." Of course it wasn't.+++++++++++I chose my dress carefully, deep emerald silk that hugged every curve, the kind of weapon women have used since the beginning of time. If Luca wanted to parade me around like a trophy, I'd make sure I was worth looking at.The dining room glittered wit

POV: LucaI watched from my office window as Isabella's car disappeared around the bend of the driveway, heading toward the garage. My hands were clenched so tight around my whiskey glass that I was surprised it didn't shatter.This was a nightmare. My carefully constructed world was collapsing, and I had no one to blame but myself. I downed the whiskey in one burning gulp and poured another.Aria was locked on the third floor. Safe. Protected. Away from Isabella's venom.But for how long could I keep them apart? Isabella wasn't the type to be denied anything, and she'd come here for answers. Answers I didn't want to give. I closed my eyes and let myself remember. Let myself go back to the beginning, to the moment everything changed.+++++++Seventeen years old, and I thought I knew everything about the world.I'd been raised in blood and violence, groomed since birth to take over my father's empire. I'd killed my first man at fifteen. I'd learned to torture information from rivals at

POV: AriaI reached my bedroom door, my hands still trembling from what I'd overheard. One week. Isabella had given Luca one week to get rid of me, or she'd do it herself. Get rid of me. Such casual words for what she really meant. Kill me. Make me disappear. Erase me like I'd never existed.I turned the handle, desperate to lock myself inside, to think, to figure out what to do. The door swung open. My room looked like a tornado had torn through it."No," I whispered, stepping inside. "No, no, no."Every drawer had been pulled out and emptied onto the floor. My clothes were everywhere, but not just scattered. They were destroyed. Slashed with something sharp, the beautiful fabrics ripped into ribbons. The mattress had been torn open, stuffing spilling out like guts from a wound.The curtains hung in tatters. The mirror over the vanity was shattered, cracks spiderwebbing out from a central impact point. My jewelry box lay on its side, empty, the few pieces of jewelry I'd owned scatter

POV: Luca The silence in the car was suffocating. I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white, trying to control the rage that threatened to explode out of me. Aria sat beside me, still shaking, blood drying on her shoulder where Isabella's nails had torn into her skin. She'd thrown champagne in Isabella Russo's face. In front of half the criminal elite of the city. In front of people who would now see her as either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. I knew which one they'd choose. And Dante. Dante fucking Caruso had stepped between them. Had defended my wife like he had any right to touch what was mine. The engine roared as I pressed the accelerator harder. The city lights blurred past us. "Luca," Aria said quietly. "You're going too fast." I didn't slow down. Couldn't. The speed was the only thing keeping me from turning the car around and going back to rip Dante's throat out. We pulled through the mansion gates, and I barely waited for the car to