Chapter 1 The Rossi nest

CHAPTER 1

Maya

The red light above Camera 3 blinks off, and for the first time in fourteen hours, I can finally breathe.

"Fucking brilliant, Maya."

My assistant director's voice crackles through my headset.

"You made Jenkins sound almost human. Almost likable."

I pull off the headset, my dark hair tumbling loose around my shoulders,one small rebellion in a day of perfectly controlled chaos.

"That's because I actually wrote him a script this time instead of letting him ramble about 'playing with heart.'"

Through the glass, I watch the Falcons' head coach hold court on the post-game press conference, all charisma and confidence. Twenty three games. Twenty Three wins. The kind of season that makes legends and births stars.

If only they knew what it costs to keep that legend alive.

My tablet weighs heavy in my hands,full of notes no one else can ever see.

Section 108, Row K: the drunk fan who tried to start a fight, now nursing a hangover in a holding cell with a story about "getting lost" that will stick.

The referee whose daughter just got a full scholarship to UCT, courtesy of an "anonymous donor." The journalist from the Cape Town Tribune who was asking dangerous questions about ownership structures, now happily relocated to Johannesburg with triple her salary.

All handled before the third period buzzer even sounded.

All part of the game behind the game. I need a break from my life.

"You heading to Montague's?"

Thabo asked coiling cables with the easy movements of someone who still believes in the innocence of sports.

"eish..."

"The whole team's going. Your sister's already there, posting about it."

Of course she is. Gabriella never misses a chance to be seen .

"Not tonight."

I slip my phone into my leather jacket, already feeling the weight of the lie settling over me like a second skin.

"You do this every home game."

"Tell anyone who asks I had a migraine."

"You're skipping the victory party.Maya, your dad's going to kill you ."

"My father has three hundred people to celebrate with. He won't miss me.Good work tonight, Thabo"

I head toward the door, then pause, softening. .

The corridor pulses with barely controlled chaos,staff rushing equipment, security escorting VIPs toward exclusive lounges, the distant thunder of eighteen thousand fans who have no idea what they're really cheering for.

I've walked these halls since I was sixteen, since the day my father decided his eldest daughter needed to understand every aspect of the family's most public asset.

The Falcons aren't just a hockey team, Antonio Rossi told me that first morning, his hand heavy on my shoulder as we stood in the empty arena. They're a story, remember stories, properly told, can hide anything.

I thought he was talking about sports. I was so beautifully, devastatingly naive.

My phone vibrates.

Papa: Excellent work tonight. Breakfast tomorrow, 9 AM sharp. We need to discuss the Zurri situation.

Not a request. Never a request with Antonio Rossi.

I make it to the parking garage without being intercepted a minor miracle on a night like this. My Audi waits in its reserved spot, sleek and black and exactly expensive enough to signal success without screaming new money. I slide behind the wheel and just sit, letting the adrenaline drain away, feeling the familiar emptiness rush in to fill the space.

This is always the hardest part. The quiet after. When there's nothing left to manage or manipulate, when the armor comes off and I have to face what I've become.

My reflection stares back from the rearview mirror,twenty-eight years old with my mother's sharp eyes and my father's ruthless intensity. People say I'm beautiful. What they mean is I'm useful. Polished enough to be the family's public face, smart enough to handle the dirty work, just damaged enough to never question why.

Except lately, I've been questioning everything.

My phone buzzes again.

Gabriella: WHERE ARE YOU??? Dad's asking and I'm running out of excuses. Jeremy's here looking for you too. He brought you FLOWERS. Please tell me you're not going to ghost him again???

Jeremy. Sweet, persistent, utterly wrong Jeremy from PR, who keeps asking me to dinner with those hopeful eyes. Jeremy who comes from the right family, has the right connections, would make the right husband if I could just force myself to feel something anything when he touches me.

I type back: Tell them I'm working on crisis management for the Monday press. Dad will understand.

A useful lie. Work is the only altar Antonio Rossi respects.

I start the car and pull out into Cape Town's glittering night. The streets overflow with celebration Falcons jerseys everywhere, car horns blaring victory, bars packed with believers. I drive through it all like a ghost, heading toward the Waterfront, toward my secret.

Every Saturday after a home game, win or lose, I disappear to the same bar. Order the same drink. Sit in the same shadowy corner where the lighting is low and nobody knows my face. For two stolen hours, I'm not Maya Rossi, daughter of Cape Town's most dangerous family, keeper of secrets that could destroy lives.

For two hours, I'm just a woman who likes good whiskey and even better silence.

Except tonight, pulling into the garage beneath the boutique hotel, I feel something different humming beneath my skin. A restlessness. A hunger for something I can't name and probably shouldn't want.

Twenty three undefeated games. Five media crises buried. Three months since I've had a conversation that wasn't performance or calculation. Six years since I've let anyone see past the carefully constructed facade.

I am so fucking tired of being careful.

The elevator to Vesper requires a key card one of the perks of being a regular at Cape Town's most exclusive bar. It keeps out the casual traffic, the rowdy fans, anyone who might recognize Antonio Rossi's daughter and remember to ask questions.

I lean against the mirrored wall as it climbs, studying my reflection. Professional. Polished. Perfectly controlled.

What if I wasn't? Just for one night?

The doors open to my sanctuary. Dark wood and darker leather, the kind of place that understands the luxury of discretion. A scattering of patrons maintaining that peculiar urban privacy here but not here, seeing but not seeing.

"Ms. R." Matt greets me with a slight nod from behind the bar. He knows my face but not my name exactly as I've arranged.

"The usual?"

"Please."

I slide onto my regular stool at the far end, where I can see both entrances and keep my back to the wall. Old habits from a childhood spent learning that safety is an illusion and the only thing you can trust is your ability to always know the exits.

The whiskey appears—Macallan 18, neat, amber and perfect in the low light. I wrap both hands around the glass, savoring this ritual, this one purely selfish thing in a life of obligations..

"Celebrating the win?"

he asks, polishing a glass.

"Something like that."

"Your team's having quite a season. Undefeated. That's got to feel good."

I almost laugh.

"They're not my team."

"You watch every game here. I'd say that makes them yours."

If only it were that simple. If only my relationship with the Falcons was about love of the game instead of careful maintenance of an empire's most visible, most valuable illusion.

I'm halfway through my whiskey, finally feeling the edges soften, when the energy in the room shifts.

I feel it before I see it a change in air pressure, the way conversations pause mid-sentence and restart in different keys, the subtle recalibration that happens when someone genuinely magnetic enters a space.

I look up.

The man who just walked in moves through the room like he owns it. Not the aggressive ownership of men who need to prove something, but the quiet, absolute confidence of someone who's never had to. He wears his suit like he was born in it Tom Ford, probably, tailored so perfectly it looks effortless,but there's something about the way he moves that suggests the expensive clothing is camouflage for something far more dangerous.

Predatory grace. Contained power. Dark hair swept back from a face that's almost too beautiful to be real.

Then he turns, and our eyes meet across the bar.

The impact is physical. A jolt of pure electricity that steals my breath and stops my heart. Recognition without context, connection without logic,like my soul just recognized something it's been searching for.

His eyes are dark, intense, and absolutely locked on mine. A slow smile curves his mouth the kind of smile that promises both sin and salvation, that says he sees exactly who I am beneath the armor and likes what he sees.

Then he starts walking toward me.

Every instinct screams at me to run, to retreat to safety, to maintain the walls I've spent years building. Instead, I sit straighter, tilt my chin up, and meet that devastating gaze with a challenge of my own.

Because maybe I'm tired of running. Maybe tonight, I want to be caught.

"Is this seat taken?"

His voice is low, textured with an accent I can't quite placeBritish boarding school layered over something else, something that speaks of old money and older power.

I should say yes. Should send him away. Should stick to my safe, solitary routine.

"It is now."

I hear myself say instead.

He sits close enough that I can smell his cologne Tom Ford Oud Wood, expensive and understated, all cedar and smoke and dark promises. Close enough that the heat of him changes the temperature of the air between us.

"I'm..."

"Don't." The word comes out sharper than I intended. "No names."

His eyebrows rise perfect, elegant arches that somehow make him even more unfairly attractive. "

No names?"

"It's just one drink. We don't need names for that."

A beat of silence while he studies me with those impossibly dark eyes, like he's reading the truth I'm trying to hide. Then that smile again, but different now sharper, more genuine, touched with something that looks almost like recognition.

"Just one drink?"

His voice drops lower, more intimate.

"Maybe two. I haven't decided yet."

"What have you decided?"

I meet his eyes and feel something dangerous and intoxicating unfurl in my chest,want, pure and simple and terrifying.

"That I'm tired of being careful."

He leans closer, and suddenly there's no one else in the room. No bar, no city, no father with expectations and secrets. Just him and me and this moment that feels like standing on the edge of a cliff.

"Then let's be reckless together," he says, and it sounds like a promise and a threat and an invitation to burn everything down.

I should say no. Should remember who I am, what I risk, why I came here alone in the first place.

Instead, I lift my glass in a silent toast, and watch his eyes flash with triumph as he mirrors the gesture.

Our glasses touch with a soft clink that sounds like the beginning of something that will probably destroy us both.

And for the first time in years, I don't care.