Chapter 5

MARCUS

I didn’t expect it.

Hell, I didn’t expect her.

Julia DeCavalcante. The quiet, trembling little thing always hiding behind her glass of champagne, shrinking every time her father opened his mouth. 

She was just background noise to me. Don Augustus’s daughter, nothing more.

I never liked her. Not really. To me, she was a fragile bird fluttering inside a cage she didn’t even understand. Easy to rattle, easy to toy with.

I’d toss her a mocking word here and there just to see her flinch, just to remind her she lived in a world that didn’t give a damn about delicate creatures like her.

But last night… last night she turned everything on its head.

The kiss at the bar. The way she came to me, trembling but bold enough to touch fire. The way she gasped beneath me when I realized that no one had fucking ever touched her before me.

A virgin. In this world. At her age. And she gave that to me.

Not Nero. Not some useless son of another family. Me. Marcus Lucchesi. Twice her age, her father’s closest ally.

It should’ve made me feel disgusted. Or guilty. Or maybe nothing at all.

Instead, it left me thinking about her long after dawn.

The Lucchesi mansion was quiet when I walked into the study. Sunlight spilled across the polished table, catching on the glass decanter. Nero was already there, lounging in the chair like he owned the place, flipping through documents with that careless air he always wore.

He looked up when I entered. “Where the hell were you last night?” His voice was casual, but his eyes—sharp, suspicious. “You disappeared after the engagement toast. No one saw you until morning.”

I smirked, dropping into the chair across from him. “None of your business.”

His jaw ticked. “You could at least pretend to act like a father sometimes.”

“I’m not your father,” I shot back smoothly, pouring myself a glass of whiskey though it wasn’t even noon. “And thank God for that.”

Nero’s mouth pressed into a thin line. He knew better than to push me when my mood was like this. Instead, he slid a folder across the table.

“The Moretti syndicate took out one of our assassins last night,” he said flatly. “Our best one. Left him bleeding in an alley before he could even make it to Naples. It’s a message.”

I opened the folder, skimming the photos. Blood. A crumpled body. Clean work. A warning.

I tossed the file back onto the desk. “Cowards.”

“They’re testing us,” Nero continued, leaning forward, voice sharp with that ambition that always leaked through. “They think Augustus is too distracted with the engagement to strike back. They think we’re weak.”

“Maybe he is,” I said, sipping my drink. “But we’re not.”

Nero gave a short nod, though the muscle in his jaw still worked.

I let the silence drag, let him stew in his own thoughts before I dropped the question that had been gnawing at me since the second I woke up.

“What do you think of Julia?”

Nero froze.

His hand stilled on the folder, his knuckles whitening before he forced them to relax. “Julia?” he repeated carefully.

“Yes,” I said lazily, though my eyes never left his face. “Julia. The overlooked daughter. The girl you used to whisper sweet promises to. The one you told you’d always protect.”

A flicker crossed his face, too fast for most to notice, but I caught it. Guilt. Hunger. Something unburied.

He cleared his throat, reaching for his glass. “She doesn’t matter.”

I chuckled, low and dark. “That’s your answer?”

“My plan was only to keep her close until I had Don Augustus’s favor,” he snapped, words too sharp, too defensive. “Now I have it. I have Terra. Julia’s irrelevant.”

But he still wouldn’t look at me.

I smirked. “You can’t even say her name without your voice shaking.”

His glare shot to me, hot and angry, but it was just a mask. Beneath it, I saw everything he was trying to hide.

“Pathetic,” I murmured, shaking my head.

“Shut up,” he bit out, his mask slipping for just a heartbeat before he clamped it back down.

I leaned back in my chair, studying him with cold amusement. “You’ll never admit it, but I see through you, Nero. Always have. You wanted her once. Maybe you still do.”

He said nothing. His silence was louder than any confession.

I drained my glass and stood, folder tucked under my arm. My mind wasn’t on the Moretti syndicate anymore. It wasn’t on Augustus or Terra or the engagement.

It was on Julia.

Her flushed cheeks, her trembling body, the way she whimpered beneath me and begged me not to move because it hurt too much. The way she curled under the blanket this morning, blushing so red I called her a tomato.

I never meant to want her.

But now she was in my head, and I wasn’t sure I wanted her to leave.

And maybe… maybe that was exactly what I needed.

Because the truth is, I’m bored. I always win. Every deal, every war, every goddamn power play—I come out on top. Men fear me, women chase me, and every rival syndicate crumbles before me. There’s no challenge left in this life.

But Julia? She’s different. Untouched. Innocent. Dangerous in her own naive way. And Nero—poor Nero—still carries that ghost of her in his chest no matter how he tries to bury it.

A slow smirk curved my lips.

Yes. That could be entertaining.

Not because I want her. Not because she matters.

But because I want to see Nero’s mask crack. I want to see how far I can push him before that carefully crafted control of his finally snaps.

Julia DeCavalcante might just be the perfect tool for that.

And until I tire of the game… I’ll play with her.

But the thing about games is… sometimes the pieces stop behaving the way you want.

Julia isn’t a pawn who understands the board. She stumbles across it, clueless, blind to the danger beneath her feet. That’s what makes her so intoxicating. She doesn’t calculate. She doesn’t scheme. 

I can still hear her soft and trembling voice from last nigh against my ear.

‘Please… be gentle.’