Chapter 2

**Isabella's POV**

  I stared at the stranger across the booth like he’d just offered to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge.

  “Destroy him with you?” I repeated, voice hoarse from running and screaming and pure rage.

  “What is this, a Marvel movie? Who even are you?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He just leaned back, unbuttoned his soaked coat with slow, deliberate fingers, and let the silence stretch until it felt like foreplay. Rainwater slid down his throat and disappeared under the crisp white shirt clinging to his chest.

  Lord have mercy. The man was built like punishment.

  And he smelled… God, he smelled expensive. Like cedar, smoke, and bad decisions I suddenly wanted to make.

  I narrowed my eyes. “If you’re a reporter, I swear,

  He lifted one dark brow. “Do I look like I chase stories, princess?”

  The barista (purple hair, her name tag reading “KAYLA <3”) slid two shot glasses between us without being asked. Tequila. Top-shelf. The good stuff that costs more than my monthly rent used to be.

  I didn’t hesitate. One. Two. Three. Four.

  The burn felt holy.

  He watched me the entire time, not even blinking. Not scolding, not laughing. Just… watching. Like he was cataloging every tremor in my fingers, every tear I’m-fine lie in my eyes.

  By the fifth shot, the room did a lazy spin.

  “Okay, mister,” I slurred, pointing an unsteady finger at him. “You’ve got ten seconds to explain why you’re sitting here looking like you stepped out of a cologne ad instead of running for cover from the crazy bride.”

  He finally smiled. Not polite. Not kind. The kind of smile that belonged in dark alleys and darker bedrooms.

  “I’m Lucian,” he said simply. “And I hate Alexander Knight more than you do.”

  I barked out a laugh that sounded half-hysterical. “Impossible. I just publicly murdered his ego in 4K in front of five hundred people. I win.”

  He leaned forward again, elbows on the table, voice dropping. “Did you, though? He’s already on the phone with his PR team spinning it as ‘cold feet.’ By tomorrow he’ll be the sympathetic victim and you’ll be the unhinged gold-digger who couldn’t handle the pressure.”

  My stomach lurched harder than the tequila did.

  “No,” I whispered. “No, that’s not,”

  “It’s already happening.” He slid his phone across the table.

  The screen showed trending topics:

  #PoorAlexander

  #RunawayBrideMeltdown

  #PrayForKnight

  There was even a slowed-down clip of me shoving him, set to sad violin music.

  I was going to be sick.

  Kayla, the traitor barista, was now openly filming me on her phone, mouthing “oh my God” to her 1.2 million TikTok followers. I was too drunk to care.

  I snatched Lucian’s phone and kept scrolling. Someone had made a meme of my tear-streaked face over the Home Alone scream.

  I slammed the phone down. “I loved him,” I said to no one and everyone. “Three years. I picked out his ties. I learned how he likes his coffee—oat milk, two sugars, splash of vanilla like a damn hipster. I let him meet my mom.”

  Tears finally came, hot and furious.

  “And Chloe,” I laughed bitterly, turning to Kayla and the two random guys now openly eavesdropping. “Chloe was my roommate freshman year! We used to share tampons and cry over midterm grades together! I asked her to be my maid of honor because she said she’d die before letting anyone hurt me.”

  I hiccupped. “Guess she meant she’d just fuck my fiancé instead.”

  Kayla gasped so loud enough to wake the dead. “No way!”

  “Yes way!” I waved my phone like evidence, even though the screen was black. “Twenty minutes before the ceremony. Bridal suite. He had her bent over the vanity—the one with the antique mirror I shipped from Paris!”

  I was shouting now. The whole coffee shop was my therapist.

  Lucian let me rant. He just kept those storm-gray eyes on me, refilling my glass the second it emptied.

 "That is some sad shit right there :(" Kayla said while ending the live. 

  When the words finally ran out and I was just sitting there breathing like a wounded animal, he spoke again.

  “How much do you want him to suffer?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “On a scale from public apology to total annihilation. Where are we landing tonight?”

  I wiped my face with the heel of my hand, probably smearing mascara into war paint.

  “Annihilation,” I said without hesitation. “I want him to lose sleep. I want him to lose money. I want him to lose the ability to get hard ever again.”

  A slow, wicked grin spread across Lucian’s face.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Because I happen to have a job opening.”

  I snorted. “Unless the job is professional hitman, I’m not interested.”

  “Executive assistant,” he corrected, amusement flickering. “Mine quit. Rather suddenly.”

  “Quit or…?” I made a slicing motion across my throat.

  He didn’t answer. Just sipped his drink like a man who’d seen bodies disappear and didn’t lose sleep over it.

  Red flag? Absolutely.

  Did I care? I was nine shots in and wearing a wedding dress in a random Brooklyn coffee shop at midnight.

  “I’ll pay you double what Alexander did,” he continued. “You start tomorrow. You’ll have access to my calendar, my emails, my penthouse.”

  I squinted. “Why me?”

  “Because you’re viral,” he said simply. “Because the second the world sees you working for me—living with me—they’ll lose their minds. And because…”

  He leaned in so close I could feel his breath on my lips.

  “I’ve been looking for a way to ruin Alexander Knight for fifteen years. You just handed me the perfect weapon.”

  My heart tried to climb out of my throat.

  He extended one large, scarred hand across the table.

  “So, Mrs. Knight,” he said, voice dripping with mockery, “do we have a deal?”

  I stared at his hand. Then at his face. Then at the empty shot glasses.

  I slapped my palm into his.

  “It’s not Mrs. Knight anymore,” I said, squeezing hard. “And you, Mr. Arrogant, just hired the most vindictive assistant you’ll ever have.”

  His fingers tightened around mine, warm and strong and promising all kinds of chaos.

  “Welcome to the dark side, Isabella.”

  Behind us, Kayla whispered to her herself and the few people in the coffeeshop, “Y’all, I’m literally witnessing the star

t of a mafia romance…”

  Lucian’s eyes never left mine.

  Something electric and dangerous crackled between us.

  And in that moment, drunk off tequila and vengeance, I signed my soul with the devil.