Chapter Seven

Dinner with a Monster

The silence between them at the dinner table wasn't empty.

It was thick with every unsaid word, every question Amara hadn’t dared ask, every truth Luca refused to give. The Moretti dining hall was something out of a godfather's fever dream—long mahogany table, flickering candlelight, walls lined with ancestral oil portraits that seemed to judge everything from their gilded frames.

And at the end, across silverware and fine China, sat the monster himself.

Luca.

He wore a black dress shirt, sleeves rolled just enough to show ink dancing across his forearms. His hair still damp from a shower, his stubble sharp as glass. He didn't eat. He didn't speak.

He watched her.

Amara cut into her steak with practiced poise, her spine straight, face calm—but she could feel the heat of his gaze. She'd dressed deliberately tonight: a silk wrap dress the color of rusted wine, a slit that flirted with indecency, and her hair pinned up to expose the scar behind her ear. A reminder.

Of what she’d endured.

Of what she’d lost.

And of what she came back to burn.

“You always liked to play with fire,” he said suddenly, voice low and patient like a lion deciding if it was worth chasing the gazelle. 

She didn't look up. “And you always liked watching people burn.”

He smiled. “You haven’t lost your tongue.”

“Did you expect me to?”

“No.” His voice darkened. “I expected you to lose your life.”

She finally met his eyes, her fork pausing mid-air. “You mean when I disappeared?”

Luca leaned back in his chair. “Don’t pretend you didn't vanish deliberately.”

“You think i wanted to be dragged across the ocean, chained to a wall in Juarez, left for dead?” Her voice sharpened.

“I think you ran from me before anyone else could,” he said coolly. “And when the fire got too hot, you decided I was the one who lit it.”

Her appetite soured.

She set down her utensils. “You arrogant bastard. You don't get to rewrite history.”

Luca stood slowly, napkin falling to the floor. “Then tell me the truth, Amara. For once. Not the story you rehearsed in your head. The truth. What happened that night?”

Amara’s breath caught. 

That night.

The night she never stopped reliving.

The night everything scattered. 

She rose to her feet too, shoulders squared. “I was told you were the one who sold me out. That you—”

He slammed his palm flat on the table. Silver clattered. 

“Lies,” he said, voice low and venomous. “You think I'd sell you when I was planning to marry you?”

“My father said—”

“Your father,” he spat, “was a pupper. And you were the bait.”

The room fell silent.

She stared at him, heart pounding, truth trembling at every breath.

“What are you saying?” She whispered. 

He took a step toward her eyes flashing. “ I didn't betray you. Someone close to both of us did.”

Amara swallowed the lump in her throat. 

“Then why didn't you come for me?”

“I did,” Luca growled. “But by the time I found the safehouse in Naples, you were gone. No one knew where. No ransom. No body. Just blood. 

She staggered slightly, like the weight of his words struck harder than expected. 

“I thought…” Her voice broke. “I thought you hated me.”

He stood before her now, inches away, towering and terrifying in his stillness. “I hated losing you. And I hated that you believed I could do that to you.”

Her chest rose and fell fast. The fight in her collapsing into something she couldn’t name—grief, maybe. Or longing.

“You made no effort to stop the rumors.”

“I made war because if the rumors.”

The pain in his voice was sharp, unscripted. 

Then softer: “I killed men with your name in my mouth.”

She looked up at him---really looked. The scars he wore weren't just on skin. They were beneath the armor, woven into the fabric of who he'd become. A king carved by grief.

And yet… he was still the same Luca who once made her believe he'll could feel like heaven.

Her fingers twitched. 

So did his.

Neither reached for the other.

Instead, he turned away, brushing a hand through his hair as if the confession had cost him something. 

“I wanted to hate you,” Amara admitted quietly. “But I couldn't. Not even when I was broken.”

He faced her again. “And now?”

She walked around the table, her heels echoing like gunshots. When she stood before him, her hand hovered near his chest.

“Now I don't know if I want to kiss you or kill you.”

His eyes darkened with heat.

“Do both,” he said. “But you're not leaving this time.”

“Still trying to cage me?” She mocked.

“No I'm keeping what's mine.”

Amara reached out, her fingers grazing the edge of his collar.

“I'm not yours, Luca.”

“You always were.”

And then, like inevitability, like gravity, they crashed.

His mouth claimed hers with the force of three years’ worth of rage and need. She moaned against him, her body arching into the kiss like it remembered the shape of him better than it remembered air. He backed her into the table, knocking aside crystal and silverware as her hands tore open his shirt, exposing the hard planes of his chest. 

His lips moved to her neck, biting tasting.

“You think you can come back,” he growled, “and not pay the price?”

“I am the price,” she gasped.

He lifted her onto the table in one movement, silk sliding up her thighs. 

“Tell me to stop,” he said.

She wrapped her legs around his waist.

“Never.”

What followed wasn't love.

It was possession. 

Fire and fury dressed in must and silence. 

When it was over, the candles had burned low. The only sound was their breathing—heavy, ragged, tangled.

Luca rested his forehead against hers, eyes closed.

“I lost you once,” he murmured. “Never again.”

Amara didn't answer.

Because somewhere deep inside, she wanted that too.

And it terrified her.