Both Worlds

Luciano:

“She’s home. Lights off. Red wine. Straight from the bottle.”

I let the silence stretch for a beat too long, watching the man across from me squirm. He was loyal, reliable, but not very bright. Most of them weren’t. But they didn’t need to be. They just had to see and report. I handled the rest.

“Good,” I finally said, swirling the amber liquid in my glass. “Let her spiral.”

The man nodded and disappeared like he was glad to be gone. I didn’t watch him leave. My eyes had already returned to the chessboard in front of me.

She was the queen.

Smart, polished, deceptively dangerous. The kind of woman who walked into a room and made men forget themselves. The kind of woman who was never unaware of the effect she had.

But underneath all that—there was a crack.

I saw it the second she stepped into my office. The way her eyes flicked too quickly, her jaw too tight, like she was trying to hold something in. She wore that suit like armor. Talked like everything she said had already been rehearsed.

But she couldn’t hide from me.

No one can.

I tapped a knight forward on the board, studying the move as if it mattered. It didn’t. I’d already played this game a hundred times. I always knew how it ended.

Ava Rivera.

She was already mine.

She just didn’t know it yet.

There are three kinds of people in this world—those who run from power, those who chase it blindly, and those who understand how to wield it in silence. She thinks she’s the third. Thinks she’s in control.

But I’ve seen women like her. Women who clawed their way out of darkness only to find the light too blinding. Women who built pristine lives on the bones of their pasts.

They’re always the easiest to unravel.

Because they think they’ve buried who they were. They think they’re clean.

But Ava comes from dirt. The kind that doesn’t wash off with degrees or court victories.

And that makes her useful.

It also makes her dangerous.

I stood, crossing to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Manhattan blinked up at me, buzzing with life, so oblivious to the quiet wars fought beneath its polished surface.

I know how to wait.

Patience is something my enemies never understood. They thought violence was my nature. But no—violence is a tool. Fear is a tool. Time, though… time is devotion.

And I’ve been waiting for someone like Ava for a long time.

Someone who can walk in both worlds.

Someone clean enough to impress a courtroom, and dirty enough to understand the language of men like me.

I didn’t choose her because she was the best.

I chose her because she was broken in the right ways.

Her father was a ghost I knew well. Not close, but close enough. Enough to know what kind of legacy she came from. She’s spent her whole adult life trying to erase it—and that makes her predictable.

Because no one runs that hard without getting tired.

And when she starts to slip?

When the courtroom becomes too sharp, the lines too blurry, and I become the only one who sees her clearly?

She’ll call.

She might scream into her pillow first. Might pour another glass of wine and convince herself she’s strong enough to walk away.

But it’ll eat at her.

The need to understand me. The need to prove something to herself.

That she can face the monster and not flinch.

That she can control it.

She can’t.

She’ll try, though. That’s the part I’m most looking forward to.

I turned from the window and glanced at the burner phone on the table. Silent. Still.

But not for long.

My men would continue to watch her. Not touch. Not interfere. I wanted her raw, stripped of the world she built around herself. And tonight, it had already begun. The wine. The frustration. The way she kicked off her shoes like she hated everything that had happened the moment she left me.

That’s what obsession looks like at the start—small cracks.

And cracks spread.

I poured myself another drink and returned to the board. Checkmate was inevitable. It always was.