We're not so different

Luciano:

She walked out of the room, and still, the scent of her lingered—clean, sharp, like citrus over steel. Not sweet. Not soft. Something purposeful. Something meant to warn a man before he bleeds.

I didn’t move.

Not right away.

I sat back down in the chair, silence pressing against me like a second skin. The door had shut behind her less than a minute ago, but her presence still hung in the air, coiled and electric.

Ava Rivera.

Exactly what I needed.

Exactly what I shouldn’t want.

The moment I saw her name on the short list, I knew she was the one. Not because she had the highest win rate. Not because she was the most respected. That was easy. Surface-level.

No—Ava was chosen because she was dangerous.

Because her entire career had been built like a fortress: no scandal, no weakness, no shortcuts. Just cold discipline and a reputation as untouchable as it was lethal. That kind of righteousness doesn’t come from ambition. It comes from guilt. A past she buried so deep she’d rather die than dig it up.

And guilt… I know guilt. It makes people do interesting things when you push the right buttons.

She’s spent her entire life running from something. I could see it in the way her jaw tightened when I said her name. I could see it in the flicker behind her eyes when I leaned in too close.

She hates men like me.

Good. Let her.

It’ll make this more satisfying when she bends.

Because she will bend.

Not for power. Not for greed. But for truth. The kind of brutal, ugly truth that keeps you up at night. That’s her weakness. Justice. She worships it like a religion. Which is why I had to make myself her goddamn altar.

This isn't about getting acquitted. I could be a free man by next week if I wanted. I have judges on my payroll, feds who owe me favors, senators whose secrets I buried with a smile.

But none of that would cleanse the blood on my hands.

Not the way I need.

No—this is about ending things on my terms.

If I want to burn down the empire I built, I need someone who believes in the law so blindly she won’t see the trap I’m laying until she’s too deep in it.

She’s smart. That’s the danger. She’ll look at the evidence and ask the right questions. She’ll tear through it like a scalpel, trying to save the patient without realizing the whole body is already rotten.

And when it starts to fall apart—when the smoke clears and she sees what I’ve done—she’ll either walk away broken…

…or she’ll stay.

And that’s what I need to know.

What does Ava Rivera become when the thing she’s built her entire life around turns to ash in her hands?

Does she cling to the ruins?

Or does she rise from them?

I need to know because if I’m going to dismantle everything—the bloodlines, the syndicates, the men who think they own me—I need someone at my side who isn’t afraid to stand in fire.

Not because I trust her.

Because I understand her.

Ava is more like me than she wants to admit. We both operate with knives under our tongues. We both move like the world owes us something—and we’ll take it one way or another.

She thinks she’s on the right side of the line.

I can’t wait to show her there’s no such thing.

Let her walk out.

Let her pretend she can sleep at night after this.

She’ll be back.

Because she’s already wondering what it means that I saw her. Not just her résumé, not just her reputation—but her.

And a woman like Ava?

She’s spent her whole life being invisible where it mattered.

To her father.

To her firm.

To the city that only cared when she won.

But I saw her. The cracks she hides behind courtroom armor. The rage she polishes into logic. The ache for something real beneath all that righteous ice.

She’ll fight it.

And when that fails—she’ll justify it.

Just like I do.

Because at the end of the day, we’re not so different.

Only I already know I’m damned.

She’s still clinging to the illusion she isn’t.