7

THIRD PERSON POV

The flight from Italy had felt like an eternity, but the moment the taxi pulled up to the familiar, quiet apartment building in New York, Rosalia felt the first real wave of relief she had experienced in days. She carried her heavy bags up the stairs, her chest finally loosening. She was home. The nightmare in Italy was thousands of miles away, and she was safe.

She unlocked the door to her mother’s apartment, stepping inside and letting out a long breath. "Mom? I'm home."

Rosalia walked into the living room, but the words died in her throat.

Sitting on the sofa, looking entirely at ease in a tailored black suit, was Giovanni. He was holding a porcelain teacup, chatting calmly with her mother as if he belonged there.

Rosalia froze, her hands turning to ice. "What are you doing here?"

Before Giovanni could answer, her mother looked up from the armchair, a sharp expression of disapproval on her face. "Rosalia, that is no way to talk to your boyfriend."

The heavy bag slipped from Rosalia's grip, hitting the hardwood floor with a loud thud. Her brain completely short-circuited. "Boyfriend? Mom!"

Giovanni set his teacup down on the coffee table and stood up. His tall, broad frame immediately dominated the small living room, but his expression was entirely smooth, a warm, polished smile masking the cold intensity in his eyes. He crossed the room in two long strides, closing the distance between them before she could even think to run.

Before another word could leave her lips, Giovanni reached out, his hand cupping the back of her neck to pull her in. He pressed his lips firmly against hers, using the deep, sudden kiss to completely shut her up.

Rosalia stiffened, her heart hammering against her ribs as the familiar, dominant scent of him enveloped her. When he finally pulled back just an inch, his thumb brushed over her lower lip.

"Yes, that is," Giovanni said, his voice smooth and untroubled as he looked past her to her mother. "My girlfriend can be a little silly sometimes."

Her mother was practically beaming with joy. A bright, relieved smile lit up her face as she looked between the two of them. For years, she had worried about her daughter's complete isolation, and seeing a handsome, wealthy man standing in her living room holding Rosalia so possessively was everything she had hoped for.

"You will have to forgive her, Giovanni," her mother said, clasping her hands together. "You know, she has never had a boyfriend before."

Rosalia’s face burned with a mixture of sheer panic and mortification. "Mom!" she hissed, trying desperately to shut her mother up before any more family secrets could be spilled to a mafia Don.

"It's no problem at all, Mrs. Vance," Giovanni replied smoothly, his dark eyes glinting with a dangerous amusement as he kept his arm locked tightly around Rosalia's waist. "I plan on being the only one she ever has."

Realizing she was trapped in a losing battle in front of her mother, Rosalia grabbed Giovanni by the forearm. Her fingers dug into his expensive suit jacket as she forcefully dragged him away from the living room and toward the hallway.

"We need to talk," she muttered through her teeth. "In my room. Now."

The moment the bedroom door clicked shut, Rosa spun around, her chest heaving as she faced him. The small, familiar space of her childhood room suddenly felt incredibly microscopic with his massive frame standing in the center of it.

"What are you doing here?" Rosa demanded, her voice a harsh, frantic whisper. "Are you not supposed to be getting married to Elena in Italy right now? How did you even get here before me?"

She paused, the sheer absurdity of the situation hitting her, and she shook her head rapidly. "You know what? Don't answer that."

She paced a step away, her hands trembling as she pressed them against her forehead. "How do you even know where I live? How did you find my mother?" Again, before he could open his mouth, she cut him off with a bitter, breathless laugh. "Don't answer that either."

She knew exactly who he was now. He was a De Luca. He was the head of an empire. A man like him didn't face obstacles; he simply commanded reality to bend to his will, tracking down information with a single phone call.

Giovanni watched her, his expression entirely unreadable as he took a slow, deliberate step toward her. The raw authority radiating off him was suffocating.

Rosa immediately took a sharp step backward, her back pressing against the frame of her old desk. "Stay there."

"You ran across an ocean, Cara" Giovanni said, his deep baritone cutting through the quiet room, laced with a dangerous, quiet gravity. "Did you really think a flight manifest would hide you from me? Have you forgotten the promise we made to each other?"

Rosa’s breath hitched at the old name, but she forced a cold, defensive scowl onto her face. "We made a promise to get married when I was ten years old, Giovanni! You were sixteen. We were just kids. It didn't mean anything. We didn't mean it."

"I meant it," Giovanni countered instantly, his dark eyes locking onto hers with an absolute, unyielding intensity that made her knees weak. "I want you, Rosa. And what belongs to me, I take."

"I want nothing to do with the mafia!" Rosa hissed, her voice rising in a panic before she remembered who was sitting just down the hall. She glanced fearfully at the wooden door, her hands flying up in a frantic gesture. "Don't shout! My mom is right outside, she might hear you."

A dark, lethal smirk tugged at the corner of Giovanni's mouth. The sudden shift in her focus amused him, feeding into the absolute control he held over the situation. He took another step forward, completely crowding her space until she was trapped between his hard torso and the desk.

"There is only one way to shut me up, cara," he murmured intimately, his voice dropping into a low, rough purr.

Before she could process the words, his hands moved down to the front of his trousers, his fingers gripping the heavy silver buckle of his leather belt. The distinct, sharp click of the metal unlocking echoed like a gunshot in the quiet room.

Rosa’s eyes went wide with pure, unadulterated panic. Without a second thought, she threw her hands up, tightly covering her eyes to block out the view. "What are you doing? Stop!"

Giovanni paused, his hands resetting on his waist as he stared down at her. He looked at her completely covered face, his brow furrowing in genuine, dark amusement. "Why the hell are you acting as if you have never seen a dick before?"

"Maybe because I haven't!" Rosa shouted back through her fingers, her face burning so hot she felt dizzy.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Giovanni froze, his entire body going completely rigid as the confession hung in the air between them. He stared at her, his dark eyes scanning her flushed cheeks, her trembling lips, and the defensive way she held herself.

"Fuck," Giovanni swore under his breath, the low, gravelly syllable filled with a sudden, violent rush of dark possessiveness. "You're a virgin."

The realization hit his system like pure adrenaline, sending a wave of heat straight to his core. The thought that no other man had ever touched her, that her innocence had been preserved in this quiet American life while he was starving for her in Italy, drove his mafia instincts completely insane. It didn't push him away; it made the dark, predatory urge to claim her grow a thousand times stronger.

He stepped closer, his large hand coming down to grip both of her wrists, firmly pulling her hands away from her face so she had no choice but to look into his blown-out, darkened pupils.

"A total saint," Giovanni rasped, a dangerous, possessive smile spreading across his face as he leaned down, his breath brushing against her lips. "I am going to have so much fun breaking you, Rosa."

The silence in the bedroom was suddenly shattered by the sharp, persistent buzzing of Giovanni’s phone. The screen lit up on the desk, displaying a barrage of missed calls and unread text messages from Elena. The Romanos were officially realizing the groom was gone.

Without breaking eye contact with Rosa, Giovanni reached out, grabbed the device, and completely switched it off. He tossed it aside as if the brewing mafia war in Italy meant absolutely nothing compared to the woman standing in front of him.

He stepped back slightly, his dark, dangerous mafia expression settling over his features—that cold, unreadable mask that usually commanded absolute terror in the underworld. But beneath the steel, a raw, simmering intensity flickered in his eyes. He reached up, his long fingers casually unbuttoning the top two buttons of his dress shirt, loosening his collar. He looked ridiculously hot without even realizing it, the casual movement contrasting sharply with the lethal aura vibrating off him.

When he spoke, his voice lost its playful, predatory edge. It dropped into a gravelly, deeply emotional register that made the room feel entirely still.

"After you disappeared, it was really hard for me," Giovanni said, his gaze locked onto her face, forcing her to see the truth in his eyes. "Mama was murdered just a few months after your family."

Rosa’s breath hitched, her eyes widening as the mention of his mother—the woman they both used to call Mama—hit her like a physical blow.

"I was in the hospital for four weeks, Rosa," Giovanni continued, his jaw tightening as the dark memory surfaced. He didn't look vulnerable; he looked like a man who had survived hell and climbed back out just to hunt. "I'm not saying this for your pity. I'm letting you know that the people who did this to me and you will never go scot-free. I was helpless then. But I am not helpless now."

The sheer weight of his words hung in the air, thick with a promise of absolute vengeance. Rosa stared at him, her heart hammering against her ribs as she realized the boy who had survived the fire with her hadn't just grown into a monster—he had grown into a weapon meant to destroy the people who took everything from them.

"If you stay here, they will find you," Giovanni murmured, leaning down slightly so his breath fanned across her cheek. "Come back to Italy with me. Help me burn them to the ground."

Rosa swallowed hard, her back pressed flat against her desk as she stared up at him. She was caught between the terrifying gravity of his presence and the sudden, overwhelming ghosts of their past. "And if I say no?"

Giovanni’s mafia mask slipped back into place—cold, unyielding, and absolute. A dangerous, knowing smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he delivered the final blow.

"You won't say no," Giovanni rasped, his voice dropping to a whisper that sent a shiver straight down her spine. "Because tell me, Rosa... don't you want to know who did that to Eliana?"