Chapter Three – The Moretti Princess

The elevator ride up to the Moretti penthouse feels longer than the one that took Ava down into the auction’s hell.

She watches herself in the mirrored walls as the numbers climb.

Her black dress is still damp at the hem. There’s a faint smear of someone else’s blood near the slit. Mascara shadows under one eye. Her lips are swollen from a man she should never have let touch her.

From the outside, you’d think she went to a very exclusive party and had a very reckless night.

From the inside, everything feels… shifted." Tilted.

She tugs her sleeve down over her wrist, hiding the Moretti crest—and the faint red mark where Damian’s fingers dug in. The place his mouth crushed against hers felt bruised, tender, and wrong.

*He has the drive. He has my name. And he knows exactly what I am.*

She drags her fingers through her hair, lifts her chin, and pulls the old mask into place.

Invisible. Controlled. Untouchable.

The Moretti princess.

The elevator dings softly. The doors slide open to the private foyer: polished marble, a silent water feature trickling down a slate wall, a huge abstract painting in aggressive reds and blacks.

Two men in dark suits straighten as she steps out.

“Miss Ava,” one of them—Marco—says, eyes flicking quickly over her. “We didn’t know you’d gone out.”

“Spur of the moment,” she answers lightly, shrugging out of her coat. “Could you bring up some tea? Something with caffeine.”

“Yes, miss.”

As he takes the coat, his gaze catches on the curve of her neck. She feels him freeze on the faint reddened patch just below her ear, where Damian’s jaw scraped when he kissed her like he was hiding a crime.

She lifts a hand casually, smoothing her hair down, cutting off his view.

“Just cold out,” she adds before he can comment and pushes through the glass doors into the main living space.

The Moretti penthouse is a temple to wealth and ego. Two stories of glass overlooking Central Park. Black-and-white marble floors. Steel and leather furniture. Art was chosen more for price than meaning. A floating spiral staircase curls up to the private bedrooms.

Tonight, the place smells like expensive scotch and anger.

Vince Moretti stands by the floor-to-ceiling windows, phone pressed to his ear, suit jacket off, tie loosened. His salt-and-pepper hair is immaculate; his posture radiates controlled fury.

“…I don’t care what the club says,” he snaps into the phone. “You had one job—keep it clean. Something like that happens on your property again, I walk. And everyone knows if Moretti walks, the city follows. Understood?”

On the leather sectional, her brothers sprawl like they own the skyline.

Luca, the eldest, in shirtsleeves with his feet up. Marco (the younger, not the guard) and Alessandro half-watching sports highlights on the wall screen, half eavesdropping.

Near the hallway, hands clasped behind his back stands Leo.

Leo Hart. Head of security, Ava’s childhood shadow. The only person who ever told Vince “no” and survived it.

He looks up the second Ava steps inside.

His gaze slams into her like a searchlight.

“What happened?” he demands, already moving toward her.

She forces a small, practiced smile. “Relax. I just went out.”

“At midnight?” His eyes sweep her more carefully now—the damp hem, the smear on her dress, the smear of mascara, the tension in her shoulders. His jaw locks. “You’re hurt?”

“Not my blood,” she says quietly, tucking her hand into her pocket so he won’t see the tremor—or the outline of the crest under her sleeve.

Leo goes white, then hard. “Where?”

She doesn’t answer.

She doesn’t have to.

Vince ends his call with a final, “You have twenty-four hours to fix it,” and turns.

His gaze sweeps the room, lands on Ava.

For a second—just one—there’s something like relief in his eyes.

Then, he takes in her state.

Relief vanishes.

“Where were you,” he says.

Not a question. An accusation.

The sports highlights mute. Her brothers look over, amused, curious.

Ava lifts her chin a fraction. “Out.”

“Out,” Vince repeats, voice flat. “Out *where*, Ava?”

“Nowhere that concerns you,” she replies before self-preservation can throttle the words back.

The temperature in the room drops.

“Ava.” Leo’s voice is a warning at her shoulder. “Don’t.”

Vince walks toward her slowly, like a man approaching a dog he’s not sure will bite.

“Do I look like a man whose night you want to test?” he asks.

His hand is empty. That’s always more dangerous than when he’s holding a glass. There’s nothing to distract from the quiet, contained violence.

She could lie. Say she was with Cass. Say she was on a date. Say she was at some rooftop bar.

Instead, Damian’s voice slinks through her head. *Run along, princess.*

“I went out,” she repeats calmly. “I came back. In one piece. You’re welcome.”

Something dark flickers through Vince’s expression.

Luca whistles under his breath. “She’s getting bold.”

“Shut up,” Marco mutters.

Leo steps a little in front of her, not overt, but there. “Mr. Moretti, maybe this can—”

“Not now, Leo,” Vince snaps, eyes never leaving Ava. “Where you go reflects on my name. My investments. When something like tonight happens in this city, I expect to know where every piece on my board is.”

“Something like tonight?” Ava asks. “What happened?”

His gaze narrows. “You don’t watch the news?”

“Not the channels that worship real-estate tyrants,” she says.

Luca snorts. “Damn.”

Vince moves faster than she expects.

His hand slams into the wall beside her head. Not touching her, but close enough that she feels the rush of air.

The marble reverberates.

Leo jerks forward on instinct, then freezes when Vince’s head tilts half an inch his way.

“Careful,” Vince says softly. “You’re not drunk in your bedroom, flirting with danger on your phone. You’re in *my* house, with *my* name, in *my* city. You do not speak to me like some—some little—”

“Disappointment?” she offers bitterly. “Waste of resources?”

His jaw ticks.

He leans in, breath hot with scotch. “You are here because I allow it. Don’t confuse that with importance.”

The words slide neatly into the grooves carved into her years ago.

“Where. Were. You,” he repeats.

Her throat tightens. “Out with Cass.”

“Cass who?” he demands. “Which bar? Which driver took you? Why was your location not logged if you—”

“Because I didn’t take a driver,” she cuts in. “And I turned off location.”

The silence goes heavy.

Leo stares at her like she’s stepped into traffic.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he bites out.

She rounds on him. “Don’t you start.”

“I am literally head of—”

“Security,” she finishes. “Yes, Leo, I know your job title. You’re all very good at telling me where it’s unsafe while doing absolutely nothing about the people who actually make this city dangerous.”

Vince’s eyes flash. “Who have you been talking to?”

“Tenants. News. Basic human observation,” she says. “It’s amazing what you see when you look at the buildings you knock down as more than numbers.”

His fist curls against the wall, knuckles whitening.

From the couch, Alessandro mutters, “Here we go,” and sinks lower.

“Enough,” Vince says. “You will not drag my work through the mud in my own home because you had a tantrum and snuck out like a teenager. You want something, Ava? You *say* it. You do not—”

“I want honesty,” she says. “I want to know how many lives you buried under those buildings.”

The image of the old woman and the rubble burns hot behind her eyes.

Vince’s gaze goes flat. “You have no idea what it takes to build what I’ve built.”

“Maybe I don’t want what you built,” she says softly.

Silence.

Something ugly flares in his eyes. “Then you’re free to leave. Give me my name back and walk out that door.”

The words used to slice her open.

They still hurt.

Just differently now.

Leo steps more fully between them. “Sir, this isn’t—”

“Stay out of this,” Vince snaps. “This is family.”

Leo’s jaw flexes. He looks at Ava, an apology in his eyes. “He’s right,” he says quietly. “But so are you. Just… pick a better time to fight him.”

Ava swallows down the thousand truths she *can’t* say—about an underground auction, a drive that could ruin him, a man who hates Vince as fiercely as she sometimes does.

She can’t set that bomb off here. Not yet.

“I’m tired,” she says. “If you want to ground me, dock my allowance, disinherit me, whatever—send the memo like you do for everyone else. I’m going to bed.”

Vince’s nostrils flare. “This conversation isn’t—”

“It is for me,” she says and turns.

“Ava.” His voice cracks like a whip. “Don’t walk away from me.”

Every instinct tells her to stop.

She keeps moving.

Leo’s fingers close gently—but firmly—around her arm.

“Let me,” he says to Vince. “I’ll make sure she understands.”

For a moment, Vince looks like he’ll refuse.

Then he exhales sharply and reaches for his glass. “You have five minutes,” he says. “Then I want a report.”

He turns away, and the phone is already in his other hand. “Get me the commissioner. No, I don’t care what time it is.”

Luca turns the sports back on too loud. Alessandro mutters something about drama queens.

Leo steers Ava down the hall toward her suite.

He doesn’t speak until the door is shut and locked behind them.

The city noise, the TV, even Vince’s voice—everything dulls.

Her suite is the only room in the penthouse that feels like hers: floor-to-ceiling windows, bookshelves she filled herself, a king-sized bed with white linens, photos hidden in drawers where Vince won’t see them.

Leo drops his hand from her arm and looks at her, really looks.

“Now,” he says. “You want to tell me where you *really* were?”

She crosses to the dresser, avoiding the mirror. Pulls open the drawer with the makeup wipes more for something to do than because she cares about mascara.

“Out with Cass,” she says.

“Ava.”

His voice strips the lie bare.

“You hacked the building logs,” she says. “You know I didn’t check a driver or go through the lobby.”

He doesn’t deny it.

“And I know you weren’t at some bar in Brooklyn,” he says. “Because two of my men were there all night, and they’d have died before losing your trail.”

She slams the drawer shut a little too hard.

“Stop handling me like cargo, Leo,” she snaps.

He scrubs a hand over his face. “Stop making me watch you walk blindfolded into gunfire.”

The word hits sharp.

Her fingers still. “You heard something.”

“Everyone with a scanner heard something,” he says. “Shots downtown. Private club. Rumors about a situation below ground. Your phone off. Your tracker off. You come home like…” His gaze moves over her again. “This.”

She lifts a hand to her neck without thinking, fingers brushing the bruised skin. Leo’s eyes narrow, tracking the motion.

“Did someone hurt you?” he asks quietly.

For a flash, she sees Damian’s hand on her jaw, his body shielding hers, his mouth crushing down on hers as bullets flew.

“Not like that,” she says. “I’m fine.”

He doesn’t look convinced. “You smell like gunpowder and bleach.”

She lets out a short, humorless breath. “You have a very weird nose.”

“A useful one.”

He hesitates, then reaches up and brushes his thumb under her eye, wiping away a streak of smeared mascara. The touch is gentle. Familiar.

Too familiar.

“You can’t do this again,” he says. “Whatever you did tonight—if I hadn’t checked the scanners, if I hadn’t seen the pattern—”

“It didn’t go sideways,” she says. “I’m here.”

“But it could have.” His voice is rougher now. “You could be in a bag under a bridge right now, and your father wouldn’t even *know* he lost you. Because you didn’t give me a chance to do my job.”

The last word cracks.

Something in her chest gives a tiny fracture.

He catches himself, jaw tightening, hand dropping. The professional mask slides back on.

“If you hate being watched, fine,” he says. “Hate me later. But for the love of God, Ava, don’t shut me out while you’re walking into live fire.”

“I didn’t ask you to care,” she says, but there’s no heat in it.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “I do.”

Silence hums between them, full of too many unsaid things.

Leo looks away first.

“I’m writing the report as ‘you were with Cass,’” he says. “Don’t make me a liar twice.”

Relief and guilt knot together in her stomach. “Thank you,” she murmurs.

“Don’t thank me,” he replies. “Just stay alive long enough to hate me properly when this blows up.”

He turns toward the door, hand on the knob, then pauses.

“And Ava?” he asks without looking back.

“Yes?”

“If this is about Kade,” he says very quietly, “walk away now. While you still can.”

Her pulse stutters. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve seen his file,” Leo says. “Men like Kade don’t chase what you hide. They make you hand it to them—and thank them for it.”

He leaves before she can find an answer.

The door clicks shut.

Silence rushes back in.

For a minute, Ava just stands there.

Then she crosses to the bathroom and flicks on the light.

Her reflection stares back at her: damp hair, smeared makeup, and dark eyes a little too wide. A faint shadow of redness at her throat that makeup won’t quite cover.

She sets her hands on the marble sink until her knuckles blanch.

*You were reckless,* she tells herself. *You almost died. You let him kiss you. You let him see you. You let him walk out with the drive.*

Her reflection offers no argument.

She tears open a wipe and scrubs foundation, eyeliner, sweat, and someone else’s blood from her skin. No matter how hard she rubs, she can’t erase the phantom feel of his mouth or the heat that answers it low in her belly.

The way her name sounded in his voice.

A soft chime sounds from the bedroom.

She frowns, tosses the used wipe, and walks back out.

Her tablet glows on the nightstand.

New encrypted email. Not from Cass. Not from any of her usual contacts.

Sender: **[e-mail]-node**

Her chest tightens.

She unlocks the tablet and opens it.

No greeting. No signature. Just a timestamp from thirty seconds ago, a single attached image, and one line of text.

She taps the image.

Grainy black-and-white from a high angle. The underground auction hall mid-chaos. Strobing lights frozen. Bodies ducking.

In the center, two figures are disturbingly sharp.

Damian Kade, pinning her to the seat. His mouth on hers. Her hands fisted in his shirt.

The exact second he kissed her to keep her alive.

Her skin goes cold.

Beneath the image, text ticks into focus.

> You shouldn’t have run.

It’s not a threat in all caps. Not a demand. No instructions.

Just a statement.

A fact.

He hadn’t just walked out with the drive that could burn her family.

He walked out with *this*.

Proof she was there. Proof of what he did. Proof of what she let him do.

Her breath catches.

Not from fear.

From a worse realization:

He knows exactly how close he got—and he isn’t done.

Outside the glass, Manhattan burns in lights, breathing like a living animal.

Somewhere out there, Damian Kade is watching the same city and sending her warnings from an encrypted node.

Or maybe not warnings.

Opening moves.

She sets the tablet down more gently than it deserves, as if dropping it might make everything crash faster.

She just doesn’t know yet whether she’s more afraid of what Damian Kade can do to her family—

Or what he’s already starting to turn her into.