The Calm Before the Storm

Serena:

I woke before the house remembered how to breathe.

No footsteps. No slamming doors. No whispered arguments behind study walls or fists flying in jealous rage.

Only shadows. And mine was already moving.

The air outside was cold enough to bite. It gnawed at my skin as I slipped into the backseat of the black sedan waiting by the gate.

The driver didn’t ask questions.

He didn’t have to.

He knew better than to ask why the girl with bloodlines in her bones and bruises blooming beneath her jaw wanted to vanish before dawn. Matteo had given one order when it came to me—serve, protect, never question.

And still, this felt like betrayal. Like the breath before a slap.

I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving. Not Matteo, not Luca, not Nico.

I was breaking one of their rules, maybe all of them. But after yesterday, I wasn’t sure I gave a damn.

I didn’t care if I angered them.

Not Matteo, with his sketches of me in ash and ink, trying to preserve what he never bothered to ask if I wanted.

Not Luca, with his hands that could cradle or crush, always one heartbeat from ruin.

Not Nico, with his quiet violence and a stare that made me feel like prey wrapped in silk.

Because this time—I wasn’t theirs.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

The car wound down coastal roads while the sky peeled back from indigo to bruised lavender. I watched the sunrise from the safety of the leather seat, my face turned toward the horizon.

For the first time in weeks, I felt something close to clarity.

They’d marked me like property. Whispered about protection. About power. About legacy.

But none of them had ever asked what I wanted.

So I made a decision.

The campus wasn’t far—only twenty minutes into the city—but it might as well have been another universe.

Weather-worn stone. Ivy-choked windows. Students drifting through the early fog like ghosts pulled from oil paintings.

Here, no one knew me.

Not as the girl in Luca’s lap. Not as Matteo’s muse. Not as Nico’s unspoken promise.

Here, I was just Serena.

And that was enough.

I walked into the admissions office like I belonged there.

Because I would.

My mother’s forged records were tucked safely in my bag. Her name still opened doors—locked ones. Dangerous ones. The kind people whispered about, even if they didn’t say it aloud.

The receptionist didn’t blink when she read the last name.

She just said, “We’ve been expecting you.”

I felt different when I stepped out into the central courtyard, with a class schedule in hand and a student ID still warm in my palm.

Not clean. Not free.

But sharpened.

Like a blade, finally drawn from its sheath.

That’s when I saw him.

He was leaning against the iron railing near the fountain. Mist curled around his shoes. His dark curls were damp. He had a book in one hand—sunglasses in the other.

He looked up when I passed.

And smiled.

Not like a stranger.

Like someone who already knew me.

Knew who owned me.

“Serena,” he said, like the name belonged on his tongue.

I stopped. Turned.

He tucked the sunglasses into his pocket like he had all the time in the world.

“Took you long enough,” he said, stepping closer, “to come play with the rest of us.”

His voice was low—silk, smoke, and steel.

The ring on his finger caught the morning light. Silver. Two serpents biting each other’s tails.

The Moretti crest.

I’d seen it in one of Matteo’s files, buried deep. A warning more than a record.

I didn’t speak.

Didn’t need to.

He walked toward me slowly, deliberately, like the world tilted in his direction.

“I’m Dante,” he said, stopping short of touching distance. “But I think your family already knows that.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re a Moretti.”

His smile deepened—sleek and sinful.

“And you’re the only thing Romano, Rivera, Vassallo, and Moretti have ever agreed on.”

“Oh yeah?” I arched a brow. “What’s that?”

“That you’re too dangerous to touch.”

I didn’t flinch. He saw it. Liked it.

“Maybe they’re right,” he added, voice dipping lower. “But I like dangerous.”

His eyes trailed over me—not leering, not possessive. Measuring.

Not what I was.

What I could become.

“Do they know you’re here?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.

“Thought so.” He let out a quiet laugh. “Let me guess. You needed air. Space. Something that didn’t smell like control.”

I said nothing, but the heat under my skin answered for me.

“You’re not like them,” he said. “Not really. You don’t crave the leash, even when they wrap it in silk.”

His words were soft. Deadly.

“You don’t want to be claimed, Serena. You want to choose.”

I clenched my jaw. “You think you know me.”

“I do know you,” he said, stepping closer, close enough for me to see the cut of his mouth, the gleam in his eyes. “Because I’ve watched them make the same mistake with every girl they try to keep.”

“I’m not a girl they’re keeping,” I said flatly.

“No,” he agreed. “You’re the girl who burns the house down.”

He slipped something from his coat and pressed it into my hand.

A black card. Embossed.

Midnight. Twelve Gates Club. Ask for the Black Room.

My stomach twisted—a thrill and a warning.

“When you’re ready to stop being a pawn,” he said, backing away, “come see what the other side of the board looks like.”

“And what? You’ll make me a queen?”

His grin was slow. “No, cara mia. You’ll make yourself one. I’ll just get out of the way.”

He turned. Walked off without looking back.

And vanished into the morning mist like a secret that knew how to keep itself.

When I returned, the house was awake.

Matteo’s sketchbook was open on the table, and it was a new, unfinished sketch—me again, of course. Always me.

Luca’s jacket was gone from the hall.

Nico’s boots were muddy by the stairs, trailing evidence of another night that reeked of secrets.

But none of them knew I’d left.

None of them knew I’d enrolled.

None of them knew I’d met him.

And that for the first time since walking through the carved doors of this cursed house, I wasn’t waiting to be claimed.

I was preparing to choose.

I used to think the war was between them—Romano, Rivera, Vassallo, Moretti.

But now I saw it clearly.

I wasn’t a part of their battlefield.

I was the fire that would burn it all down.

And one day soon, they would learn—It’s not the families who win.

It’s the girl who survives them all.