TO LOVE A MONSTER

The black armored SUV sped down the winding, deserted road that led to the Montoya estate. Alessio De Luca sat in the back seat, staring blankly out the tinted window at the blur of darkened trees. The evening sky was heavy with storm clouds, fitting for the kind of night this would be.Inside the car, the tension was suffocating.Across from him, his younger brother Nico scrolled through his phone, expression unreadable. Their father, Lorenzo De Luca, sat beside Alessio, silent and imposing, a glint of cold steel in his eyes. His tailored suit fit him like a second skin, and the faint smell of expensive cologne did nothing to mask the scent of gun oil that clung to him.Alessio swallowed hard.He was expected to marry Isabella Montoya, the only daughter of Javier Montoya, head of the Montoya cartel. A marriage meant to end a decade of bloodshed between their families. A marriage he never asked for. But as the first son and heir, Alessio had never been asked what he wanted.Obedience

The door slammed shut behind Rafael, leaving Alessio alone in the dimly lit room. His back was still pressed against the King sized bed, his lips swollen, his pulse a wild drum beneath his skin. The taste of Rafael lingered on his tongue, a mixture of expensive whiskey, danger, and something Alessio couldn’t name.For a long moment, he couldn’t move.He couldn’t think.He could only feel.His chest heaved as if he’d run for miles, and his legs trembled beneath him. Alessio De Luca, heir to one of the most powerful mafia dynasties in the state, the man raised to be ruthless, untouchable, cold had just made love to a man. Not just any man. To Rafael Montoya. The same man whose sister was promised to him in marriage. The same man who had looked at him tonight like he wanted to kill him…and then kissed him like he’d die without him.What the fuck have I done?But the worst part wasn’t the betrayal, or the risk of being caught. It wasn’t even the guilt over Isabella, his future wife, who

The dining room of the Montoya estate was a gallery of old power and colder memories. Walls lined with paintings of long dead ancestors watched over the evening like silent judges, their stern faces catching the flicker of candlelight. The clink of cutlery, the polite hum of conversation, and the occasional burst of laughter.Rafael Montoya sat at his place, a full glass of deep red wine untouched in front of him, a plate of carefully prepared venison going cold. He could barely hear the conversations around him. Everything else was a blur.All he could feel was the phantom weight of Alessio De Luca against the wall minutes ago.The taste of him.The way Alessio’s mouth had yielded beneath his, the heat of his breath, the sharp hitch in his throat when Rafael had bitten his bottom lip. It had been reckless. A mistake. One Rafael had meant to punish, to reclaim control, to remind Alessio where the power really lay between them.But it hadn’t gone that way.He hadn’t meant to crave it.

The Montoya estate felt like a distant memory by morning.Isabella was radiant as they crossed the threshold of the De Luca estate, her arm linked with Alessio’s. The grand iron gates swung open, the long driveway lined with black cars and guards standing stiff at attention. At the entrance, the household staff waited in a perfect line, heads bowed, dressed in the De Luca black.“Welcome home, Miss Isabella,” the housekeeper said with a slight bow, though there was no mistaking the flicker of calculation in her eyes.Isabella smiled like she’d been born to this.Alessio kept his expression unreadable, though his stomach churned. The world had shifted overnight, and nothing about it felt solid under his feet. He wasn’t just his father’s heir now. He was a man bound to a family that had tried to bury them once. And he was carrying a secret in his blood, in his mouth, in his goddamn hands with Rafael Montoya’s name all over it.The estate was grand, of course. It always had been. Marbl

It had been three days since Isabella moved into the De Luca estate, and already the grand halls felt both suffocating and intoxicating. She was waited on, addressed as Signorina Isabella, seated at the head of tables draped in fine linens, and offered things she didn’t even have to ask for.It was the life she was born for.And yet… the man she was supposed to share it with remained a stranger.Alessio De Luca was a master of appearances. In public, his arm rested lightly around her waist, his words perfectly measured, his smile just enough to suggest fondness. He played the part of devoted fiancé without flaw. But behind closed doors, he was as distant as the moon.Tonight, she planned to change that.The household had retired after dinner. The estate’s endless staff had dispersed, and the last of the guests had left after lingering one glass of scotch too long. Isabella took her time dressing down, letting the tight silk gown fall away in favor of something softer, an ivory satin r