The Night Before

The week went by like most weeks in the De Luca house before a big event, with a slow tension building. Everyone's nerves were strained beneath a veneer of politeness.

Leon stood in front of the mirror in his tailor's fitting room, arms extended at his sides as the seamstress pinned the final touches onto his jacket. It was black and sharply cut, with a deep emerald thread sewn so subtly into the lapel that it only caught the light when he moved. His mother had picked the color. “De Luca green,” she had said, as if it were obvious, as if there had been no other option.

"Turn," the seamstress said softly. Leon turned, watching his reflection with a sense of distant discomfort.

The collar was high. Higher than fashion dictated. It was high enough to conceal what needed hiding, and his mother hadn't questioned his request. She just assumed it was about looking elegant for the Ashworth family's biggest event of the year and accepted it.

"You look wonderful," Elena said from the chair by the window, gazing at her son with the pride of a mother who didn't truly understand what she was seeing. "Adrian will be speechless."

Leon met his own eyes in the mirror and stayed silent.

Three days before the gala, the ache became too strong to hide behind long sleeves and high collars alone.

It came in waves, unpredictable and sudden, catching him off guard during dinner or in the middle of a conversation with his mother about seating plans. He learned to spot the first sign of a tightening low in his chest, like a breath he couldn't release and he excused himself before it showed on his face.

He was in the garden three days out, sitting on the low stone bench near the fountain that he used to escape to as a child, when Rafael found him.

"You've been hiding out here a lot lately." Rafael sat down next to him without asking, stretching his legs out like he belonged there. "Is the gala prep stressing you out? Or is it something else?"

"Just tired."

"You're always tired these days." Rafael tilted his head, studying him with that same sharp, assessing look he had worn since the morning after the club. That morning, Leon had come home in a car he had called himself, refusing to explain where he had been the night before. "You know, for someone marrying into one of the wealthiest families in the city, you don't seem very happy about it."

"I'm happy." Leon focused on the fountain.

"Sure." Rafael smiled, but something unkind lurked beneath it. "You know, if you ever decide you don't want him, you could just say so. I'm sure someone else in this family would be thrilled to take your place."

Leon looked at him then, finally understanding the meaning behind Rafael's tone. "Is that what this is about?"

"I don't know what you mean." Rafael stood, brushing off his trousers and returning to his carefree attitude. "I'll see you at the gala, cousin. Try not to faint on anyone important this time."

He left before Leon could respond, and Leon stayed alone by the fountain a while longer. The ache in his chest continued its slow, steady rhythm, indifferent to everything else around it.

Across the city, Damian stood in his own fitting room while a tailor made the final adjustments to a jacket he couldn’t remember picking the fabric for. Marco had managed that, as he did with most things that didn’t require Damian's direct attention. It was black, structured, and cut close through the shoulders.

The details didn’t matter to him, except that in four days, he would be in a room with a boy whose absence had somehow become louder than most people’s presence.

"Sir." Marco appeared in the doorway, tablet in hand, waiting for the tailor to step back before continuing. "The De Luca family has confirmed their attendance. The full guest list came in this morning."

"Read it."

Marco scrolled through. "Alessandro and Elena De Luca. Their son Leon." A pause. "His fiancé, Adrian Castellano, will also be there confirmed separately under the Castellano party."

Damian's reflection stayed unchanged, though something behind his eyes grew still.

"There's also a nephew," Marco added. "Rafael De Luca. He’s a minor branch of the family, but he'll be there."

"I don't care about the nephew." Damian shrugged out of the jacket, handing it back to the tailor without looking at him. "I want to know where the De Luca party will be seated. Which side of the hall? Whether Sharmayne has found anything yet."

"She hasn't reached out."

"Then call her again."

Marco hesitated, as he had for the past week, before every question involving Leon De Luca's name. "Sir—can I ask what you’re planning, exactly? Once you're both in the same room?"

Damian didn’t respond for a long moment. He stood at the window, gazing out at the city he had spent his whole life trying to control. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he genuinely didn’t know the answer.

"I don't know," he finally admitted, his voice low, almost to himself. "I just know I need to see him."

The night before the gala, Leon lay awake again. The mark pulsed beneath his collarbone in the dark, and he found himself thinking for the first time since that morning three weeks ago when he had walked out of Damian's private room and told himself it would never happen again about what it would be like to stop running from it.

He didn’t let the thought finish. He turned onto his side, pressed a hand over the mark as if he could still the feeling, and waited for sleep that wouldn’t come. Meanwhile, across the city, in a room just as dark, Damian Moretti lay awake, staring at a ceiling that offered no answers either. They were both trapped in the same slow, aching countdown toward a room neither of them could avoid entering.