Chapter 10

Fiorella

I was walking. The marble beneath my feet was cold against the skin of my toes, but I didn't feel it. I was in a cycle, reliving in my head the attack on the warehouse again and again, the blood, the message scrawled down his back, the ambush at my front door.

I'd been gathering enemies for years, but none bold enough to leave bodies as calling cards. None dumb enough to come in my front door.

I moved to the floor-to-ceiling window of my bedroom and gazed out into the darkness. My father's guards infested every place, double shifts, heavy-gated fences, cameras replaced twice this week alone. But even steel walls could not calm the storm within me.

A soft knock.

"Come in."

My father intervened. No tuxedo tonight,  just a black shirt, rolled sleeves, face as hard as stone. Leadership's weight never departed his shoulders, and tonight it looked more burdensome than ever.

"I have spoken to Rafael De Luca," he declared without foreword. "He will be joining us."

"I guessed he would."

He emerged to stand alongside me, eyes sweeping the grounds just as my own had.

"Someone's playing a risky game, figlia mia."

I didn't answer. My mind was already running through names, possibilities, motives.

"You're not sleeping tonight, are you?" he asked gently.

"I can't."

He sighed heavily, wearily. "I taught you to be strong. To take command. But even the strongest leaders need a little peace."

I rose to face him. "Peace isn't on the agenda at the moment."

A ghost of a smile played across his mouth, but it did not reach his eyes.

"Any leads?" he asked.

"Nothing concrete." I clenched my fists. "Whoever this is… they've been watching us for months. They know where we live, where we keep our men, how we operate. It's not random."

"Inside betrayal?"

"Maybe."

He released a slow breath, then pulled out his phone and handed it to me.

"Look."

It was a message received on his encrypted line.

Unknown Number: Your daughter's life has an expiration date. Tick tock.

I hung up the phone, its weight in my chest heavier.

"They're mocking us," I muttered.

"Good." His voice had become cold. "Only cowards mock. We will destroy them."

I nodded once.

"I am going to visit the De Lucas tomorrow," he went on. "We will make arrangements."

I hesitated. "Rocco… he is a danger. But he's smart. We worked well tonight."

My father raised an eyebrow. "Worked well?

I kept my face stern. "Strictly business."

"Fiorella…"

"I know." I cut him off. "I'm not here to fall in love with a man, papa. I'm here to protect the family."

He placed a hand on my shoulder, his fingers tightening.

"I raised a lioness," he said quietly. "But even lions bleed."

I tensed. "Then I'll make them bleed first."

A buzzing sound interrupted us. His burner phone again.

He read the message. His expression turned icy.

“What is it?" I asked.

He gave me the phone.

Unknown Number: Two families. One coffin.

A video had been attached.

I pressed play.

One of our trucks showed, one of our deliveries last night. I thought for a second that it was a surveillance video. until the explosion lit up the screen, shredding the vehicle into flames and wreckage.

My breath stopped.

They weren't threatening anymore.

They'd declared war.

"They want us to strike back," I gasped.

"And we will." My father's eyes were ice steel.

The room when my father left was as loud as a shot.

He'd marched out, already convening meetings, giving orders, setting up for battle. That was his style: action, strategy, fierce brutality.

Mine? I required silence. I required quiet. But both were impossible tonight.

I closed the door to my room, locking it behind me. My heart still pounding, but now for reasons I didn't quite understand.

I sat on the edge of my bed, elbows on knees, hands in hair.

We'd been ambushed twice. Two separate attacks within hours of one another. First at the club. Then at the warehouse. I should be focused. I should be cold. Calculating. Brutal.

And yet, my mind. wandered.

To him.

Rocco De Luca.

The man was flame and ice, confined in human flesh. The second De Luca brother — the most cruel, the most brutal. The one who didn't feel, so they said.

I snorted under my breath to myself. He felt. I saw it.

The way he'd walked at the club,  no hesitation. His arm brushing mine when we fought back-to-back. His voice, cold steel but firm, telling me to reload and provide cover for him. The adrenaline, the chaos, and him somehow unshakable amidst the chaos.

And in the warehouse…

I shivered.

We could have died . They had us surrounded. But he'd stayed close, movements precise, deadly, efficient. We covered each other like we'd done it for years.

And there was something hot about that.

I'd never say it out loud.

I lay back on the bed, looking up at the chandelier, my breathing harsh.

Power. Control. Command.

He radiated it.

Not so much the way he battled, but the way he glanced at me. As though he could tear me apart with his eyes alone. As though I were a problem he'd unravel piece by painful piece, solely to see what lay inside of me.

It was.alluring.

And lethal.

I never lowered my defences. Never for any individual. I had been taught to be harder, wiser, keener than any male in this kind of profession.

But the thought persisted.

How would he be in bed?

I sucked in my lip, my face becoming hot.

Would he command there too? Command the room as he had with the gun in his hand? Or would he be crude — uncouth and unruly, an animal at last out of its chains?

Oh God, I disliked that I wanted to know.

I hated that somewhere, in between bullets and blood, I’d started wondering if he’d pin me down with the same authority he used on the battlefield.

If his hands would grip my thighs the way they gripped his gun,  sure, steady, unrelenting.

If he’d pull my hair, tilt my head back, and whisper filthy things in that cold, lethal voice of his.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

No.

Focus.

I jerked up into a sitting position, wheezing.

I had a target on my back. Someone out there was out to kill me.

But I could only think about how his hand had touched the small of my back after the fight, possessive, protective. The pressure of it lingered long after he'd turned and walked away.

I cursed, getting to my feet and pacing again.

This wasn't me. I didn't do distractions.

But Rocco De Luca. he wasn't just a distraction.

He was temptation.

And temptations in our world got people killed.

My phone buzzed on the bedside table.

I picked it up, hoping to receive some intel.

It was him.

Rocco: Still breathing, mafia queen?

I swallowed. My fingers hovered over the screen before I sent:

Me: Disappointed?

He responded too fast.

Rocco: Not yet.

I could almost hear the smile in his words.

I tossed the phone onto the ground like it had burned me.

My chest rose and fell too quickly.

Damn him.

I walked to the mirror. My shoulder was bound tight, the bruising spreading. My lip still had a small cut from the warehouse fight.

I was a mess.

But in my eyes? Fire.

He called me mafia queen.

I smiled.

If he thought I was a queen, he hadn't even begun to see what I could do.

And if he wanted to mess around with fire, he'd get burned for it.