Chapter 5: Facing him..... Again!

Chapter 5: Facing him..... Again!

Viktor De Luca's soft touch at the tip of my fingers pulled me back to reality. I blinked and straightened, reminding myself—again that I was Sierra De Luca now. I wasn’t Elena tonight. I could never be her again, not after everything. I forced the ghost of her away and lifted my chin, straightening up my back and maintaining the composure I imagined sierra De Luca must have had when she was alive.

I looked away from Dante and walked toward the red carpet beside my father. After a few steps, after all the formalities for the camera and the blinding flashes, he left my side, already shaking hands with men in tailored suits and practiced smiles. In my head, his voice echoed—the same words he had drilled into me for the last six months.

“You are my heir now. You need to look like it. Own every room you walk into. There must not be a single sign of weakness in you when you face them."

"Them" included Dante, it included Viviana, whom I now sought for with my eyes around the crowd, it included all the men in tailored suits who watched from the side of their eyes, waiting to see the stuff I was made of.

So I pretended I did, like I owned the room.

The whispers started almost immediately, brushing across my skin like cold fingers.

“Sierra De Luca is back.”

“Back from the dead?”

“I heard she survived an assassination attempt.”

I ignored all of them and greeted the Mafia lords and business partners lingering around, offering polite smiles when required and steel when needed. Only when I had fulfilled my obligations did I slip away and make my way to the bar.

I ordered wine—his wine. Dante’s favorite. The same one we drank the first day we met. The memory hit me like a punch, bittersweet and sharp. I took a slow sip and leaned against the counter, letting the glass cool my fingers.

It was almost sudden when I felt it.

A shift in the air.

A pull.

A familiar heat crawling up my spine.

His presence, the presence of the man I had spent five years of my life loving.

My breath faltered even before I turned. My heart stuttered, recognizing him in a way that angered me. There was an electric shock beneath my skin, warning me that even now—especially now, he could still get under it.

“Hello, Miss De Luca,” he said as he stepped beside me, his voice smooth and devastatingly calm. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.”

I forced myself to look at him, to keep my expression neutral.

“I don’t think we have,” I replied, trying to steady the chaos in my chest.

He extended his hand.

When our fingers brushed, a spark shot straight through me.

“Your return has caused quite a stir,” he said as our hands finally met.

My pulse hammered.

I hated that he could still do that to me.

Electricity coursed through my body so violently it was a wonder I remained standing. Memories slammed into me all at once, things I had buried, things I wasn’t supposed to feel anymore. I wondered if he felt it too.

But the answer was right there in his eyes.

He did.

The subtle flicker I saw in his eyes which almost disappeared immediately told me he did too.

Still as calculative as ever, huh?

“You are Sierra De Luca, I suppose,” Dante said, voice steady but eyes betraying something else—confusion? Interest? Recognition he couldn’t quite place?

“And you are Dante Russo,” I answered.

I withdrew my hand immediately, needing the distance or else my disguise, my resolve might crack. His gaze followed the movement, then drifted down to the wine in my glass.

“I find it fascinating that you know me,” he said, settling onto the bar stool beside mine and ordering wine for himself.

“Who wouldn’t know Dante Russo—the famous, ambitious business tycoon?” I said, lifting my glass to my lips. I watched him through the rim, assessing him the way he was assessing me.

Something flickered in his eyes again. Unsettled. Curious. That look he used to give me when he was trying to figure out what I was thinking. I couldn’t tell if it was faint recognition or my own wishful imagination trying to stab me.

His cologne drifted toward me—warm, earthy, maddeningly familiar. For a moment, it dragged me straight into the past, into his arms, into nights I should have forgotten. I clenched my jaw and forced the memories back into the grave where they belonged.

“I am delighted that you know me,” he said. And for a split second, I could swear he looked…nervous. Dante Russo—nervous. Over me.

I let out a small chuckle and took another sip of my wine. “Maybe one of these days, we can get to work together,” I said, holding his gaze and letting a bright, practiced smile form on my lips.

The effect was immediate. He brightened, clearly intrigued, clearly wanting to respond...

But before he could, Viviana appeared beside him.

She had on a red dress that clung tightly to her body.

She glided to his side like a snake in silk, her perfectly manicured hand curling possessively around his arm.

I felt my chest tighten—not in jealousy, but in raw, unfiltered disgust. Her presence was cold and venomous, the kind that could rot fruit on a tree. She looked at me with the practiced smile of a woman who believed she owned the room, the man, and the narrative.

Her eyes slid over me slowly, calculatingly, trying to place me, trying to size me up. I met her gaze head-on, unfazed, letting her see nothing—none of the recognition, none of the history, none of the fire simmering under my skin.

On the outside, I smiled politely.

Here comes the devil, the orchestrator of everything, the main highlight of the night.

Viviana, my step sister, whom I would soon cause to crumble.