Chapter 1

The suit fit too well.

Tailored down to the last thread, the Italian silk molded to Luca Virelli's frame like armor, as if his life weren’t already stitched with the expectations of men who mistook control for love.

He stared at himself in the mirror of the private dressing room, watching his own reflection like it belonged to someone else.

A crisp white shirt, sleeves perfectly pressed. A navy blazer, double breasted, sharp enough to draw blood.

His father had sent it over this morning. With a handwritten note tucked into the collar.

“A future Virelli should always dress like he belongs to power.”

Luca didn’t smile. He just folded the note in half, then again, then again, until the paper couldn’t bear any more pressure and split down the middle.

He dropped it into the wastebasket like it burned his hands.

Tomorrow was his twenty sixth birthday.

It should’ve meant something, a celebration, a choice, a breath of air. But it wasn’t any of those things.

It was an execution date dressed as a wedding rehearsal.

His engagement would be announced at the Hartwell estate tomorrow night. A strategic merger masked as a romantic union.

Serena Hartwell, poised, intelligent, and impossibly composed, was the daughter of one of the few men Paolo Virelli respected. Or feared. Or perhaps both. Luca couldn’t remember the difference anymore.

He’d met Serena once. Polite dinner. No chemistry. No warmth. She’d smiled like she was checking off a box. He’d smiled back because that’s what he was taught to do. Then they'd shaken hands like two CEOs closing a deal.

Because that’s what they were.

And none of it mattered.

Because she wasn’t the problem.

He was.

Luca sat on the edge of the sleek leather ottoman and let his head fall into his hands.

The silence in the dressing room was thick, too thick. It pressed down on his ribs like a weight, like the air itself didn’t want him to breathe freely.

If he closed his eyes long enough, he could still hear his father’s voice from this morning.

"Son, this is how empires are kept intact. Love has nothing to do with legacy."

Legacy. Image. Dynasty.

Never once: freedom. Never once: desire.

He hadn't told anyone the truth. Not his father. Not Serena. Not his oldest friends, though most of them were more business associates than confidants. No one knew. Because telling meant risking everything. And Luca had learned early: silence was safer than honesty.

Especially when you were gay and your last name was Virelli.

And maybe, once, he thought he’d fight it.

Once, he’d imagined telling Paolo the truth, a dramatic confrontation, a speech about being true to yourself.

But Paolo had a gift. He could look at you and strip the spine right out of your body with a single sentence.

Luca stood again, ran a hand through his dark hair, and took a long breath. He picked up his phone from the marble counter. Messages from assistants, reminders from the press team, a notification from the event planner for tomorrow.

Everything humming along like a machine built to bury him.

He tapped into his contacts and hesitated.

Then he swiped away.

Tonight, he didn’t want assistants or handlers or yes men.

Tonight, he wanted to disappear.

................

The club throbbed with bass and neon.

It was one of the few downtown spots where people didn’t ask for names, and the lighting made secrets easier to keep.

Luca leaned over the bar and ordered a whiskey, neat.

The bartender glanced at his tailored clothes and raised an eyebrow.

“Rough day?”

Luca tossed back the first glass and set it down like a statement. “Make it two.”

He didn’t come to clubs. Not anymore. But tonight… he didn’t want to be himself. He didn’t want to be anyone. And anonymity had a pulse here, wild, seductive, alive.

By the time the third drink was in his hand, he had unbuttoned his shirt halfway down, the jacket thrown over the stool. His hair was slightly mussed, his restraint dissolving with every beat of the music.

He climbed onto the low platform at the center of the bar, arms raised like a man about to surrender or burn. “Drinks on me!” he shouted into the crowd.

A cheer erupted. Someone threw confetti. Someone else tried to climb up with him.

And then, through the heat and sweat and flashing lights, Luca’s gaze caught on a figure near the back.

A man.

Tall, dark hair, leaned back against the wall like he didn’t belong to the chaos. Black t shirt, toned arms, a drink in his hand that hadn’t moved in ten minutes.

But it was his eyes.

Cool. Direct. Slightly amused. Like he saw straight through the glitter and didn’t flinch.

Luca stepped down, heart pounding for a reason that had nothing to do with alcohol. He didn’t think. He just moved. Through the crowd. Past dancers. Past laughter.

Until he was standing right in front of the man.

“Hi,” Luca said, voice low, words slurring just slightly.

The man didn’t answer. Just looked at him.

Luca leaned in, and kissed him.

Not soft. Not questioning.

Like a man clinging to his only moment of truth.

And the stranger?

He kissed him back.

They didn’t speak again until the hotel room door clicked shut behind them. Clothes were half off before they reached the bed.

Hands roamed. Teeth grazed skin. The stranger was strong, sure, his grip rough in a way that made Luca gasp, not from pain, but from the terrifying freedom of feeling something.

In the dark, between tangled sheets, there were no legacies, no billion dollar names.

No engagement announcements.

Just a man who made him forget and Luca thought foolishly, beautifully, that he would never see him again. That this night would vanish like smoke in the morning.

He had no idea that fate had a crueler plan.