Chapter 6

Luca jolted upright, breath ragged, the sheets twisted around his legs like restraints. The room was dark, save for the faint blue glow bleeding in through the half-shuttered window. He could still feel it—the heat of the flames, the cracking of wood and glass, the ruin of everything he had built turning to ash in Dimitri’s hands.

His heart thundered. The dream hadn’t been like the others. It was too real. Too pointed.

In it, Dimitri had smiled—calm, cruel—as he stood atop the wreckage of Luca's empire. The office, the villa, even the vineyard—gone. And at the center of it all stood *her*.

He couldn’t make out her face, not clearly. She’d stood between them, unmoved by the chaos around her. Her dress—white, or maybe red—billowed like smoke, and her voice was a whisper beneath the roar of the fire.

“He warned you, Luca. You didn’t listen.”

Luca ran a hand over his face, slick with sweat. He didn’t know who she was. But she *mattered*. The way she looked at him in the dream—it wasn’t pity. It was something colder. Like she knew what was coming.

The dream clung to him as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. He crossed to the window, pushed it open, letting the cool night air wash over him. Somewhere out there, Dimitri was moving pieces. The old rivalry, once dormant, was rising again.

And now… there was a woman in the middle of it.

*Six years ago*,

 In the grand marble halls of a so-called neutral estate in Montenegro, Luca and Dimitri had once stood side by side—not as friends, but as uneasy collaborators.

The Volkov arms syndicate had been losing ground to Luca’s operations in the south, and instead of open war, the syndicate's elders had pushed for a deal. The deal had one condition: shared intel, joint shipment, a show of unity to deter external enemies.

It worked—for about three months.

Then came the raid in Thessaloniki. A warehouse holding arms, records, and lives—all destroyed in what was supposed to be a secured operation. Luca had been tipped off last-minute, barely escaping. Dimitri, however, emerged untouched—too untouched. Smiling, even.

“You sold us out,” Luca had said in the ash-choked aftermath, gripping Dimitri by the collar. “You knew what was coming.”

Dimitri had only smiled, eyes glinting with cold pleasure. “I warned you. Power isn’t something you share, Luca. It’s something you take.”

That night, thirteen of Luca’s men died. Since then, their truce shattered like glass, and blood filled the cracks. They haven’t been in the same room since, but their shadows have fought in every alley, every black market port, every coded message across Europe.

For Luca, it wasn’t just betrayal—it was a declaration of war.

*present day*

Luca stood at the threshold of Emilia’s room, the remnants of his dream still clinging to his skin like sweat. It had been the kind of nightmare that doesn’t end when your eyes open—the kind that leaves you questioning what’s real.

Emilia lay curled under a thin sheet, bathed in the bluish glow of early morning. Her chest rose and fell with the rhythm of deep sleep, her face softened, vulnerable in rest. He stepped closer, quiet as a shadow.

For the first time, he really looked at her.

Not Isa.

Not the girl who disappeared with everything—his trust, his savings, a part of his youth.

Emilia wasn’t a ghost from his past. She was here, real, unguarded.

His eyes fell to her thighs where the sheet had slipped up. Ink marked her skin—an elephant, small and proud, its trunk raised. He had seen something similar on Isa, hers was a turtle. 

Just as he was about to leave he noticed another ink on her wrist,  the unmistakable figure-eight loops of a double infinity. Not just one eternity—two. Bound together.

Something shifted in him. A quiet cracking. Not loud enough to be called healing, but enough to let light in. The tattoo somehow had great meaning to him, but he didn’t stay any longer to find out what.

It had been four days now, Emilia hadn’t stepped out of her room after she and Luca’s room moment, she had been too embarrassed. Word had gotten to Luca that she hadn’t eaten or stepped out of her. After his meeting he ordered them to serve dinner for two, Marco tried remind him that Emilia hadn’t been down but his words were just background noise at that moment.

Luca didn’t knock.

He didn’t even hesitate.

The gunshot tore through the silence of the house, splintering the wooden door to Emilia’s room. The crash echoed like thunder through the halls. Emilia jolted awake, heart leaping, eyes wide with panic—but before she could speak, before she could even sit up, he was already there.

Boots crunching over shards of the ruined door.

Luca’s face was unreadable—stone-carved, jaw clenched tight, eyes distant and hollow, like whatever tethered him to reason had finally snapped.

She barely had time to draw a breath before his arms wrapped around her. No words. No explanation. He lifted her like she weighed nothing and slung her over his shoulder.

“Luca—” she tried, voice cracking—but he said nothing.

The cold metal of his pistol brushed her bare thigh as he turned and marched down the hallway. She didn’t struggle. Not out of trust—no, this wasn’t that. It was confusion. Shock. Maybe fear.

He carried her straight into the dining room. He set her down in a chair with the same strange calm that had brought him there.

Then, finally, he spoke—his voice low, hoarse, barely controlled.

“Eat.”

She blinked at him, disoriented. “What the hell is going on?”

But Luca just stood there. Watching. As if trying to convince himself that she was real, that she was still Emilia—not Isa in disguise, not a thief in borrowed skin. The dream still clung to him, claws digging in.

And yet now, in the light of day, she looked nothing like Isa. Just a girl. Startled. Tattooed. Real.

“you’re going to fucking eat your Emilia, and God help you that even a grain of rice is left on the plate.”

“Nobody fucking starves in my house, nobody stays locked up either.”

The room went quiet, with only the interaction between the cultery and fine china plate to indicate life. Emilia broke off the silence

“Sorry about your door” she said genuinely

“Fuck the door” Luca replied sternly. “Why did you lock yourself in for days?”

“I didn’——”

“Don’t you dare lie to me.” His fingers flexed over the gun. He didn’t lower it.

“I was too embarrassed” she said shortly

“Why?? You’ve never been kidnapped before?” He responded sarcastically

“No i haven’t.” she blinked multiple times, as if it would spare her embarrassment. “I just hadn’t……….I’ve never found someone so proud and full of himself devastatingly handsome and also highly insensitive too. So no, i haven’t”

Luca layed back on his chair, unfazed by her outburst.

“Are you on any birth control?” he asked casually 

Emilia was shocked and confused by his question, but she responded, “no.”

“You and your little art boy didn’t fuck, or he didn’t have the balls to?” her mind for a second thought about Liam and what he was up to, but she quickly snapped out of it, and was yet to provide an answer to Luca’s question.

He stood, walking to her chair, he removed her from her chair and roughly placed her on the dinner table, he was in between her thighs, her legs wrapped around his waist. He used his index and traced her body down to he opening, rubbing her wet entrace, he slid two of his fingers inside, a soft moan escaping her lips, he took out his fingers and licked off all her juice from them. The heat in the room was heavy, hot, he kissed her lips again, this time not searching for smoke or jasmine, but trying to see what she tasted like. Vanilla. Strawberry. Ice cream. 

“You haven’t answered my question yet?” He said as he unbuckled his belt. Before he could remove anything further she blurted out

“I haven’t done this before Luca”

He paused his action, giving her his complete attention, 

“done what?”

“I’m a virgin.”

He fastened his belt with deliberate precision, the metal buckle clinking softly in the quiet.

Emilia lay on the dining table, her body still, breathing shallow, hair tangled across her cheek and shoulder like dark ink spilled on pale skin.

He moved back to his chair without looking at her, dragging it slightly before sitting down with the weight of someone who didn’t quite trust the ground beneath him.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then, voice low and toneless, he asked,

“Why haven’t you ever done anything with anyone?”

The question lingered in the air between them like smoke—unexpected, intimate, edged with suspicion and something else he wouldn’t name.

Emilia’s eyes flicked up to him, hesitant but clear. There was no shame in her face, only something quieter. 

She pushed herself up slightly on her elbows, still breathless. “Because I never wanted to,” she said, her voice rough but steady. “Not really. Not with anyone.”

Luca’s jaw ticked.

“I waited,” she continued. “Stupid, maybe. But I thought… I thought Isa would come back. Thought one day she’d sit down with me and just tell me how it was for her.

“And now?” he asked.

Emilia looked at him, not smiling, but not looking away either. “Now I don’t need Isa to show me anything.” Her voice was quieter. Warmer. “I wanted this. I wanted you.”

Luca exhaled, sharp and silent. He looked at her then like she was something he couldn’t decide whether to hold or run from.

The table creaked faintly beneath her as she sat all the way up and got up to her feet. She fastened her robe around her almost naked body and retired to her room without saying any other thing.

Later that night, the house was silent except for the occasional creak of wood settling into the darkness.

Emilia lay in bed, curled beneath the thin sheet, eyes wide open. The ceiling was just a blur in the shadows, but she wasn’t seeing it anyway.

She was still in the dining room. Still on that table. Still feeling Luca’s touch like a memory etched under her skin.

How could she have felt so safe with someone like him?

A man who didn’t knock, who shot her door open, who carried her like it was war.

And yet—when he touched her, when he looked at her like that… she hadn’t been afraid. Not really.

She would have given it. Freely.

Not because she was curious or reckless. But because she wanted to.

Because, somehow, Luca—with all his violence and silence and darkness—had made her feel seen.

Wanted.

Safe.

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and closed her eyes, replaying the weight of his hands, the heat of his breath, the way he hadn’t said a word—but hadn’t needed to.

And for the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like Isa’s shadow.

She felt like someone new.

Her own name. Her own choice.

Across the house, Luca sat alone in the armchair, his back to the fireplace that had long since gone cold. His shirt was unbuttoned, forgotten. The pistol sat on the table beside a half-empty glass of water he hadn’t touched.

He stared at nothing, jaw set, mind elsewhere.

Emilia.

The way she’d looked at him—not with fear. Not even with innocence. But with something more dangerous: trust.

It shook him.

She was untouched. Untouched in a way Isa never was—Isa, who took what she wanted and left the wreckage behind.

Emilia would have given herself without game, without mask. No manipulation. No agenda. Just… a quiet kind of surrender.

And he hadn’t known what to do with that.

Still didn’t.

He’d tried to tell himself she was the same. The same eyes, the same face.

But she wasn’t.

Not even close.

She wasn’t Isa.

She was Emilia.

And that—somehow—terrified him more.

The next two weeks passed in silence. Not peace—silence.

The kind that hangs in the air like smoke, thick with unspoken words, fragile and flammable.

After that night in the dining room, something between them broke open… and neither of them knew how to face it.

Luca didn’t speak of it.

Didn’t even look at her, not directly.

He threw himself into work with a kind of desperation—out early, back late. There were more shipments to oversee, more meetings, more calls in hushed tones behind closed doors. If anyone noticed the way he moved harder, faster, sharper than usual, they didn’t say a word. Luca wore his silence like armor.

Emilia, for her part, vanished into the corners of the house.

She made the old library which was  tucked behind a heavy oak door on the second floor, and made it her refuge.

The room was dust-lined and quiet, with shelves that bent under the weight of time—Italian poetry, faded law books, leather-bound history volumes, and forgotten ledgers. She devoured them.

She started with language—Italian verbs scribbled into a notebook, lips mouthing unfamiliar sounds until they tasted like her own. She studied the traditions, the customs, the history of a country she barely remembered but wanted to claim as hers.

She wore headphones when Luca passed through the halls, headphones he had sent Marco to deliver and an iPod. She never sat at the dining table. Not anymore.

When their paths did cross—brief moments in the kitchen, the stairs, the edges of the garden—there was a tension between them so thick it made the air hum. No words. Just a nod. A glance. Averted eyes.

Emilia thought about that night every time she closed a book.

About the way he hadn’t asked—but hadn’t forced.

About how she could have given herself to him and how after telling him her big secret, she had waited for something—anything—to come next.

But nothing did.

Luca never came to her room.

Never even mentioned it.

And that, somehow, hurt more than if he had pushed her away outright.

So she retreated deeper into the pages, into the rhythm of Italian phrases and family histories that weren’t hers but felt like pieces of something she could become.

He worked.

She read.

And neither of them knew how to say what they were really thinking.