All Chapters of BOUGHT,TAMED AND TAKEN : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Luciano’s phone slipped from his hand and hit the marble floor with a clatter, but he didn’t react.Aria was already on her feet.“Luciano—”“He took her,” he said, his voice cold. “Lorenzo has Isadora.”For a split second, there was no sound—just the flickering of candle flames and the echo of that terrible realization settling between them like smoke.“Why?” Aria asked, her heart racing. “What does he want with her?”Luciano’s gaze darkened. “Me.”He didn’t wait for her to say anything more. He was already moving—snatching his jacket off the chair, grabbing a pistol from the drawer beneath the liquor cabinet, sliding a magazine into place with a soft, metallic click.“Luciano,” she stepped into his path. “Wait—don’t go rushing into this.”“I’m not waiting,” he snapped. “Every second she’s with him—”“And every second you go without thinking could get her killed.”He stopped.Chest heaving.Jaw clenched.But he was listening.“I know Lorenzo,” Aria said. “He doesn’t kill without reas

Luciano barely heard the sound of his own breathing. His pulse throbbed in his ears, deafening and brutal.Aria’s body was sprawled on the cold floor behind the glass. Motionless.The chamber was still hissing.Every second dragged claws down his spine.He turned to Isadora, shaking, eyes wild. “Open it.”Isadora’s hand trembled as she typed in a code at the panel. The gas shut off with a mechanical hiss, and the heavy door clicked open.Luciano didn’t wait for it to swing fully.He shoved through and fell to his knees beside Aria, scooping her limp body into his arms.“Aria,” he choked, brushing the hair from her face. “Look at me. Open your eyes. Please.”She stirred faintly.His breath caught.A soft sound escaped her lips, barely more than a sigh. Her lashes fluttered. “Lu…”“I’ve got you,” he whispered, holding her tighter than he ever had. “I’ve got you.”Her fingers curled weakly into his shirt. “Did… I do the right thing?”“Yes,” he said, kissing her forehead, then her lips. “

Luciano didn’t blink as he stared at the grainy image of Isadora captured on the backup feed. The black-and-white still showed her mid-step, calm, composed, but with a duffel slung over one shoulder.Aria stepped beside him. “She deleted the footage… took the drives. Why?”Mateo stood silent at the door, the tension in his posture mirroring the storm brewing in the room.Luciano exhaled through his nose and handed the photo back to Mateo. “Find her. Discreetly. No alarms, no guards. If this is what I think it is, we can’t afford to tip her off.”“Yes, sir.”When the door shut behind Mateo, Aria turned to Luciano. “She helped you find out your father was alive. Why would she do that and then wipe the evidence?”Luciano ran a hand through his hair, pacing.“She didn’t help me. She guided me. There’s a difference.”He moved to the liquor cabinet and poured a finger of scotch, but he didn’t drink it.“She knew I’d go to war if I found out the truth. She gave me just enough to make the fir

The world slowed.Outside the window, beneath the moonlit shroud of trees, the shadow didn’t move—but Aria’s breath caught as if it had already stepped inside her bones. The glass pane between them suddenly felt too thin, too breakable.Luciano pulled her behind him in a blink, one arm tight around her waist as he turned toward Mateo. “Get eyes on that figure. Now.”Mateo was already speaking into his comms, barking orders. A flurry of guards rushed into motion, some storming out toward the north gate, others sweeping the hallways.Luciano turned back to the window just as the figure stepped back into the trees and vanished.He didn’t wait. He dragged Aria toward the hallway, tension thick in every movement. “We’re going underground.”She struggled to keep pace. “Where are we going?”“There’s a vault below the estate,” he said without looking back. “One of the few places only I can access. No signal. No sight lines. He won’t find you there.”“But—what about your people? Your sister? L

Aria sat stiffly at the war room table, her knuckles white where they gripped the edge. The entire estate buzzed with alarms now silenced, and the cold clarity of threat hung heavy in the air. Screens blinked with updated feeds. Guards were being repositioned. Blood was being mopped off the marble in some distant hallway.But nothing, not even the presence of safety, could quiet the noise in her head.Luciano stood beside her, one hand resting protectively on her shoulder. His other held the message they’d taken off the guard’s corpse—written in blood, on a torn page of an old book.The words scrawled across the page were unmistakable:She remembers what she was made for.“What does it mean?” Aria asked finally, her voice quieter than a whisper.No one in the room answered right away.Isadora shifted on her feet near the screens, arms crossed tightly. Mateo leaned against the back wall, eyes dark and unreadable.Luciano answered without looking at her. “I think he’s talking about your