All Chapters of Encore with the Devil: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

186 Chapters

Chapter 21 – Lines Crossed

The hangover from the session isn’t in my head.It’s in my throat.By the next morning, my voice feels like sandpaper, and my nerves feel like they’ve been played with a pick.Mia plops down on my bed with her laptop and a bowl of fruit she’s pretending is a balanced breakfast.“Good news,” she says. “The world still thinks you’re missing.”“Comforting,” I mutter.“Better missing than meme’d for a bad live,” she says. “Trust me.”I roll onto my back, staring at the canopy. “We made something yesterday,” I say quietly. “And it’s just…sitting there. He is trapped in his hard drives.”“The track?” she asks. “The devil one?”“The devil I married,” I correct. “And yeah.”She leans back against the headboard. “You knew he wouldn’t just let you drop it on Spotify this morning, right?”“I knew,” I say. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”“The world isn’t ready,” she says. “You drop that bomb now, and between D’Angelo, your label, and the internet, we’ll have to live on Mars.”“I’d look cute in

Chapter 22 – You Want War?

He doesn’t give me long to enjoy my tiny victory.The clip keeps climbing all afternoon. Mia keeps pretending she’s not refreshing every ninety seconds. I keep pretending I’m not listening for his footsteps.By evening, the comments are a blur of guesses and theories.– * This is luna v, I’d bet my rent* – *if this is about who I think it is… yikes* – *devil? mafia? 👀* The villa feels tighter with every notification.I’m in the small sitting room off the hallway, curled in an armchair with my notebook, trying to pretend I care more about a bridge than the digital wildfire outside.I don’t hear him come in.I feel him.The air changes, electric and heavy. The hairs on my arms rise before I even look up.Dante stands in the doorway, still in his white shirt from earlier, sleeves rolled to his forearms. No tie. No jacket. Just a loosened collar and eyes like a storm.He’s holding my phone again.I close the notebook slowly.“Something wrong, Mr. Moretti?” I ask, aiming for light a

Chapter 23 – Morning After Fire

I wake up to the wrong ceiling.Dark wood. Clean lines. There is too much space above my head.Dante’s ceiling.My body realizes it before my brain catches up. Everything aches in slow, low pulses—thighs, hips, the tender inside of my lips. My skin smells like his soap and our sweat.Images hit in flashes.His mouth is on my throat.My nails were in his back.The way he’d said my name like it was both a curse and a prayer.Heat floods my face.The other half of the mattress is empty, but the dip where he slept is still warm. His pillow smells like him. His ring sits on the nightstand beside his watch and phone.I’m naked under the sheet. There are faint red marks on my collarbone and hips, my body looking like a song someone underlined too hard.My chest squeezes—some awful collision of humiliation and something softer I refuse to name.“Careful.”His voice comes from the doorway.I jerk my head up.Dante leans against the frame, watching me.He’s already dressed—charcoal pants, a whi

Chapter 24 – Public Image, Private Hell

By midafternoon, the house feels like it’s vibrating with someone else’s story.Mia finally pries the laptop out of my hands and goes to chase coffee. I shut myself in the studio, trying to bury the fan edits under chords and half-finished lyrics.It doesn’t work.Every time I close my eyes, I see pastel text over Rafael’s face:*she deserves better than the devil.*I’m in the vocal booth, headphones on, mumbling through a melody when the door to the control room opens.I know his footsteps now.I stiffen.Giovanni’s voice, low and deferential: “Signore, there’s something you should—”A few clicks, the faint echo of a video starting.I can’t hear it clearly through the glass and padding, but I recognize the tinny first notes of my leaked demo.My pulse spikes.“Where did you get this?” Dante’s voice, flat.“It’s everywhere now,” Giovanni answers. “Not just the clip. Fans cut it with old footage, sir. With…with her former producer.”Silence.Then Dante: “Show me.”I pull the headphones

Chapter 25 – The Socialite

“Still so polite,” Elena says, straightening with an easy, practiced grace. “I was beginning to think Sicily had tamed you.”Her perfume hangs in the air—expensive, floral, designed to linger.I force my fingers to unclench around my napkin.“And you must be…” she turns to me with a bright, curious smile, as if she hasn’t already cataloged every rumor attached to my name, “…Luna.”Her Italian is smooth, accented in that high‑society way that makes everything sound like a compliment and an insult at once.“Valentine,” I say. “Sometimes.”Her gaze flicks to the ring on my finger, then back to my face. “And sometimes…Moretti?” she asks lightly.“Depends who’s asking,” I murmur.Dante’s hand is still on my knee under the table, heavy and unmoving. Every small shift of his fingers feels magnified.“Elena,” he says, voice cool, “this is my wife.”Something in her smile tightens.“Of course,” she says. “The mysterious Mrs. Moretti. I was beginning to think you were a myth.”She offers her ha

Chapter 26 – The Gala

I don’t get punished the way I expect.No locked doors. No raised voice. No cold shoulder.The morning after I leave with Rafael, the villa runs on the same quiet, expensive efficiency as always. Staff glides in and out. Security murmurs in the halls. Somewhere, Dante moves through his empire like nothing cracked.He doesn’t call me.He doesn’t come to my room.He doesn’t mention the fact that I walked out of a roomful of his people on another man’s arm.The silence is its own kind of punishment.By late afternoon, I’m pacing my room, half waiting for a fight, half dreading it. My phone buzzes every few minutes—Mia, sending me more clips of fan theories and not‑so‑subtle “are you alive?” check‑ins—but there’s nothing from him.At six, there’s a knock at my door.I open it to find a garment bag, a shoe box, and a jewelry case in the hands of one of the house staff.“For tonight, Signora,” she says gently, hanging the bag inside without crossing the threshold further.“Tonight?” I echo.

Chapter 27 – Pieces of Truth

The song ends, but the tension doesn’t.Applause rises around us as if nothing sharp was just thrown at my feet. Dante eases us out of the final turn and releases my hand with a small bow as the quartet slides seamlessly into the next piece.He looks composed.I feel like my insides have been shaken in a jar.“We were supposed to be married, remember?”The words echo with every clap.I pull my hand back the second courtesy allows, step away half a pace.“I need a drink,” I say.He studies my face, eyes narrowing just a fraction, then nods once. A small muscle jumps in his jaw; it’s the only sign anything got under his skin.“Stay where I can see you,” he murmurs.The command rankles.“Try not to misplace me this time,” I say, then turn before he can answer.I slip toward the edge of the room, where servers weave through the crowd and people are more interested in their glasses than in me. I snag a flute of champagne from a passing tray and move toward a quieter corner near a set of ta

Chapter 28 – Break the Devil’s Heart

I spend the next half hour pretending I’m not falling apart.It’s not hard.Years in the industry trained me for this—step into a room, slide on a mask, let the lights bounce off something hard and shiny while the real parts of you hide where no camera can reach.So I smile when someone compliments my last album, laugh when an old radio DJ misquotes my own lyrics back at me, nod graciously when a banker’s wife says, “You look so much…healthier than those tabloid photos from a few years ago.”I even managed to sing a line or two when the director corners me near the stage, insisting on a “little something for the donors.” Just a verse, unamplified, the quartet picking up behind me like they’ve been waiting all night.I do it all with my heart sitting like broken glass in my chest.I don’t look for Dante.I don’t need to.I feel him.A constant gravitational pull somewhere in the room—behind a column, mid‑conversation with a mayor, at the edge of my vision when I talk to anyone tall eno

Chapter 29 – Cold Bed, Hot Mind

The rest of the gala is a blur.We step back into the bright world of music and money like nothing happened. His hand returns to my back, his face smooths out, and my mouth reshapes itself into something that passes for a smile.No one knows that down the hall, we were trying to hurt each other with our mouths and failing and succeeding at the same time.On the drive home, I stare out the window.City lights smear into streaks against the dark glass. The car smells like leather and his cologne. He sits on the opposite side of the back seat, jacket off, shirt collar loosened, watching me in the reflection more than directly.He doesn’t touch me.He doesn’t say anything.Good.Talking would make it worse.When we pull up to the villa, the night is thick and quiet around the stone walls. Crickets. Distant waves. The house glows softly, a monster pretending to sleep.We walk inside together.The staff melts away like smoke.At the base of the stairs, he pauses.“Luna,” he says.I don’t lo

Chapter 30 – Devotion in Secret

“Luna.”His voice hits my spine before the door finishes opening.I freeze, half‑crouched by his desk, the bottom drawer not quite closed, the key still in the lock, my old demo case cold in my hand.I look over my shoulder.Dante stands in the doorway, shirt sleeves rolled to his forearms, tie gone, top buttons undone. His hair is slightly mussed, like he’s run his hand through it one too many times.His eyes go straight to the drawer.Everything in him goes very, very still.For one stretched‑thin second, no one moves.Then he steps inside and quietly closes the door behind him.The click sounds louder than it should.“What are you doing here?” he asks.His voice is low, controlled, but there’s a rough edge under it that wasn’t there at the gala.I straighten slowly, the jewel case still in my fingers.“Couldn’t sleep,” I say.His gaze flicks to the CD, then back to my face.“That’s not an answer,” he says. He nods toward the drawer. “This is my private office.”“So is our bedroom,”

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