Blood on the Lace
1680 Words
Chapter 3
Blood on the Lace
(Sofía Valentín)
The silence of the D’Luca mansion was not a silence of peace; it was the silence of a tomb before something begins to claw at the coffin lid.
After Bianca’s visit, the air in my room felt contaminated. "Mafia brides don’t usually have anniversaries," she had said. Her words played on a loop in my head like a dark mantra as I stared at myself in the mirror, dressed in white. The lace of the dress, which had once seemed like a work of art, now felt like a fishing net designed to immobilize me.
I couldn’t just sit there waiting for the tailor to finish pricking me with pins. I needed air. I needed to remember that I still possessed a will of my own.
"I am finished for now," said the tailor, a nervous little man who avoided my eyes. "I will go prepare the veil."
As soon as he left, I kicked off my heels. I knew it was foolish, but the survival instinct is irrational. I opened my bedroom door. To my surprise, the hallway was empty. The guards Aaron had posted must have been doing their rounds, or perhaps they relied too heavily on the house's electronic security.
I walked barefoot across the carpet, the heavy white dress trailing behind me like a shadow made of snow. My steps led me toward the west wing of the mansion, an area that seemed less inhabited. I crossed a stone archway and found myself on an internal balcony overlooking a two-story library.
Below, the shadows were long. And in the middle of them, I saw a familiar silhouette.
It was Aaron. His back was to me, facing a massive window. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. The moonlight bathed his back, revealing a map of scars and tattoos that told a story of violence his expensive suits usually concealed. There was a bullet wound near his shoulder and thin lines that looked like knife cuts.
I caught my breath. Seeing him like this, stripped of his Don’s armor, made him look more dangerous, but also... real.
"It’s bad manners to spy, Sofía," he said without turning around.
My heart skipped a beat. How could he know I was there?
"I wasn't spying on you," I lied, slowly descending the spiral staircase while clutching the hem of my dress. "I just wanted to get out of that room. It feels like a prison."
Aaron turned slowly. At the sight of my white dress, his eyes darkened. For a second, his cold mask cracked, and I saw something akin to hunger—or perhaps regret. His eyes traveled over the lace neckline, down to my waist, and stopped at my bare feet.
"A prison with silk sheets and three-star meals," he remarked, leaning against the window. "There are people in this world who would kill for a cell like that."
"People who don’t value their freedom, perhaps," I shot back, stopping a few feet away from him. "What are those marks, Aaron?"
I pointed to his back. He shrugged, a movement that caused the muscles in his torso to tense.
"Reminders," he said hoarsely. "In my world, every mistake leaves a mark. These are the reasons I don't forgive debts. Because no one ever forgave mine."
He approached me. This time there were no guards, no witnesses. Just the two of us among thousands of ancient books.
"Tomorrow you will be a D’Luca," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "And those marks will begin to be part of your world, too. Are you ready for that, Sofía? Are you ready to carry a last name that attracts bullets?"
"You forced me into this," I reminded him, though my voice trembled from his proximity. "Don’t ask me if I’m ready. Ask me if I hate you enough to wait for you to lower your guard."
Aaron let out a dry laugh, a sound devoid of joy.
"I hope so. Hate will keep you alert. If you started to trust me, that’s when you’d truly be in danger."
Suddenly, a dull thud shattered the calm. It was the sound of glass breaking somewhere on the floor below, followed by a muffled scream.
Aaron’s transformation was instantaneous. In a heartbeat, he was no longer the melancholy man facing the moon; he was a predator. He drew a pistol hidden at the small of his back and grabbed my arm with a force that made me gasp.
"Down. Now!" he ordered.
"What’s happening?" I whispered, terrified.
"Infiltrators."
He didn't have time to explain further. A burst of gunfire echoed in the main foyer. The sound was deafening, like thunder trapped inside a metal box. Aaron shoved me behind a massive oak bookshelf, shielding my body with his own.
I felt the cold metal of his weapon brushing my arm and the searing heat of his chest against my back. His breathing was calm and rhythmic, while mine was a frantic mess of panic.
"Listen to me carefully," he whispered in my ear, his hot breath against my skin. "Do not move from here. No matter what happens, do not come out from behind these books. If anyone other than me approaches, run to the passage behind the fireplace.
Understood?"
"Aaron, don’t leave me alone!" I pleaded, grabbing his hand.
He looked at me over his shoulder. For the first time, I didn't see the calculating Don. I saw a man determined to burn the world down to protect what he considered his.
"No one is going to touch you, Sofía. I promised you that."
He lunged away, moving through the shadows with supernatural agility. I heard more shots, shouts in a language I didn’t recognize, and the sound of bodies hitting the floor. I huddled on the ground, my white dress becoming stained with dust and wood splinters.
Minutes passed that felt like hours. My mind imagined the worst: Aaron dead on the floor, Bianca laughing over my corpse, my father disappointed somewhere in the afterlife.
Suddenly, silence returned. But it was a different kind of silence. It smelled of gunpowder and copper.
"Aaron?" I asked in a barely audible whisper.
Slow footsteps approached. I pressed myself harder against the bookshelf, ready to run. But then I saw his silhouette. Aaron walked toward me, holstering his weapon. He had a smear of blood on his cheek and his white shirt was torn.
"It’s over," he said, extending a hand to me.
I stood up, staggering. Seeing him in the light, I realized the blood wasn't just a smear. He had a deep gash on his forearm.
"You’re hurt," I said, forgetting for a moment that he was my captor.
"It’s nothing," he replied, but I saw him grit his teeth.
Without thinking, I grabbed the hem of my expensive wedding dress and, with a sharp tug, ripped a strip of white silk and lace. Aaron watched me with surprise as I stepped closer and wrapped the fabric around his wound to stop the bleeding.
My hands were shaking, but the knot held firm. The white lace quickly stained a deep, vivid red.
"You just destroyed a twenty-thousand-dollar dress," he murmured, observing my handiwork.
"It’s just fabric," I replied, looking up at him. "Who were they?"
Aaron’s expression hardened.
"People who think I’m weak because I’ve been wasting time negotiating with a translator's daughter. People who wanted to collect your father’s debt before I did."
He took me by the shoulders, forcing me to look at him. He was covered in blood, he smelled of death, and yet, his grip was strangely comforting amidst the chaos.
"This is what awaits you, Sofía. Tonight they tried to kill you. Tomorrow, when you are my wife, you will be untouchable to them, because they will know that if they touch a single hair on your head, I will erase their families from the face of the earth."
"Is that why you’re marrying me?" I asked, feeling a strange sting in my chest. "To save me?"
Aaron remained silent for a long second. His fingers brushed my cheek, wiping away a speck of dust with a delicacy that confused me.
"I’m marrying you because you are the only thing left in this world that makes me feel like I have something to lose," he confessed, his voice barely a whisper. "And I don’t lose, Sofía. Ever."
Before I could process his words, he let me go.
"Elena will come for you. They’ll move you to a different room. The ceremony is tomorrow afternoon. Don’t try to escape again; next time, I might not get there in time."
He turned and walked out of the library, leaving me there with a torn dress and hands stained with his blood.
That night, as the servants cleaned the remains of the shootout and the smell of disinfectant filled the mansion, I realized the wedding was no longer just a legal contract. It was a survival pact.
Aaron D’Luca was a monster, yes. But he was my monster. And in a world full of demons who wanted me dead, the man who had enchained me was the only one keeping me alive.
I lay in the new bed, staring at the blood-stained strip of lace left on the nightstand. I knew I wouldn't sleep.
Tomorrow, I would stop being Sofía Valentín to become the Don’s property.
And the most terrifying thing of all wasn’t the idea of belonging to him... it was the idea that, in the midst of the violence and the blood, a part of me had started to crave the moment I would be alone with him.
- Writer
