Claimed by the Hellbound Rider

Whispers Through the Walls

Elena POV

I took a deep breath, only for my shoulders to tense when I heard her voice.

“Oh, Elena! I’m so sorry!” she said, the apology undercut by the laughter in her voice. I looked up into Alessa’s perfectly made-up face and immediately knew the spill hadn’t been an accident. “I just didn’t see you there! Here, let me help.”

She grabbed some napkins from the table and reached out under the guise of wiping off my dress. She put her hand on my arm and leaned in. “You’re never going to keep him, you know. Men like Luca, they stray. He’ll be bored soon enough.”

Maybe those words would have gotten under my skin once. Back before Luca had spent years proving, over and over again, that I came first.

He called me every night he traveled, even when he crossed time zones. He showed up to work lunches just to bring me coffee because I’d casually mentioned having a rough morning. And no matter how chaotic his world became, somehow he still found time for quiet nights stretched out beside me on the couch.

Luca loved intensely. Completely. That was the thing people like Alessa never understood about him. They saw the power first. I saw the man beneath it.

She ignored my attempts to get free and dug her fingers in further.

“What do you think he’ll say when he sees bruises on my arm, Alessa? When I tell him who put them there?”

She scoffed, but couldn’t hide the flash of fear in her eyes. Then she dropped my arm and stepped back, tossing her hair back as she set the napkins down. “Well. I was just trying to help.”

“I don’t need your kind of help. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go take care of this.” I turned without waiting for a response and strode towards the doors, head held high. I would not let her get to me, not here. Not during my engagement party.

Alessa had been circling Luca for years, drawn to the power and prestige attached to the Mancini name. Luca once told me he fell for me because I looked at him and saw a man before I saw his empire. It was something a woman like Alessa wasn't capable of.

Not that Luca didn’t enjoy the attention. He absolutely did. He was charming when he wanted to be, and women practically threw themselves at him because of it. But he’d never hidden any of that from me. If anything, he went out of his way to make sure I never had reason to doubt where I stood.

At parties like this, his attention always found its way back to me eventually. A hand at my waist. Fingers brushing against mine. A quiet question asking if I needed a break from the crowd.

It was strangely easy to forget sometimes that the rest of the city viewed Luca Mancini as dangerous. To me, he was the man who remembered I hated olives on pizza and kept extra fuzzy blankets in the penthouse because I was always cold.

That version of Luca felt far more real than the whispers people spread about him.

The benefit of hosting this party in a ritzy hotel was their on-site laundry. The woman working there glanced over at me as I strode through the doors, and her eyes widened. I stopped, looked down at my dress, and back up at her. “Can you help?”

She came over, grabbing a robe from the clean pile on her left as she did. “Let’s get this off you, and I’ll see what I can do.”

She helped me unzip and step out, looking away as I put my arms through the plush robe and tied it with the sash. “Thank you, ma’am. Whatever you can do, I’d appreciate it.”

“Why don’t you go sit in the lounge? It’s just through there.” She pointed at a door on the other side of the laundry area. “It’s just for staff, but there shouldn’t be anyone there right now. You can wait in there while I work on this.” Picking up my dress, she bustled over to a counter and started pulling bottles from a shelf.

I felt awkward walking through the space in high heels and a spa robe, but what could you do? I didn’t have a spare dress, and while I could send a guard or call someone, it seemed the most expedient to try to get it cleaned.

A few staff members glanced up as I passed, their eyes widening briefly before they quickly looked away again. Whether it was because they recognized me from the party upstairs or because I looked ridiculous wrapped in a white robe and designer heels, I wasn’t sure. Probably both.

Heat crept into my cheeks anyway.

I’d spent most of my life avoiding places like tonight’s gala entirely. The designer dresses, private security, and obscene displays of wealth still felt faintly unreal sometimes, even after years with Luca.

Maybe that was part of why Alessa’s words had irritated me so much. Women like her belonged in this world naturally. I still sometimes felt like I was pretending.

Pushing through the doors, I took in the space. It was cozy, with a small couch and a TV along one wall, and bottled water and snacks on the counter. It was much more welcoming than the ballroom. I grabbed a water and sat, leaning my head back on the sofa and taking a breath.

The distant sounds of the gala barely reached this part of the hotel. The muffled music and faint hum of conversation felt far away now, dulled by thick walls and industrial laundry machines. For the first time all evening, I could actually hear myself think. The silence was a balm to my nerves. Alessa liked to push buttons, and she’d managed to get her hits in tonight. Despite knowing I was secure in my relationship with Luca, having her words in my ear made me uneasy.

I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the quiet settle over me.

That was when I heard it. His voice.

At first, I thought the sound was part of the distant music upstairs. Just another muffled echo drifting through the hotel walls. But then I heard it again—low, masculine, familiar enough to send a small smile tugging at my mouth before my brain fully caught up.

Luca. Relief flickered through me instinctively. Then the tone of his voice registered.

I stilled, listening, as the low rumble came again. Where was that coming from?

Looking around, I spotted a metal grate on the wall just behind me. After checking to make sure the maid wasn’t nearby, I stepped closer and pressed my ear to the grate. Luca’s voice carried clearly this time, as if he were directly on the other side.

“If the Attorney General won’t cooperate, we eliminate him.”