The night after Luciano left her room, Aria couldn’t sleep.
Not because she was afraid.
But because for the first time in days, she wasn’t sure who she was more afraid of—him… or herself.
She lay there with the sheets twisted around her legs, her pulse still racing from the weight of his stare, the feel of his fingers brushing her skin, the quiet threat in his voice when he said:
“Before I forget how to be gentle.”
What did that even mean?
Gentle wasn’t a word that should’ve existed in his world. And yet… there was something different in the way he looked at her. Like she was the one part of his life that hadn’t already been burned or broken. Not yet.
But fire doesn’t ask permission to consume.
And he—Luciano Moretti—was made of wildfire.
—
The next morning, Aria didn’t wait for
