CHAPTER 12 -THE MAN WHO NEVER BLINKS
1583 Words
In the world Serafina lived in, reputations were not built from rumors.
They were built from bodies.
Names carried weight because of what they implied, because of the violence stitched into them like an inheritance. Alessandro Moretti’s name was spoken with reverence and fear because everyone knew what happened to those who crossed him.
Luca Romano’s name was spoken differently.
Quieter.
As if saying it too loudly might summon him.
Serafina began to understand this after that night in the hallway, when he had looked at her with something unreadable and said only one word:
Change.
Since then, she found herself noticing him more. Not in the obvious way, not with the foolish curiosity of a sheltered woman. With the careful attention of someone who had survived long enough to know that what remained unseen was often what mattered most.
Luca was always present, yet never intrusive.
He was there at the edge of Alessandro’s meetings, standing like a boundary line. He rarely sat. He never relaxed. Even when others laughed, he remained composed, his gaze alert, measuring.
Men spoke freely until he looked at them.
Then they remembered themselves.
Serafina watched how the room adjusted around him without anyone seeming to notice they were doing it. Conversations lowered in volume. Jokes became restrained. Even Alessandro, who feared no one openly, seemed to sharpen into greater precision when Luca was near.
It was not that Alessandro was afraid of him.
It was that Alessandro respected what Luca was.
A weapon does not intimidate its owner.
But it reminds the owner of what it is capable of.
And Luca was capable of things no one wanted to name aloud.
Serafina heard stories in fragments.
From maids murmuring in the kitchen when they thought she was too far to hear.
From bodyguards speaking softly near the servants’ entrance.
From women at gatherings who leaned close, eyes wide, voices hushed.
“That man…” someone once whispered, watching Luca cross a courtyard. “He doesn’t blink.”
The other woman shivered slightly.
“They say he watched a man beg for seven minutes before he pulled the trigger.”
Serafina felt her stomach turn, but she did not react. Reaction was dangerous. Curiosity was more dangerous.
She only listened.
“They say Alessandro trusts him more than his own blood.”
“They say Luca has never betrayed him.”
“They say Luca was the one who wiped out the Vescari branch when they tried to revolt.”
“The entire family,” another voice added, almost reverent. “Gone in one night.”
Serafina had learned not to believe everything whispered in fear.
But she also knew that fear rarely grew without roots.
Luca Romano’s reputation was not theatrical.
It was functional.
It existed because it worked.
One afternoon, Serafina saw proof of that.
Alessandro hosted a man from the southern docks—a captain whose loyalty had recently wavered. The meeting was held in the smaller study, away from the grand rooms. Serafina was not invited, of course, but she was instructed to pour coffee and then leave.
She moved quietly, tray balanced in her hands, eyes lowered as etiquette demanded.
The room was tense, thick with unspoken threat.
The captain sat stiffly, his hands clasped too tightly. Alessandro leaned back in his chair, relaxed as a predator at rest. Luca stood behind him, silent.
Serafina poured coffee, the china clinking softly.
The captain spoke, voice strained.
“It was a misunderstanding. The shipment—”
Alessandro held up a hand, smiling faintly.
“I don’t care about misunderstandings,” he said pleasantly. “I care about loyalty.”
The captain swallowed.
“I am loyal.”
Silence.
Serafina felt it press down like weight.
Then Luca spoke.
Only two words.
“Are you?”
His voice was calm.
The captain’s eyes flicked toward him, and something in his expression collapsed. Fear, sudden and uncontrollable, surged across his face as though he had forgotten, until that moment, what Luca represented.
“I—yes. Of course.”
Luca tilted his head slightly.
He did not raise his voice.
He did not threaten.
He simply looked.
Serafina realized then what it meant when people said he never blinked.
It wasn’t literal.
It was spiritual.
Luca did not look away from truth.
Most men flinched from violence, even when they committed it. They hid behind excuses, behind anger, behind drunkenness or necessity.
Luca did not hide.
He was the kind of man who could do terrible things with a steady hand and an even steadier conscience.
That steadiness terrified people more than rage ever could.
Alessandro smiled again.
“You see why I keep him close,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward Luca as though discussing an object.
The captain forced a laugh.
“Yes. Of course.”
Serafina finished pouring coffee and retreated, heart pounding.
As she left, Luca’s gaze flicked briefly toward her.
Just a flicker.
But she felt it like a touch.
That night, Serafina could not sleep.
Not because Alessandro had done anything unusual, but because understanding had deepened, sharpened.
Luca Romano was not simply loyal.
He was absolute.
His loyalty did not waver with mood or comfort. It did not soften with sentiment. It was the kind of devotion that looked like religion.
And religion, she knew, was dangerous.
Because men who worship something do not question it.
They destroy for it.
They die for it.
They kill for it.
She wondered, lying in the dark, what Luca worshipped.
Alessandro?
The empire?
Order?
Or something even darker: the idea that violence was the only language the world respected?
Days later, Serafina attended a charity gala, one of Alessandro’s carefully curated performances. The city’s elite gathered beneath chandeliers, dressed in wealth and illusion. Women wore gowns that cost more than most people earned in a year. Men spoke of art and philanthropy while their hands were stained with crimes that would never see daylight.
Serafina stood at Alessandro’s side, serene and silent.
Luca remained nearby, as always.
At one point, a politician approached Alessandro, smiling too widely.
“My condolences about your recent… troubles at the docks,” he said softly, eyes darting.
Alessandro’s smile remained polite.
“Troubles?” he echoed.
The politician’s throat bobbed.
“A misunderstanding, I’m sure.”
Luca stepped half a pace forward.
He said nothing.
The politician’s smile faltered immediately.
“No offense meant,” he stammered. “Of course.”
Alessandro laughed lightly, as though amused.
“You’re safe,” he told the man, voice friendly. “If Luca isn’t interested in you, you have nothing to fear.”
The politician glanced at Luca again, pale now.
Serafina’s stomach tightened.
Safe.
As though Luca’s attention was a death sentence.
Later, as Alessandro spoke with donors, Serafina drifted toward the edge of the ballroom, needing air. She stood near a marble column, fingers curled around her clutch.
Luca appeared beside her without sound.
“I didn’t hear you approach,” she said before she could stop herself.
“I rarely announce myself,” he replied.
His tone was neutral, but there was something in it—an awareness that his presence unsettled.
Serafina’s gaze stayed forward.
“They’re afraid of you,” she said quietly.
Luca did not respond immediately.
Fear, she realized, was not an insult to him.
It was confirmation.
“Yes,” he said finally.
“Does it bother you?”
A pause.
“No.”
The honesty was stark.
Serafina swallowed.
“Does anything bother you?”
For the first time, Luca’s expression shifted—barely, almost imperceptibly. The smallest tightening at the corner of his mouth.
“You ask dangerous questions,” he said.
“They’re the only kind worth asking,” she replied, surprised by her own boldness.
Silence stretched.
Then Luca spoke, voice lower.
“My loyalty is not something you should question.”
Serafina turned slightly, just enough to look at him.
“Because it’s absolute?”
His gaze met hers.
“Yes.”
“And what happens,” she whispered, “if the thing you’re loyal to is wrong?”
Something dark moved behind Luca’s eyes.
“You assume loyalty is about right and wrong,” he said softly.
“What is it about then?”
Luca’s voice was almost too quiet to hear beneath the music.
“Survival.”
The word landed heavy.
Serafina felt cold settle in her chest.
Of course.
Loyalty, in their world, was not moral.
It was structural.
It kept empires standing. It kept monsters fed. It kept bloodlines protected.
It kept people alive.
And Luca Romano was the spine of Alessandro’s survival.
A man who never blinked.
A man who never wavered.
A man whose devotion appeared unbreakable.
Serafina looked at him then, truly looked, and understood something with sudden clarity:
Men like Luca did not exist without cost.
Whatever made him so loyal had also made him dangerous in ways the world could not see.
And if loyalty was his religion…
Then betrayal, if it ever came, would be an apocalypse.
Serafina turned back toward the ballroom, her expression composed.
Inside, the empire danced beneath chandeliers.
Outside, the night waited.
And Luca Romano stood beside her, silent as ever—
the man who never blinked,
the man everyone feared,
the man whose loyalty, for now, held the world together.
But Serafina could not shake the feeling that someday…
it would also be the thing that set it on fire.
- Writer
