Chapter 4
1676 Words
Aira had never been inside a mall like this.
Not in Rome. Not in Paris. Not anywhere.
The building gleamed like a palace carved from glass and gold. The entire upper level had been cleared out just for them.
Luxury boutiques stood with their doors open. Bodyguards in black surrounded the perimeter like shadows. Civilians were kept at bay, their phones out, whispering, wondering who the man was who walked like he owned the world.
Because he did.
Zane walked beside her, hands in his pockets, calm and unbothered as store owners bowed and stylists scrambled to lay their best pieces before Aira like she was royalty.
“You don’t have to do this,” Aira murmured under her breath.
“I know,” he replied coolly. “That’s what makes it fun.”
Aira tried to protest, but he didn’t listen.
Designer dresses, shoes, perfumes, silk scarves, delicate jewellery everything she looked at for more than three seconds was purchased and handed to an assistant. She felt like she was floating through a dream stitched together by money, menace, and control.
But the dream had cracks.
Deep ones.
They were seated at a rooftop café by noon coffee, tiramisu, and the best view of the city.Aira sipped from a porcelain cup, sunlight warm on her skin, the clink of silverware and soft jazz humming in the background.
“Is this what your life is like every day?” she asked.
Zane raised a brow. “More or less.”
She looked at him, eyes narrowing. “And the crimes?”
He smiled. “That too.”
Aira went still. Her spine straightened. Her voice dropped, dry and disbelieving. “What kind of crimes are we talking about? Don’t tell me you throw people off rooftops.”
He didn’t blink.
“Don’t say that,” she added with a nervous laugh, “or some poor man might actually.”
Screams cut through the air.
Aira jerked back in her seat just as a body plummeted past the edge of the rooftop.
She gasped, the coffee cup slipping from her hands, crashing into pieces on the marble floor.
She rose to her feet, heart pounding, eyes wide. “What the hell was that?!”
Zane didn’t flinch. He stayed seated, legs crossed, calm as a lake.
One of his bodyguards approached, earpiece pressed to his ear.
“Sir,” he said. “The rooftop stunt is done. Area secured.”
“Good,” Zane replied smoothly. “Appreciate it.”
Aira’s throat was dry. “That was a stunt?!”
Zane leaned back in his chair, watching her with unsettling amusement.
“You said it,” he said. “I just brought your imagination to life.”
She stared at him, horrified. “You threw a man off a rooftop to make a point?”
His smirk deepened. “He landed on safety mats. Well-rehearsed. Harmless.”
“But why?”
Zane rose slowly, walked around the table, and stopped in front of her. He reached out, gently brushing a splatter of spilled coffee from her trembling hand.
Then he leaned in, voice low, velvet-wrapped danger.
“Because you still don’t understand what you’re marrying into, Aira. And I want you to.”
She took a shaky breath. “You scared me.”
“You should be scared,” he said. “This is just the beginning, cara mia.”
Her heart thundered in her chest. She didn’t know whether she wanted to slap him or run or stay and figure him out.
He reached out, tilted her chin up, and looked her dead in the eyes.
“You wanted to see the mafia world?” he whispered. “Welcome to the rooftop.”
Then he walked past her, hands in his pockets, the wind tugging at his coat as if it too was trying to keep up.
Aira stood frozen on the rooftop.
Somewhere deep inside her, a voice whispered: You’re in too deep now.
And it wasn’t wrong.
The ride back was silent.
The kind of silence that pressed into your skin and made it hard to breathe.
Aira sat in the back seat of the sleek black Rolls-Royce, the expensive shopping bags at her feet forgotten. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, knuckles white, while her reflection stared back at her in the tinted glass window.
She didn’t recognise herself.
The ivory dress. The diamond necklace. The faint trace of his cologne still clung to her skin.
Who was this girl?
The same one who had been trained her entire life to kill men like him?
The same one who had watched people die in simulations and never flinched?
The same one who said, I will never lose myself?
Now she was jumping at shadows… trembling at a stunt she would’ve once coldly classified as psychological warfare.
But it wasn’t the stunt that had broken her.
It was him.
The way he looked at her calm, amused, in control. The way he made her feel like a pawn one second and something precious the next.
That’s what scared her the most.
Because she was trained to fight against fear, not against… confusion.
“Is it the man or the mask that’s breaking you?” she whispered to herself.
She turned her face away from the window, only to find him watching her.
Zane sat across from her in the backseat. Silent. Relaxed. Unreadable.
But his eyes weren't mocking. Not right now.
They were… searching.
“You’re shaking,” he said, voice softer than she expected.
Aira looked down at her hands. She hadn’t realised it.
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
“You’re not.”
She clenched her jaw. “Don’t pretend to care.”
A pause.
Then: “Who said I’m pretending?”
She looked up sharply.
His expression hadn’t changed. Still cool. Still deadly.
But his eyes weren't the eyes of a killer at that moment.
They were human.
And that made everything worse.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked quietly. “Why am I here?”
Zane leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re here because I said so.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He tilted his head. “You want the truth?”
Aira nodded.
Zane’s eyes locked with hers. “Because you’re mine now. And I take care of what’s mine.”
The words should’ve repulsed her.
Should’ve reminded her of the mission, the target, the empire she was meant to burn from the inside out.
But instead… they made her chest ache.
She looked away, ashamed of herself.
Because even though she knew she was here to destroy him
Part of her didn’t want to anymore.
She wasn’t falling for him. No.
She couldn’t afford that.
But she was falling into something far more dangerous.
Doubt.
And for an agent like her… doubt was death.
The car glided silently through the golden wash of late afternoon.
City noise blurred behind tinted windows. Aira leaned her head against the cool glass for a while, her lashes heavy with exhaustion, her mind a storm of things she couldn’t untangle.
Then slowly, unknowingly she shifted.
She turned her face from the window and rested her head… on his shoulder.
Zane stilled.
Every muscle in his body went rigid at first. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
This wasn’t planned. She hadn’t meant to. He knew that.
But still… her warmth pressed into him like something stolen. Forbidden. And yet soft.
Her hair spilled across his shoulder in waves. Light strands brushed his chest, his throat. One soft lock had fallen across her face, clinging to her lips.
He glanced down at her.
Peaceful.
She looked… young like this. Fragile. Not the fire-tongued girl who had stood tall before his empire. Not the girl who stared at his mother with trembling defiance.
This was someone else.
Someone real.
Without thinking, Zane reached up, gently brushing the strand of hair away from her face. His fingertips lingered for just a moment longer than necessary against her cheek.
Her skin was warm. Silky.
The soft rise and fall of her breath stirred something in him that had nothing to do with control or power.
It was just… her.
He exhaled slowly, watching her like he didn’t know what she’d become to him. A complication? A possession?
Or a puzzle he didn’t want to solve because some part of him feared what the answer would be.
Then
Aira stirred.
She blinked once, drowsy and confused. When she realised where she was who she was leaning on her eyes flew open.
She jerked upright, heat rushing to her face. “I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
Zane turned to her, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. “You don’t need to apologise.”
“I must’ve been really tired…”
“You trusted me enough to fall asleep.” His voice was soft. Curious. “Interesting.”
She looked away, flustered. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The car rolled to a smooth stop outside the estate gates. The iron doors opened slowly, and the driver pulled up the long, paved path leading to the mansion bathed in the blush of dusk.
Outside, everything was as intimidating as ever.
But inside that car… something had shifted.
Aira felt it in her heartbeat, still uneven. Zane felt it too in the silence that no longer felt like distance.
As they stepped out of the vehicle, he gently touched the small of her back to guide her forward.
Not possessive. Not cold.
Just… gentle.
And as they entered the grand foyer, chandeliers glittering above and shadows dancing across polished floors, Aira found herself stealing a glance at him.
And for the first time…
She didn’t feel like she was walking beside a monster.
She felt like she was standing on the edge of something
she couldn’t name but feared it would swallow her whole.
- Writer
