Painted in Omertà-The Don's Black Diamond

"Don't follow me." I raised my hand, blocking the hotel valet who tried to step forward with an umbrella. The hem of my soaked evening gown clung heavily to my calves, the icy fabric biting into my skin. In my hand, I gripped the seating card for the banquet, the elegant cursive script now wrinkled and smeared by the relentless downpour. "Miss," the bodyguard reached out, stopping just short of my shoulder. His earpiece buzzed with sharp Italian commands from Dante's men. He didn't even bother looking at me directly; his tone dripped with perfunctory duty. "Mr. Ferretti gave strict orders. You cannot leave alone." "He gave orders that I couldn't leave, but he didn't give orders that he couldn't abandon me," I replied, my voice steady despite the tremor in my chest. The man frowned, his hand hovering awkwardly in the air. "This is family security protocol. As the Capo's fiancée, you need to cooperate." I stepped closer and shoved the ruined seating card into his breast pocket. The soggy paper flattened against his tactical Kevlar vest. "Then tell your Capo that his fiancée isn't cooperating tonight." I heard a low curse from his earpiece. Then, another voice filtered through the static—a soft, trembling female voice that made my chest tighten to the point of suffocation. "Dante... I'm so scared. Is that car outside coming back again?" Dante's response was immediate, laced with a soothing patience he had never, not even once, offered to me. "Don't open the door. I'll be there in ten minutes." Standing in the freezing rain, I finally let out a small, hollow laugh. The smile was fleeting. Before the bodyguard could react, I had already brushed past him, disappearing into the dark intersection. My phone rang just as I turned into a deep alleyway. The screen lit up the damp darkness, flashing Dante's name. I swiped to answer but remained silent. The only sound was the heavy rain hitting the pavement. "Livia, go back to the hotel. Don't make a joke out of our engagement party," his voice came through, cold and commanding. Rainwater traced the line of my jaw, dripping onto my collarbone. I stared blankly at a white rose that had been crushed into the muddy asphalt by passing tires. "I'm not the one who made a joke out of it." I heard the heavy thud of a car door shutting on his end. "Stella's safe house was attacked. It's my duty. You've been with me for five years, do you still not understand the rules?" "The Omertà demands silence to outsiders. It doesn't demand you abandon me to a hall full of guests on our engagement night." A heavy silence stretched over the line for two agonizing seconds. When Dante spoke again, his tone was dangerously low. "Don't act like those jealous women on the streets. Stella's father saved my life. I owe her." "So you owe her your life. What do you owe me?" Dante didn't answer. Instead, the faint, pitiful sound of Stella sobbing filtered through the background. "Dante... don't fight with Livia over me. She doesn't like me. I... I can just leave New York..." Dante's voice instantly turned protective, freezing over any warmth left for me. "No one is asking you to leave." I hung up and turned off my phone. The screen went black, mirroring the emptiness inside me. Suddenly, two muffled gunshots echoed from the depths of the alley. A heavy iron door banged open, and a man stumbled out into the pouring rain. He collapsed against a rusted dumpster. His dark, tailored suit was weighed down by the rain, but I could smell the sharp, metallic tang of blood mixing with the damp air. A dark stain was spreading rapidly beneath his shoulder. My instinct told me to turn around and run. In this city, minding your own business kept you alive. But when he raised his eyes to look at me, there was no plea for help, no frantic commands. He simply pushed the black glock in his hand slightly away from him. "Don't call the cops," he gritted out. His English was laced with a thick, aristocratic Sicilian accent. His breathing was shallow, forced down by sheer willpower. I slowly crouched down. Through his torn jacket, I caught sight of a tiny, intricate family crest embroidered on the inner cuff of his shirt. Dante had once pointed to a similar crest, his voice trembling with a rare, genuine fear. 'Livia, never provoke the men at the very top. One word from them, and the entire Lower Manhattan changes owners overnight.' I looked at the bleeding stranger. He had lost too much blood, yet his gaze remained predatory, assessing, and fiercely lucid. My throat felt tight when I finally spoke. "I have an old studio. Two blocks from here. Can you walk?" The man pressed a gloved hand hard against his bleeding shoulder and forced himself up. His footsteps were heavy, echoing like a death knell in the alley. "I can." I supported his weight, carefully guiding him through the back alleys, perfectly avoiding the surveillance cameras of the hotel's main entrance. When we pushed into the dimly lit, dusty art studio, he heavily leaned against the edge of a wooden table. His sharp gaze swept the room, landing on a half-finished oil painting on the wall. "You're an artist?" he asked, his voice rough. I dragged out a dusty first-aid kit and used heavy scissors to cut open his blood-soaked shirt. "Not tonight." When the cold metal of the tweezers dug into the edge of the bullet wound, cold sweat beaded at his temples. His jaw locked, but he didn't make a single sound. He was built from stone and violence. "You're not going to ask who I am?" he rasped. "Even if I did, you wouldn't tell me." A low, dark chuckle vibrated in his chest. "Smart." I dropped the extracted bullet into an empty glass jar. It clinked sharply. Then, I wiped the jagged edges of his wound with an alcohol-soaked gauze. "A smart person wouldn't save a strange man on the night of her engagement." "The engagement is over." His dark eyes slowly dropped to my bare ring finger. The pale indentation where a heavy diamond used to sit was still visible. "He made a stupid mistake," the man murmured, his gaze darkening with something unreadable. I tightly wrapped the white bandages around his broad chest, my fingers stained with a mix of his blood and old paint. "Don't evaluate my ex-fiancé. It might make me regret saving you." Suddenly, the harsh sweep of headlights flashed outside the frosted windows. I instantly killed the studio lights. Grabbing his uninjured arm, I pulled him behind a massive wooden restoration easel. Footsteps sloshed through the puddles outside. It was Dante's men. One of them was talking loudly on the phone. "The Boss says we focus on finding the rat who hit Miss Valentina's safe house. Leave Miss Livia alone. Once she's tired of throwing her tantrum, she'll crawl back to her safe house." The stranger leaned against the damp brick wall, his breathing controlled and silent in the dark. Hearing those words through the thin walls, the lingering pain in my chest miraculously vanished. So, my five years of quiet obedience, my loyalty, my sacrifices—to Dante, they were nothing but the pathetic docility of a stray dog that would always automatically return to its cage. After the roar of the engines faded into the distance, the man reached out and took the glass of water I handed him. "What's your name?" he asked, his voice dark and smooth like aged whiskey. "Livia." "Luciano." He didn't give a last name. And I didn't ask. Just as the grey dawn broke over the city skyline, his right-hand man finally tracked us down. When the towering enforcer kicked the door open and saw Luciano's state, the blood drained from his face. He instantly dropped to one knee, a gesture of absolute submission, but Luciano raised a single finger, stopping him. Luciano turned to look at me. In the morning light, the violent edge to him had softened, replaced by a terrifyingly calm authority. "For the next three days, I will give you complete safety." I tossed the blood-stained towel into an iron bucket. "I don't need it. I just want to sleep." He walked to the door, his silhouette blocking out the morning light, and stopped. "Livia. If that Capo comes looking for you, you don't have to see him." I closed the studio door, leaned against the heavy wood, and slid down to the floor. Exhausted, I finally turned my phone back on. Not a single message from Dante. Only an emotionless notification from the hotel manager: The cancellation fee for the engagement banquet had been aggressively deducted directly from my gallery's business account. Three days later, the vintage wind chimes above the gallery door chimed sharply. Dante stood in the doorway. His expensive black coat still carried the faint, bitter scent of cheap cigar smoke from Stella's safe house. Two heavily armed bodyguards flanked him like shadows. He saw me calmly applying base primer to a massive wooden frame. His dark brows instantly snapped together in irritation. "Have you thrown your tantrum long enough? Come back to the safe house with me." I calmly placed the brush back into the solvent jar, turned around, and looked him dead in the eye. "Dante, I'm not going back."