THE KISS OF THE UNDERBOSS

Redshark patu

Celina's pov

I hadn't even unpacked my soul from Los Angeles when the call came in.

One coded name: RedShark Patu. No details. Just a location Rome. Just enough silence to mean danger.

Now here I was, standing in the city of bones and old blood, where the sky bled rust above me and every shadow felt like it had teeth.

The car dropped me off just outside a warehouse lined with corrugated steel and secrets. Frankie didn't say a word. Just that look the one that said “don't ask questions” but still begged me not to walk into whatever this was. But I did. Because that's the thing about me I walk into fire even when I know it's gonna burn.

Inside smelled like damp concrete and rusted metal. The kind of place no one would find your body, even if they looked. There were two men at the far end, one in a wine colored suit, the other in a plain black tee. The one in the suit had a scar running down his jaw like a warning.

"Celina Moretti?" the scarred one asked.

I nodded. "That depends. Who's asking?"

He smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes. "You are as reckless as they said. That'll be useful. Come."

I followed them past an iron gate that led into a basement like area, all shadows and blinking lights. The deeper we went, the colder it got. Not from the air no, from the feeling. Like whatever lived down here didn't breathe right.

RedShark Patu.

They said it like a person, but it wasn't. It was a unit. A special Sionelli intel ring. Dangerous. Untouchable. Their methods were cruel, effective, and whispered about in underground circles like a ghost story. Luca sent me here to prove something.

Maybe to them. Maybe to himself. Maybe to me.

The man in the wine suit stopped in front of a steel door and looked at me. "You'll enter alone. You'll answer what she asks. And you will not lie. She'll know."

She? My stomach tensed.

The door creaked open like a coffin lid. Inside, red light bathed the room like spilled wine. A woman stood at the center, arms crossed. She was older, maybe fifty, with cropped black hair and the kind of face that made you forget your own name. Cold eyes. No nonsense.

"You came," she said, her voice low and sharp.

"I didn't think I had a choice."

"You didn't. Sit."

I obeyed.

She circled me once like a lioness studying prey. Then she leaned forward, hands on the table.

"Why do you think Luca sent you here?"

"Because he doesn't trust me yet," I said. "And maybe...because he wants me tested."

She tilted her head. "And do you want to be trusted, Celina Moretti?"

I met her eyes. "No. I want to be feared."

That made her smile.

"Good. Then let's begin.

The tests weren't written. They were live. I was thrown into simulated missions fake kidnappings, interrogations, digital data theft. But nothing about it felt fake. The threats were real. The bruises stayed. The hours blurred.

The worst part? The psychological ones.

In one, I was tied to a chair. A masked man held a gun to a child's head on screen. He said: “Choose. Give us the name of the informant, or she dies.”

I said nothing.

The gun went off.

Later they told me it was a setup. A deepfake. The child was never in danger. But they were measuring my hesitation. I had none.

I think that scared them a little.

It scared me more.

On the fifth night, I found myself alone in a training room. No lights. Just a candle and a file.

Inside the file: Luca’s photo. The one taken three years ago in Sicily. Before the weight of command settled in his bones.

A note beneath it: Would you still want him if he never trusted you?

I closed the file and whispered, "I never wanted his trust. I wanted his war."

Behind me, someone clapped.

It was her again the woman in red. “You passed,” she said simply.

I didn't feel like I passed anything. I felt like something in me had been peeled away and burned.

They let me leave the next day.

Frankie was waiting outside with the car. "You survived RedShark," he said. "You know what that means?"

I lit a cigarette with shaking fingers. "Yeah. I'm not the same girl Luca met in Los Angeles.

Frankie smirked. "That's exactly what he was counting on."

We drove in silence, the sky bleeding dusk. Rome behind us. War ahead.

And me in between, no longer sure if I was a soldier, a traitor, or something worse:

A woman who didn't know who she was without danger licking at her heels.

But one thing was clear.

Luca Sionelli had given me a test.

Now it was my turn to give him a reckoning.

The hallway leading to the hotel suite smelled like expensive silence - the kind bought with blood, fear, and power. Each step I took felt heavier than the last, but I walked forward like my spine was made of iron. Three nights had passed since the kiss with Santino, since the balcony, since everything shifted. And now, here I was, about to enter a war zone dressed as a woman in control.

Rome had been a ghost city in my mind, a place of family dinners and old scars. But this wasn't Rome anymore not to me. This was the battlefield. Every marble tile beneath my heels was a reminder that the ground here had always been soaked in secrets.

I adjusted the strap of my dress, black silk that clung to my curves like a whisper and dared anyone to underestimate me. The guard by the door gave me a look, half-amused, half-curious. But I didn’t blink.

"Luca is expecting me," I said.

He didn't argue. He just pressed a button and the door unlocked with a soft click that echoed louder than it should've.

Inside, the suite smelled like whiskey and tobacco. Luca stood near the bar, shirt sleeves rolled up, collar open. He didn't smile. Didn't say a word. He just looked at me like he was deciding whether to kill me or kiss me.

"Took you long enough," he muttered.

I closed the door behind me. "You knew I'd come."

"I did. But I didn't know what version of you I'd get tonight."

I walked toward him, slow, deliberate. "You get the one who's tired of pretending."

He poured a drink. "Pretending what?"

"That I'm not already in the middle of this war.