THE CHOICE TO LOVE IN PORTO NERO

II

The crypt beneath the Church of San Giovanni smelled of damp stone, old myrrh, and centuries of quiet decay. Matteo De Santis stood in the shadows near a marble tomb, watching the arched entrance.

He possessed a stillness that made other men nervous. They called him the Crow because he always seemed to be watching the battlefield from a high, unreachable place, waiting for the weak to fall. He wore a dark wool coat against the subterranean chill, his posture rigid with discipline.

He heard her footsteps before he saw her. The rhythm was steady, deliberate. Not the frantic pace of someone running for their life, but the measured tread of a soldier walking into an ambush.

Lucía Ferrer stepped into the dim light cast by a single wrought-iron chandelier.

Matteo observed her from the dark. He knew her file. Twenty-seven. Forensic accountant. Daughter of a man who had trusted the wrong people and ended up at the bottom of the harbor. She worked the books at the velvet-roped nightclub his uncle Carlo used to launder cash.

She looked exhausted, yet entirely composed. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe knot. Her coat was simple, inexpensive, but she wore it like armor. As she entered the crypt, her eyes tracked the exits, lingering on the shadows, measuring the space. Hypervigilant. She was a woman who slept with a knife under her pillow.

Matteo stepped out of the darkness.

Lucía did not flinch, though she stopped moving. Her eyes locked onto his.

"You asked for me," Matteo said, his voice a low, resonant baritone that echoed off the vaulted ceiling.

"I asked for the man who actually owns my debt," Lucía corrected. She did not lower her chin. "Your uncle's men broke into my home. They claimed my stepfather used me as collateral. I do not recognize the debt."

"The organization recognizes it," Matteo replied smoothly, closing the distance between them. He stopped a few feet away, close enough to see the faint purple shadows under her eyes, the sheer tension humming in her jaw. "And they say you have your father's ledger."

"I do."

"A smart woman would have burned it."

"A smart woman knows that without leverage, she is just a target," Lucía said. "My father died because he found a leak in your uncle’s shipping routes. A black network moving things worse than money. I have the numbers. I have the cipher."

Matteo kept his face an unreadable mask, but a cold satisfaction settled in his chest. Carlo’s private trafficking ring. The rot eating the De Santis empire from the inside out. Matteo needed that ledger to dismantle his uncle’s power before Carlo decided to permanently eliminate the heir.

But he could not let her know how much he needed it.

"And what do you want in exchange for this book?" he asked.

"Protection," Lucía said. "Not for me. For my younger sister, Alba. I want her moved out of Porto Nero, her tuition paid, her name erased from your family's radar. I want a guarantee that Carlo's men will never go near her."

Matteo studied her. She was bargaining for someone else's life, offering her own as the coin. It was a noble, fatal flaw. He had learned a long time ago that love only created targets.

"Carlo will not stop looking for the ledger," Matteo stated. "If I move your sister, he will know you made a deal with me. He will come for you."

"Then I need a deal that keeps me alive, too," she said. Her voice grew tighter, the first c***k in the ice. "Tell me the price."

She was offering herself to the machine. She expected him to use her, to exploit her fear.

"The price is absolute," Matteo said softly. "You do not survive this by hiding, Lucía. You survive this by standing in the light where my uncle cannot touch you without starting a war."

She narrowed her eyes, distrust radiating from her in waves. "What does that mean?"

"It means we do not finalize this in a crypt," Matteo turned toward the stairs. "Come to the palazzo tonight. We will draft the terms."