CHAPTER FOUR (Beaneth the Surface)
662 Words
The morning after didn’t feel real.
Adira woke in silk sheets that weren’t hers, in a bed that smelled like him — danger and expensive cologne. Her skin still tingled from the memory of his mouth, his hands, his voice growling her name like a prayer and a curse all at once.
But he was gone.
The room was empty except for the clothes he’d torn off her the night before. She reached for her robe, her mind still spinning.
What had she done?
Worse — what had she started?
Before she could gather her thoughts, the door opened. Not him. It was a woman — poised, older, sharp.
Luciano’s mother.
“You’ve made quite an impression,” she said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “He’s never brought a woman here for more than a night.”
Adira wrapped the robe tighter. “I didn’t ask to be brought anywhere.”
“Oh, cara mia,” the woman said softly, circling her like a hawk, “in this world, asking doesn’t matter. Only power does. And Luciano sees something in you.”
“Or he just wants to own me,” Adira bit back.
Luciano’s mother paused, her smile twisting. “Then you better decide — quickly — if you're the type who gets owned... or the type who learns to own him.”
Before Adira could respond, the woman was gone — leaving a colder silence behind than before.
---
Later that night, Adira slipped out of the palazzo.
She needed answers. About her father. About why Luciano had claimed her. She didn’t trust anyone inside that house — especially not the man who could make her body burn and her heart freeze at the same time.
She headed to the docks.
That was the last place her father had been seen — according to whispers she'd overheard from the guards. If he was alive, someone there knew something.
But someone else was watching.
Hidden in the shadows of a black SUV across the street, Luciano sat in the backseat, jaw clenched, eyes tracking her every move.
“She’s getting bolder,” his consigliere muttered beside him.
“She’s going to get herself killed,” Luciano snapped.
“Then why don’t you leash her?”
Luciano didn’t answer.
Because a part of him didn’t want to leash her.
He wanted to see how far she’d go.
How much fire she could wield before she got burned.
---
Adira met with a man named Franco, one of her father's old crew. He was jumpy, sweating under his cap.
“They're watching everything,” he whispered. “Your father… he was close to uncovering something. Something that had the De Lucas nervous.”
“What was it?” she demanded.
Franco shook his head. “I don’t know. But he said he found proof that could take everything from them. He hid it—”
A gunshot cracked the air.
Franco’s body jerked, blood blooming across his chest.
Adira screamed, ducking behind crates.
“RUN!” he gasped, right before his eyes went glassy.
Panic hit like lightning.
Footsteps. Shouting. Another shot.
She ran blindly down the alley, heart pounding, until—
A black car skidded to a stop in front of her.
Luciano stepped out, furious. “Get in the car. Now.”
She hesitated. “You followed me—”
“I saved you.” His voice was pure venom. “Don’t mistake the two.”
When she finally climbed in, his hand gripped her thigh—tight.
“You want to play in my world, Adira?” he hissed in her ear. “Then understand one thing: You’re mine. And if someone tries to take what's mine again... I won't be this merciful.”
She turned to face him, trembling—but not from fear.
From the realization that she had crossed a line.
And she wasn’t turning back.
---
To be continued in Chapter Five...
- Writer
