Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
“Enemies Bleed Red. And So Do Lovers.”
Alessio Romano stood over the broken body of Enzo Moretti, blood dripping from his knuckles, his breath fogging in the cold warehouse air. The man had begged. Pathetic. Just like the rest of them. The only thing Morettis did better than run their mouths was bleed.
“Tell your boss,” Alessio growled, “the next time he crosses into my territory, I won’t just take fingers. I’ll take his sons.”
Enzo whimpered, coughing up blood as the Romano soldiers dragged him out like garbage. Alessio didn’t flinch—not when the blood I soaked into his custom-made shoes, not when the man cried for mercy. Mercy was a myth in their world.
He lit a cigarette, the flick of his lighter sharp and clean in the silence.
“He’s gonna retaliate,” said Ricci, his consigliere, wiping a bloodied blade. “The Morettis won’t let this go. Not after what you did to their port.”
“I’m counting on it,” Alessio said. His eyes gleamed with that sick, brilliant fury he inherited from his father. “Let them come.”
They did.
That night, the Morettis struck a convoy near Naples. Two dead, one missing. But they left behind something… unexpected.
A boy.
Not a soldier. Not a killer. Just a pretty thing with too-sharp eyes and blood on his cheek, tied up in the back of a truck like a ransom.
“Who the f**k is this?” Alessio snapped when he saw the prisoner.
The boy looked up. “Luca,” he said, voice cracked from a gag. “Luca Moretti.”
Silence exploded like gunfire.
Luca Moretti. The youngest son. The one everyone thought was kept out of the family business. The soft one. The hidden one.
Alessio stepped closer. “Your father sent you to die?”
Luca’s lip curled. “No. He sent me to negotiate. Your goons knocked me out and shoved me in a crate. Very diplomatic.”
He was beautiful.
Alessio hated him for it.
Too delicate to be part of a bloodstained world. Skin too clean. Mouth too fast.
So Alessio hit him.
Once.
Luca’s head snapped sideways, but he didn’t cry out. He spat blood instead, eyes blazing.
“You hit like a coward.”
“You talk like a corpse.”
Their stares locked—rage, disgust, and something molten.
It should’ve ended there. But when Alessio turned to leave, Luca called after him:
“You’re just your father’s b***h in a better suit.”
Alessio spun back, fury and something darker flashing in his face.
“Strip him,” he told his men. “I want to know what the Morettis send to dinner in a bowtie.”
Luca was thrown against the concrete wall, jacket torn, buttons flying. The room turned heavy. Alessio’s soldiers looked to him for guidance—but his gaze was fixed on the boy’s trembling frame, his pale skin, his scent.
Something wasn’t right.
The scent.
Not cologne.
Omega.
Faint. Suppressed. But unmistakable.
“Get out,” Alessio barked.
The room emptied instantly.
He walked forward, predator slow. Luca pressed back against the wall, but didn’t cower. Not fully.
“You’re an Omega?”
Luca didn’t answer.
“You hid it well.”
“I’m not in heat.”
“Then why the f**k do you smell like that?”
Luca’s chest heaved. “Let me go. This is a violation—”
“I could violate you a hundred ways,” Alessio whispered, closing in, “and your body would beg for more.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
“You should be.”
Their mouths crashed together like war.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t kind.
Luca bit him first. Alessio shoved him harder. Teeth clashed. Fingernails tore at silk and flesh. The air smelled of blood, sweat, lust, and something darker—something primal.
Luca’s heat hadn’t started yet—but his body responded like it was near. Or maybe it was Alessio who triggered it. Alphas that strong had a way of pulling biology to the surface.
“Tell me to stop,” Alessio growled into his throat.
Luca’s answer came like a curse: “I hate you.”
Their bodies didn’t.
Alessio took him there—against a warehouse wall that had seen torture, execution, and now this… violation of enemies turned addicts.
Luca moaned, cursing himself for the way it felt. The shame. The stretch. The devastating pleasure.
When it ended, they were both breathless. Broken.
Alessio stared at him, heart thudding like a war drum.
“I should kill you.”
Luca wiped blood from his lip and whispered, “Then why didn’t you?”