The Silent Symphony Of The Mafia's Heir

CHAPTER 6: THE BLACK ROSETTE

The rain in Tagaytay was relentless, slapping against the thick glass of the master suite like scattered bullets.

By 3:00 AM, Alec was fast asleep beside me, his steady, heavy breathing filling the dim room. The dark duvet was pooled around his waist, exposing the broad expanse of his back and the bandage I had pinned over his shoulder.

I slipped out of bed like a ghost.

My barefoot steps made no sound against the polished hardwood as I made my way downstairs to the West Wing. The security cameras blinks with faint red eyes in the dark corridors, but I already knew their rotation intervals—every forty-five seconds, the central lens panned thirty degrees to the left, leaving a blind spot along the baseboard wide enough for a shadow to pass through.

I opened the glass doors of the music room and walked toward the grand Bösendorfer.

Instead of sitting at the bench, I reached down to the bottom panel of the piano’s body—right beneath the keybed. My fingers traced the intricate wood carving on the left pillar until I felt a microscopic ridge. I pressed it hard.

CLICK.

A tiny, hidden compartment under the wood frame popped open with a quiet mechanical hiss.

Inside lay a thin, black titanium drive and a customized leather-bound journal—the only remnants of my life before the "accident" nine years ago. The remnants of the night my real mother died, and the night I pretended to lose my voice completely to stay alive.

People thought I became mute from trauma. The truth was far simpler: if you don't speak, nobody asks you to testify.

I pulled out the titanium drive, plugging it into a modified tablet I kept concealed inside the body of the instrument. Lines of green code flooded the screen—underworld bank routing numbers, shipping manifests from the Vane docks, and transaction logs linking my father to a shadow organization known only as The Black Rosette.

My eyes narrowed as I scrolled through the encrypted files.

Target: Mercer Syndicate Logistics.

Payment Status: Pending Union.

Execution Date: Today.

"You're up late, mio tesoro."

The deep, velvety voice shattered the quiet of the room.

I didn't flinch. I slammed the piano compartment shut and slid the tablet back into its hidden recess in a single, fluid motion before turning around.

Alec was leaning against the doorframe, wearing only dark silk lounge pants, his chest bare and his grey eyes sharp despite the hour. He was holding a glass of ice water, his posture relaxed, but his gaze was pinned directly on my hands.

"Can't sleep?" he asked, taking a slow sip. He stepped into the room, his bare feet silent against the floor. "Or are you hiding something in my music room?"

I picked up my notebook from the top of the piano, flipped to a fresh page, and wrote rapidly:

I couldn't sleep because my husband snores like a broken engine.

Alec stopped a foot away from me. He read the page, and a low, rumbling laugh escaped his throat. "I don't snore, Mrs. Mercer. You're just looking for an excuse to be away from my bed."

He set his glass down on the edge of the piano, stepping so close that his body heat wrapped around me like a velvet blanket. He reached out, his long fingers gently catching a lock of my damp hair and curling it around his thumb.

"What were you doing down here, Seraphina?" he whispered, his tone shifting from playful to dangerously soft. His eyes dropped to my lips before rising back to meet mine. "You move around this house like you've lived here for years. You know where the guards stand. You know how to bypass the cameras in the hallway."

I met his gaze, unblinking. I raised my hand and tapped my pen against his jawline, forcing his face slightly to the left.

I wrote on the paper:

Observation is survival. You should try it sometime.

"I observe plenty," Alec murmured, his hand sliding down from my hair to wrap around the back of my neck, his fingers pressing into the delicate skin near my hairline. He pulled me half an inch closer, his thumb resting right over my fluttering pulse point. "I observe how your heart beats faster whenever I get this close. I observe how you look at me like you want to kill me... or kiss me."

"Alec," I breathed out—a faint, desperate whisper that barely carried in the air.

Alec froze. His eyes blew wide, the stormy grey darkening into pitch black.

"Say it again," he commanded, his voice suddenly thick, raw, and possessive. His hand tightened on my neck, bringing his face down until his lips pressed hard against mine.

The kiss wasn't gentle. It was demanding, intense, and hot. He backed me up against the side of the grand piano, his heavy body trapping me against the cold lacquer. His free hand snaked around my waist, lifting me effortlessly onto the closed lid of the instrument.

I gasped against his mouth, my hands instinctively clutching his muscular shoulders, my fingers digging into his warm skin.

"You're driving me f*****g crazy, Seraphina," Alec growled against my lips, his hand sliding up the silk of my gown, tracing the inside of my bare thigh with searing heat. His fingers pressed firmly into my soft flesh, pulling a sharp, silent intake of air from my lungs.

His mouth moved down to my throat, biting down gently on the sweet spot beneath my jaw, sending a violent shockwave of heat straight to my core. I arched my back against the piano, my hands sliding into his dark hair, pulling him closer even as every survival instinct screamed at me to stop.

He was the enemy. He was the man my father sent me to neutralize.

But as his thumb stroked dangerously higher between my thighs, pushing the silk aside, the fine line between hatred and desire dissolved into ashes.

TRRRR! TRRRR!

The sharp, abrasive ringing of Alec's encrypted satellite phone shattered the heavy tension in the room.

Alec stopped, his breathing ragged, his forehead resting against my collarbone as he let out a low, frustrated curse. "Fuck."

He didn't pull away immediately. He stayed there for five long seconds, his hot breath washing over my sensitive skin, his hand still resting possessively on my bare thigh beneath my gown.

Slowly, reluctantly, he slid his hand down, stepped back, and pulled the vibrating phone from his pocket.

"Talk," Alec snapped into the receiver, his voice tight and lethal.

Julian’s panicked voice echoed from the speaker, loud enough for me to hear: "Alec! The South Port just caught fire! Two of our cargo ships were hijacked, and they left a mark on the burning hull."

Alec’s eyes met mine, cold as ice. "What mark?"

"A black rose," Julian answered. "The Rosette is back."

Alec’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched beneath his scar. He slammed the phone shut, looking at me with a dark, unreadable expression.

I sat on top of the grand piano, my breath still heavy, my silk gown rumpled around my knees, looking completely innocent.

"Get dressed," Alec said quietly, his tone dropping all warmth, returning to the ruthless mafia boss. "We're going to the docks."