OWNED BY THE WRONG HEIR

CHAPTER 4: FOR NOW

Ava didn’t go home.

Not right away.

She stood on the sidewalk for five minutes, maybe ten, phone still pressed to her ear even after her mother hung up. The city moved around her — cars hissing through puddles, people ducking into buildings, sirens wailing somewhere far off — but all of it felt distant, like she was underwater.

Someone came to the apartment.

They asked about your father.

They knew his name.

Her chest squeezed tight. Her mother’s voice had been wrong. Not panicked, but too careful. The kind of careful people used when they were hiding how scared they actually were. Ava knew that tone. She’d heard it on the phone with the hospital billing department, with the landlord, with anyone her mother thought she had to be strong for.

Ava looked up at the building again. The top floor. The glass. Luca.

He let her walk out.

That thought hit harder than it should have. Because it meant he’d known. He’d known someone would go to her mother. He’d known she’d get that call. He’d planned it. The realization made her stomach turn, not just with anger, but with something worse — the sense that she was already playing by his rules and didn’t even realize when the game had started.

“Manipulative bastard,” she whispered to no one.

But her feet didn’t move toward the subway.

They moved toward the entrance.

She told herself she was going back to demand answers. To tell him off. To make it clear she wasn’t his pawn. But underneath that, something uglier and more honest clawed at her: fear. Fear that if she didn’t walk back in there, her mother would get another visit. One that didn’t end with questions.

*Back Inside*

The same guard was at the door. He didn’t look surprised to see her. His face was blank, professional, like he’d been waiting.

“Miss Carter,” he said, stepping aside.

No questions this time. No scan of her phone. Like he’d been told she’d return. The thought made her skin crawl. How long had he known? Had Luca told him before she’d even left the first time?

The elevator ride felt longer. Her reflection in the polished metal looked pale, drawn, eyes too wide. She wasn’t sure if she was angrier at Luca or at herself for coming back. Her fingers gripped the strap of her bag so hard her knuckles hurt.

The doors opened.

Luca was still by the window, hands in his pockets, same posture as before. Like he hadn’t moved at all. Like he’d been standing there counting the seconds until she returned.

“You came back,” he said, without turning.

“Don’t act like you didn’t expect it.”

That made him turn. His eyes found hers, and for a second, something shifted in his expression. Not surprise. Satisfaction, maybe. Buried under control, but there. He didn’t bother hiding it.

“Did they hurt her?” Ava asked immediately. Her voice came out sharper than she intended.

“No,” Luca said. “They wouldn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I told them not to.”

Ava’s breath caught. “So you sent them.”

Luca didn’t deny it. He walked away from the window, slow, deliberate, like he had all the time in the world. “I needed you to understand the stakes.”

“You think scaring my mother is going to make me cooperate?”

“I think,” Luca said, stopping a few feet from her, “that you care about her more than you care about pride. And pride doesn’t pay eviction notices.”

The words landed like a slap. Because they were true. God, they were true. She wanted to argue, to throw something, to scream that she wasn’t that desperate. But the drawer in her kitchen with the red FINAL NOTICE burned behind her eyes.

Ava’s hands clenched at her sides. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stay close,” Luca said. “Be seen with me. Let the people who shot me believe you matter to me.”

“Why?”

“Because if they think hurting you hurts me, they won’t touch you. And because if they think you’re mine, they’ll come to me instead of going to your mother again.”

Ava stared at him. “You’re using me as bait.”

“I’m using you as protection,” he corrected. “For both of us.”

She wanted to argue. Wanted to walk out again and not look back. But the image of her mother’s voice, tight and afraid, kept pulling her under. She thought of the apartment, the bills, the way her mother had tried to sound normal on the phone when she was clearly terrified.

“How long?” she asked quietly.

Luca studied her. His gaze moved over her face like he was searching for something — hesitation, maybe, or a way out she hadn’t seen yet. “Until they’re gone. Or until I am.”

The honesty in that answer was worse than any lie. Because it meant he didn’t know. It meant this wasn’t a clean, controlled plan. It meant she was stepping into something volatile, and he was willing to admit it.

Ava exhaled. “And the folder? My father’s debt?”

“We’ll talk about that,” Luca said. “When you’re ready.”

She wasn’t ready. She might never be. The idea that her father, the man she remembered as steady and quiet, could have owed a man like Luca — it didn’t fit. But the documents had been there. His signature. And Luca hadn’t flinched when she asked.

She took a step closer to the desk, then stopped. The space between them felt charged, thick with things neither of them was saying.

“You’re playing with fire,” Ava said, her voice lower now. “With me. With my family.”

“I know,” Luca said. He didn’t move closer, but his eyes did, dragging down to her mouth and back up. “But you walked back in here, Ava. That means something.”

Her pulse jumped. “It means I don’t have a choice.”

“Doesn’t it?” Luca’s voice was quiet, almost gentle in a way that made her chest ache. “You could’ve gone home. Ignored the call. Pretended none of this was happening.”

He was right. And she hated him for it.

Ava shook her head, but she didn’t step back. “Don’t do that. Don’t make this sound like I want to be here.”

“I’m not,” Luca said. “I’m just saying I see you.”

The words hit somewhere deep. No one had looked at her like that in years — like she wasn’t just a waitress, or a daughter drowning in debt, or a problem to solve. Like she was someone worth seeing.

It made her angry. It made her ache.

Before she could think better of it, she moved. Not away, but toward him. Just one step, closing the space he’d left open.

Luca went still. His hands stayed in his pockets, but his jaw tightened. “Ava—”

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t say my name like that.”

But he did. “Ava.”

It was barely more than breath, and it unraveled her.

She reached him. Her hands came up to his chest, not to push, but to hold. His shirt was warm under her fingers. She could feel his heartbeat, fast and steady, matching hers.

Luca’s hands came up slowly, like he was giving her time to stop him. They settled on her waist, light at first, then firm. He didn’t pull her in. He waited.

And Ava, stupid, furious, desperate Ava, leaned in.

The kiss wasn’t soft. It was sharp, full of anger and fear and the kind of wanting she didn’t have a name for. His mouth was firm against hers, and for a second, all she felt was heat — the kind that burned through the cold in her bones and made her forget about eviction notices and black SUVs and her father’s name in a folder.

Luca made a low sound in his throat and his hands slid up to her back, holding her like he was afraid she’d disappear. She gripped his shirt harder, pulling him closer, and it felt like falling.

Then reality crashed back in.

She jerked away, breathing hard, her lips tingling, her whole body buzzing with something she couldn’t name.

“What the hell are we doing?” she whispered.

Luca’s eyes were darker now, his control slipping. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m not sorry.”

Ava pressed her fingers to her mouth, like she could erase it. “You should be.”

“Maybe,” Luca said. “But you didn’t stop me.”

The truth in that made her stomach twist.

She stepped back, putting distance between them. Her hands were shaking. “This doesn’t change anything.”

“It changes everything,” Luca said quietly.

Ava shook her head, but she couldn’t argue. Because it did. Because for a few seconds, she’d forgotten to be afraid.

“Fine,” she said, voice unsteady. “But I have conditions.”

Luca’s eyebrow lifted slightly, like he hadn’t expected her to keep negotiating after that. “You’re in no position to—”

“Then say no,” Ava cut in, voice rising. “But I’m not walking back into that apartment pretending I’m not terrified. So here’s my terms: you don’t touch my mother. You don’t lie to me about what’s happening. And you don’t tell me what to do unless my life or hers is on the line.”

Silence.

Luca didn’t answer right away. He looked at her like she’d surprised him, like he hadn’t expected her to push back with conditions instead of just folding. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Acceptable.”

Ava didn’t feel relief. She felt the noose tighten. Because saying yes meant she was in it now. Really in it. Not just a girl who’d helped a bleeding man in an alley, but someone tied to Luca Moretti, to his enemies, to her father’s unknown past.

“Good,” she said. Her voice was steady, but her hands weren’t. “Because I’m not yours, Luca Moretti. I’m just… here. For now.”

Luca’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. More like recognition. “For now,” he echoed.

Outside, the city kept moving. Cars passed, people laughed, life went on like nothing had changed. Inside, Ava Carter had just made a deal with a man she didn’t trust, tied to a debt she didn’t understand, for a mother she couldn’t afford to lose.

And somewhere in the city, someone who’d shot Luca was watching, waiting, probably wondering why a waitress was suddenly walking out of his building with her lips swollen and her head spinning.

The complication had begun.