The Don’s Deadly Cure

Chapter 8 -LUCA

The Snow estate in upstate New York was a relic of a dying empire. It was grand, gothic, and smelled of woodsmoke and old blood. As I walked into the grand library, my side throbbed, a sharp reminder of the woman I had left behind in Milan, the woman I was still planning to find as soon as I escaped this farce of a marriage.

I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head. While my father spent the flight across the Atlantic droning on about "strategic synergy" and "blood bonds," I was looking at the dossier Fabiano had sent to my phone. A surgeon. A ghost. A woman who lived in the light while I was drowning in the dark.

"Try to look less like you're heading to a funeral, Luca," my father hissed as we reached the library doors. "This alliance is the only thing keeping the Valenti from our throats."

"I’ll play the groom, Lorenzo," I rasped, adjusting the cuff of my suit. "Just don't expect me to like the bride."

I already had a mental image of the Snow heiress. She’d be draped in diamonds she didn't earn, smelling of some cloying, floral perfume, with eyes that had never seen anything more traumatic than a broken fingernail. She was a pawn, and I would treat her as such, a beautiful, hollow shell to be kept in a gilded cage in Milan while I spent my nights searching for my doctor.

We entered the library. The air was thick with the scent of cigars and desperate men. Ivan Snow sat at the head of the table, looking like a man with one foot in the grave. His son, Mikhail, stood nearby, radiating a frantic, amateurish energy that made my skin crawl.

My father stood beside Ivan Snow, two old lions bartering over the remains of their pride. Mikhail Snow, the hot-headed heir, looked like he was vibrating with barely contained aggression.

"The contracts are finalized," Ivan rasped. "But the bond requires the presence of the bride."

I leaned against a mahogany bookshelf, my expression bored, my mind already calculating how quickly I could leave for Chicago. I expected a woman draped in silk and diamonds, someone who would shrink from the darkness in my eyes. I expected a girl who had never seen a drop of blood in her life.

Then, the doors opened.

I didn't turn at first. I didn't want to give the "princess" the satisfaction of my attention. But then, a scent hit me. It wasn't the heavy floral mess I expected. It was clean. Sharp. Underneath a layer of expensive perfume was the unmistakable, faint scent of antiseptic and hospital soap.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a sudden, violent rhythm. I turned slowly.

The woman standing in the doorway was a vision in crimson. The silk dress hugged her curves like a second skin, backless and daring, her dark hair pinned up in a way that exposed the elegant line of her throat. She looked every bit the Mafia royalty I had been told to expect.

But then my gaze traveled to her face.

The world stopped. The air in my lungs turned to ice.

The stormy eyes. The defiant curve of her jaw. The way she stood, not like a girl waiting for a husband, but like a woman who had seen the inside of a human brain and wasn't afraid of the blood.

It was her.

"Nadia?" The name left my lips before I could catch it, a ragged whisper that shattered the silence of the room.

The library went still. I saw the moment she recognized me. I saw the shock flood her features, her gaze dropping instinctively to my side, to the place where she had spent hours stitching my life back together.

I looked at my father, who was watching me with growing suspicion, and then back at the woman in the red dress.

Nadia Snow.

The name wasn't just a coincidence. The "Snow" on the ID badge wasn't a common surname. It was a crown.

I felt a dark, twisted laugh bubbling up in my chest. I had spent days dismissing the Snow heiress as a spoiled brat. I had told myself she wouldn't know the first thing about a scalpel. And all the while, the woman I was destined to marry was the same woman who had held my life in her hands in a hotel room in Milan.

“You,” she whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of horror and realization.

Mikhail stepped forward, his gaze sharp as it cut between us. “You know each other?”

I did not answer him. I could not take my eyes off her.

The spoiled heiress was the doctor.

The healer was the hunter’s daughter.

I took a single step forward, then stopped. Close enough to feel the shift in the air between us, far enough to show control.

“I told you I would find you when the time was right to settle the score, Nadia,” I said quietly. “I just did not realize fate would collect on my behalf.”

The shock in her eyes steadied, giving way to that same sharp intelligence I remembered from Milan. She met my gaze without flinching.

Silence stretched, heavy and dangerous.

Ivan Snow cleared his throat. “It seems,” he said slowly, “that introductions are no longer necessary.”

My father studied us both, his expression unreadable. “Good. Then there is no need for delays.”

Mikhail exhaled sharply. “They should speak. Alone.”

The word carried weight. Expectation. Command.

“Yes,” Ivan agreed. “If they are to be bound, they will understand each other first.”

I finally looked away from Nadia, turning to face the room. “The merger is accepted,” I said, my voice calm and final. “We will talk.”

When my gaze returned to her, it was measured, assessing. Not touching. Not claiming.

“After you, Princess,” I added softly.

Her jaw tightened, but she stepped forward.

And as she passed me, close enough that our shoulders almost brushed, I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

This was no longer a debt.

This was a war disguised as a marriage.