PRINCE OF SIN

Chapter 2

The walk back to my apartment was a blur of gray stone and panicked heartbeats.

Florence, usually a city of art and light, had transformed into a labyrinth of predatory angles. Every alleyway felt like a throat waiting to close; every stranger in a dark coat was a shadow in disguise. I didn’t stop at the coffee shop. I didn’t look at the window displays of the leather boutiques. I simply ran, my lungs burning, the black raven’s feather clutched so tightly in my fist that the quill snapped.

When I finally reached my door, I fumbled with the keys, my hands shaking so violently that I dropped them twice. I practically threw myself inside, slamming the heavy oak door and sliding the deadbolt home with a definitive clack.

I leaned my back against the wood, sliding down until I hit the floor, my breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps.

Safe. I was safe.

I lived in a third floor walk up in an old building that smelled of damp plaster and espresso. It was small, cramped, and filled with the ghosts of my father’s obsession, stacks of yellowed maps, handwritten notes in a language I couldn’t decipher, and the oppressive silence of a home that had forgotten how to be happy.

I stayed on the floor for a long time, staring at the peeling paint of the hallway. I am the consequence of your father’s greed.

The words looped in my mind, a rhythmic torture. My father had been a man of prestige, a historian, a curator, but in his final years, he had become a shell. He had spoken of a “House” that didn’t exist in any history book, a bloodline of princes who operated in the seams of the world, trading in favors and debts that could never be repaid with money.

I had dismissed it as dementia. As the rambling of a dying man.

But the man in the library… he wasn’t a hallucination. He was a predator who knew my name. He was a man who moved like smoke and spoke like a threat.

I forced myself to stand, my legs feeling like lead. I needed to wash the feeling of his gaze off my skin. I walked into the tiny bathroom, splashing ice cold water on my face, staring at my reflection in the cracked mirror. My eyes were wide, the pupils blown, reflecting a terror that felt dangerously close to electricity.

That was the part I couldn’t tell anyone. The part that made me feel sick.

When he had touched my hair, when his voice had vibrated against my ear, I hadn’t just felt fear. I had felt a sudden, violent spark of something, a magnetic pull toward the very thing that wanted to destroy me. It was a primal, shameful reaction, a surrender of the nerves that terrified me more than he did.

I dried my face and walked into my bedroom, intending to lock myself under the covers until the sun rose.

I stopped in the doorway.

My bedroom window was open. A thin curtain of sheer white lace fluttered in the midnight breeze, dancing like a ghost. I hadn’t left the window open. I never left the window open.

My heart stopped. The air in the room shifted, the temperature plummeting. And then, I smelled it.

Sandalwood. Tobacco. Old blood.

“You have a lovely home, Penelope,” a voice purred from the corner. “Though it’s a bit… suffocating. Much like your secrets.”

I spun around, a scream dying in my throat.

Julian was lounging in the velvet armchair in the corner of my room, his long legs crossed at the ankles. He was still wearing the black leather gloves. In the dim moonlight filtering through the window, he looked less like a man and more like a fallen angel, draped in darkness and arrogance.

He was holding something in his hand. My father’s private journal, the one I kept locked in a steel box beneath my bed.

“How did you get in here?” I whispered, my voice cracking.

“Locks are for people who have something to lose,” he replied, his gaze sliding over me with a slow, possessive hunger. He stood up, the movement fluid and predatory, and began to walk toward me.

I backed away, but I hit the wall, the cold plaster pressing into my spine. He didn’t stop until he was inches away, trapping me between the wall and his towering frame. He didn’t touch me, but the heat radiating from his body was a physical assault.

He leaned down, his lips hovering just a fraction of an inch from my jawline.

“Your father owed a debt to the House of Valerius,” he murmured, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. “A debt of blood and loyalty. He tried to cheat the House. He tried to hide the prize.”

He shifted, his hand coming up to grip the wall beside my head, his gloved fingers splaying against the wallpaper.

“And the prize,” he whispered, his eyes locking onto mine, “was you.”