Chapter 3
1371 Words
The creative design department had been unusually quiet all morning. It was a heavy, suffocating quiet. The volatile friction between Alessia Romano and Damien De Luca had spread through the building like a contagion.
Alessia ignored the whispers. She sat behind the glass walls of her corner office, her focus trained on the layout sketches spread across her desk.
A hesitant, trembling knock shattered her focus. An intern stood in the doorway, her knuckles white as she gripped a tablet. “Mr. De Luca has requested your presence in his office, Miss Romano.”
Alessia calmly capped her fountain pen. “Then he can keep requesting. Tell your boss that I am currently doing the job he hired me for.”
“I don’t remember giving you the authority to dictate your own schedule.”
The atmosphere in the room plummeted below freezing. The intern let out a terrified squeak and vanished into the hallway, narrowly avoiding the man who had just stepped into the doorway.
Damien.
He closed the glass door behind him with a soft, deliberate click that sounded like the c*****g of a pistol. The sharp lines of his bespoke black suit looked like armor; his expression was carved from granite.
Alessia leaned back in her leather chair with practiced, lazy elegance. “You know, Damien, in the civilized world, people wait to be invited in.”
“I am the Don of the De Luca family,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly vibration. “I don't ask for invitations in my own building.”
“And yet, here you are, standing in an office that belonged to my brother.” Alessia’s voice dropped, laced with bitter poison. “A room you stole.”
A dangerous fire flared in his blue-grey eyes. He took a slow, predatory step toward her desk. “You ignored my summons. You made me wait. You think this is a game.”
“I think you’re dramatic.”
She stood up abruptly, her palms slamming against the desk as she leaned forward, her face mere inches from his. “And what exactly do you remember about me, Damien? The girl you used as a pawn? The girl whose family you destroyed?”
Damien’s gaze trapped hers. He remembered everything. He remembered the broken, breathless way she used to whisper his name against his mouth like it was a prayer. And he hated himself for the fact that five years of blood hadn't washed a single memory away.
Before she could pull back, Damien reached across the desk, his large, calloused hand wrapping securely around her wrist.
“Damien, let go of me,” she hissed, her heart hammering as he began pulling her out of the office.
He didn't say a word. He dragged her out into the open-plan floor past staring designers and shoved her inside the executive elevator. The moment the doors sealed them in, Alessia violently yanked her hand away. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
“You,” he said simply, his chest rising and falling heavily. “You are what’s wrong with me.”
When the doors opened onto the penthouse floor, he steered her straight into his private office, slamming the heavy oak door shut.
“You have officially forgotten your boundaries, De Luca.”
“And you’ve forgotten yours.” In a fraction of a second, Damien closed the distance. His hands gripped her waist, pressing her back against the dark mahogany paneling of the wall. He leaned in, trapping her completely. “Don’t push me, Alessia. You think provoking me is an amusement.”
Alessia forced her chin up, her pulse hammering violently in her throat. “Or what, Damien? Show me what happens when the great Don loses control.”
Something snapped. The last thread of Damien’s restraint disintegrated.
He crashed his mouth down onto hers.
The kiss wasn't gentle; it was a violent collision of five years of unadulterated hatred, buried grief, and starvation. Alessia froze for one shocked, agonizing heartbeat, her hands instantly coming up to shove against his massive chest. Push him away, her brain screamed. He destroyed everything.
But the moment his tongue grazed hers, her body betrayed her. A soft, broken whimper escaped her throat, and her fingers tangled into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer, tasting the boy she had lost beneath the monster he had become.
The realization horrified her.
With a surge of pure panic, Alessia shoved him away with all her strength. Before he could steady himself, her palm cracked sharply across his cheek. The sound of the slap echoed through the vast office like a gunshot.
Alessia wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes burning with furious tears. “Don’t you dare ever touch me again.”
Before Damien could speak, the heavy oak door swung open. Camilla Moretti stepped into the room, her vibrant smile instantly dying. Her sharp eyes darted from Damien’s flushed, tense posture to the glaring red print on his cheek. Pure, ugly jealousy twisted her features.
“What is going on in here?” Camilla demanded.
Alessia smoothed down her skirt, her expression shifting into a mask of aristocratic ice. “Ask your man.”
Camilla’s gaze snapped to Alessia, her hands curling into fists. “You need to stay away from him, Alessia. I mean it.”
Alessia let out a soft, mocking laugh. “Then I suggest you put your puppet on a shorter leash, Camilla. Before he wanders back into places he has no business being.”
“Camilla, out,” Damien ordered, his voice dangerously low.
“No, Damien! I am tired of this!” Camilla snapped. “She disappeared for five years! She doesn't get to come back and ruin everything we've built!”
Alessia paused at the door, her eyes going entirely dead. “Trust me, Camilla. I didn't come back to New York for him.”
The words visibly hit Damien like a physical blow. Alessia didn't wait to see the rest. She pushed the door open and walked out.
Twenty minutes later, Alessia entered the dim expanse of the executive parking garage. How could she have kissed him back? She muttered curses under her breath, but as she unlocked her car, a shadow moved from behind a concrete pillar.
Isabella stepped into the fluorescent light, her expression tense. “You need to leave New York, Alessia. Pack your things and go. Your return has made people incredibly nervous.”
Alessia scoffed. “If your family killed my parents to take this empire, why would they be nervous about me?”
Isabella flinched. “You think you know exactly how the dominoes fell five years ago, don't you? Just look at the timeline, Alessia. Your family’s chief accountant ‘drowned’ two months before the raid on your estate. Your head attorney died of a sudden ‘heart attack’ a week later. Do you really think the De Lucas would systematically eliminate your family’s paper trail before we even fired a single bullet? It makes no strategic sense.”
Alessia stilled completely. The accountant. The attorney.
“What are you saying?” Alessia whispered.
Isabella shook her head, backing away into the shadows as the distant sound of an engine revved. “I’m saying that someone cleaned the slate before the war even started. And if you keep digging into the corporate archives, you aren't just going to find De Luca names on those stolen assets.”
Before Alessia could demand answers, a black sedan rounded the corner, its headlights illuminating the space. Isabella turned and walked quickly toward the elevator banks.
Alessia scrambled into her driver's seat and started the engine, her hands trembling against the steering wheel. For five years, her hatred had been a straight line pointing directly at Damien.
Now, for the first time, the line was starting to blur.
- Writer
