Chapter Three: Fire at the Dinner Table
1482 Words
Brianna’s POV
I stare at my reflection.
Not with sadness. Not with pity.
But with purpose.
The girl who wore white and trembled at an altar is gone. Shattered like a wineglass thrown against marble.
In her place stands someone new. Someone willing to bleed, to seduce, to burn.
I know now that no one is coming to rescue me. Matteo won't. My foster parents sold me. And Enzo, he’s watching from the shadows, waiting to see what kind of creature I’ll become under pressure.
Fine.
Let him watch.
Let them all watch.
If I am to survive in this world of wolves, I must become the flame that scorches their fur.
So I plan.
The banquet is in two days, a celebration of some political alliance I am not important enough to understand. But I don’t need to know the agenda to dominate the room. I just need to be seen.
Not pitied. Not humiliated.
Seen.
I pull the velvet cord in my room and wait. A maid arrives, young, eyes downcast, terrified.
“I need a driver,” I say.
She blinks, startled.
“I am going shopping.....,”
“But Miss, we have everything you need and we can......” she starts to speak but I never asked for her opinion did I?
“I said I am going shopping.” I add, slipping on Matteo’s last name like a coat I have earned. “Tell whoever handles schedules that Mrs. De Luca would like a car. And a security escort.”
She nods and then vanishes like a ghost.
Half an hour later, a black Maserati pulls into the courtyard. A suited driver opens the door for me without asking questions. The guards that follow, two men in sleek black say nothing, but their movements are sharp.
Professional.
Dangerous.
For the first time, I ride through the streets of Rome not as an orphan or a pawn, but as something powerful.
Heads turn when I step out of the car.
At first, I expect suspicion. Dismissal.
But it doesn’t come.
Instead, the boutique staff greet me with reverence. They call me Signora De Luca. They offer champagne before I can ask. The manager closes the entire store for my comfort. “For Mr. Enzo’s daughter-in-law,” she says in hushed awe.
And that’s when it hits me.
The De Luca name is currency.
And for the first time, I am holding it.
The dresses they bring are silks and satins, blood-reds and midnight blues. Fabrics that whisper over skin and shout across rooms.
I choose the red one.
Of course I do.
It’s scandalous, backless, with a slit high enough to silence a room and a neckline that borders on sin.
I imagine Enzo’s face when he sees it.
And I smile.
Why Enzo? Because he is the only man in that Mansion and my target.
Shoes. Jewellery. Perfume. Everything tailored, gilded, and paid for with a credit line I never see.
For a moment, I let myself enjoy it, the indulgence, the decadence, the way Rome bows to power. I sip champagne while a stylist curls my hair. I walk past mirrors and barely recognize the woman in them.
She’s bold. Controlled. Drenched in strategy.
She’s me.
And she’s ready.
“I love this look,” I saw while appreciating their work. “I want this same look in two days. But I want a smoky eye.”
“Yes Signora De Luca.”
***
Evening falls like velvet over the mansion.
The banquet is alive with murmured power. Crystal chandeliers flicker above men who kill with smiles and women who poison with compliments. Gold clinks against glass. Laughter dances like daggers.
And then, I arrive.
The hush is instant, like the room inhales all at once and forgets how to breathe.
My heels click against polished marble as I descend the staircase slowly, deliberately, the red dress fanning around my legs like fire licking the air. The slit flutters with every step, teasing more than it reveals. The neckline dips low, scandalously so. And the back? Bare. Defiant. A rebellion sewn into silk.
They weren’t expecting this.
I hear them before I see them.
“She’s bold for a bride with no heir.”
“Is that the girl Matteo married? God help her…”
“Wearing red to a formal banquet? In that cut? Enzo will slit her throat with his stare alone.”
“She looks like sin incarnate. Beautiful, but foolish.”
Their whispers are velvet daggers. And I walk right through them like smoke.
Matteo sees me first. His wine glass trembles slightly in his hand. His mouth parts as though words want to escape, but he swallows them. Hard.
Good.
Let him drown in the fire he refuses to touch.
Then I feel him.
Enzo.
My father in-law’s gaze crashes into me like a storm tide, dark and heavy. He stops mid-sentence, voice dying, as his eyes rake down my body in slow, disbelieving silence. His brow furrows. His jaw tightens. His fingers still over the rim of his glass.
I smile.
Let him seethe.
Let him simmer.
I glide toward the table and take my seat beside Matteo. He leans closer almost immediately, voice a sharp whisper behind a forced smile.
“What the hell are you wearing?”
I sip my wine, unbothered. “A dress.”
“That’s not a dress. It’s a declaration of war,” he hisses. “Enzo is already furious. Do you want him to make an example of you?”
I turn to him, letting my eyes sweep lazily over his face.
“Since when do you care, Matteo?”
He blinks. His lips press into a thin line.
“I don’t,” he mutters. “But you’re being reckless.”
“Good,” I reply, lifting my glass. “Then it’s working.”
“You’re going to get yourself hurt.”
“I would rather burn in silk than suffocate in silence.”
He exhales harshly, but I don’t give him another glance.
Let him watch me twist the rules he hides behind.
***
The room pulses with false civility and whispered power, but I barely taste my wine anymore.
I watch Enzo from across the long dining table, studying him as one might study a loaded weapon, beautiful, precise, and deadly in the wrong hands. He speaks sparingly. His fork moves methodically. His brow remains furrowed, a line of tension etched permanently across his forehead.
But I see it.
The way his gaze flicks toward me when he thinks I am not looking. The way his jaw tightens every time I shift in this dress. The way his glass still hasn’t emptied, because drinking would mean losing a fragment of control.
He is unravelling slowly.
And I plan to tug at every loose thread.
They locked me in this family like a pet in a palace. Fed me pearls and poison. Called me “wife” but gave me no husband. And now they expect obedience?
No.
I will provoke him until he cracks.
I will seduce the storm itself if I have to, because if the only way out of this gilded prison is through fire, then I will wrap myself in gasoline and strike the match.
He wants control.
I want power.
So I will offer him temptation laced with defiance. I will dare him to want what he forbids himself. And then, when he takes the bait, I will own him.
I rise from my seat, lifting the carafe of wine with a smile stitched from secrets.
It’s time to step onto the battlefield.
The moment the server hesitates with Enzo’s glass, I rise.
“I will do it,” I say sweetly, lifting the carafe.
I move behind him. The air between us hums with static.
As I pour, I lean too close, close enough for my breath to stir the collar of his suit.
His voice drops like a blade.
“Remember your place.”
“Of course,” I whisper, pouring the last drop.
I turn away, then feign a stumble.
My hands fall against his chest, steadying myself.
It’s not accidental. We both know it.
His hands snap to my arms, grip iron.
Our eyes lock.
“My apologies,” I murmur, letting my lips hover just a fraction too close to his ear. “Your son refuses to touch me. Will you?”
The tension snaps like a wire.
Enzo stands so fast his chair topples behind him. The room falls silent.
His hand wraps around my wrist not enough to bruise, but enough to warn.
“Out,” he growls. “Now.”
He drags me down the hall with silent fury, his grip unrelenting.
He opens a heavy oak door one I have never noticed before and throws me inside.
- Writer
