Bound by his blood oath

Aria Collins had always loved the feeling of arriving in a new city. There was something intoxicating about the unfamiliar—the chaos, the language she didn’t understand, the history pressed into every stone. Rome was supposed to be magical. Her first real business trip. Her first time in Italy. Her first chance to prove to her company that she was more than the quiet girl who handled schedules and paperwork. But right now, on her first night, she wasn’t thinking about magic. She was thinking about how unbelievably stupid she had been to trust her dying phone battery. “Come on, not now,” she muttered, tapping the screen as it dimmed for the last time before going completely black. Dead. Of course. And the portable charger? Sitting neatly in the hotel room where she left it. Her colleague Elena had texted her the restaurant name, something long and beautifully Italian that Aria had no hope of remembering without Google Maps. She had stepped out of her taxi confidently, thinking she could navigate a few blocks on her own. Now she wasn’t even sure where the main street was. Rome at night had a different rhythm—fast but eerily quiet in certain pockets. The streets were narrow, cobblestoned, lit by golden lamps that cast long shadows. The buildings leaned in as if whispering secrets over her head. And she, alone with the sound of her heels clicking too loudly, began to regret wandering so far. A cool breeze slipped through the alley, brushing goosebumps across her arms. She wrapped her blazer tighter around herself and kept walking, hoping for a sign, a person, a taxi—anything. But the deeper she went, the more the air changed. The city noise faded behind her like a closed door. Another alley forked off to the right, darker than the rest. Another to the left, completely silent. Her footsteps suddenly sounded wrong—too sharp, too exposed. “This isn’t right…” she whispered, slowing. Something in her chest tightened. A primal kind of fear, the kind she hadn’t felt since she was a child. She turned back, ready to retrace her steps— And then she heard it. A voice. Not speaking—pleading. A man’s voice, choked and desperate, echoing off the stone walls ahead. Aria froze. Her heart stuttered, then pounded so hard she felt it in her throat. She pressed herself against the nearest building, palms sweating, breath locked in her chest. Curiosity warred with instinct—instinct screamed for her to turn around and run, but curiosity pulled her forward with the gentleness of a thread and the danger of a blade. Very slowly, she leaned forward, peeking around the corner. And her entire world stopped. There, at the end of the alley, under the faint glow of a streetlight, a man knelt on the ground with his hands bound behind him. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth onto his shirt. His shoulders shook as he begged in rapid Italian, voice cracking with terror. Three men surrounded him. Black suits. Broad shoulders. Hard faces. But it was the fourth man—the one standing slightly apart—who commanded the entire street. Tall. Impossibly composed. Still in a way that felt dangerous. He wore a black tailored suit like armor, the shadows clinging to him, shaping the brutal angles of his face. His jaw was sharp enough to cut, his cheekbones defined, his dark hair perfectly styled despite the violence unfolding around him. But it was his eyes, when she finally saw them, that made her blood ice over. Cold. Dark. Unmoving. Like the eyes of someone who didn’t fear death because he’d already met it and walked away. He held a gun casually at his side, as though it weighed nothing. Aria’s legs trembled. She tried to step back, but her heel slipped on the uneven stone, scraping lightly against the wall. The faint sound might as well have been a gunshot. The man’s head lifted—not slowly… not curiously… But sharply. Like a predator detecting prey. Their eyes collided across the length of the alley. The air thickened. Her breath collapsed. Her heart seemed to forget how to beat. He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look alarmed. If anything… he looked intrigued. His gaze held her still—no, it pinned her. Before Aria could look away, before she could run or scream or think, a slow, dangerous smirk curved on his lips. Then he lifted the gun. Not at her. At the kneeling man. The gunshot ripped through the night. Aria flinched violently, covering her mouth to stop herself from screaming. The kneeling man crumpled forward, his body hitting the stones with a hollow thud that echoed long after the sound died. Her eyes stung. Her legs weakened. And the man with the gun… the monster in the suit… began walking toward her. No rush. No panic. Just a controlled, deliberate pace. He murmured something to the men behind him, and they immediately began dragging the body away. But he didn’t look back at them. His eyes were fixed on her. Only her. Aria backed away in terror. “No… no, no, please…” she whispered, though she wasn’t even sure who she was begging—him or the universe. Her back hit the wall of a shuttered shop. She pressed against it like she could sink into the bricks. The man stepped into the glow of the single streetlight, and she saw him fully for the first time. He was devastatingly handsome—beautiful in the way a venomous snake was beautiful. Sharp, sleek, mesmerizing. His fitted suit stretched across broad shoulders, a faint tattoo peeking from under the cuff of his sleeve. His expression was unreadable, carved from cold stone, but his eyes… his eyes burned like dark fire. He stopped a few feet from her. Close enough that she could see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. Close enough to hear the calm silence of a man who never needed to raise his voice to be feared. “Please…” she forced out, breath trembling. “I—I didn’t see anything.” His head tilted slightly, as though he were examining a curious object. “You did,” he said softly. His voice was deep, smooth, accented. Italian rolled off his tongue like smoke. “And I don’t appreciate lies.” Her stomach dropped. He reached out, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear. The touch was chillingly gentle, like he was memorizing the shape of her face before deciding what to do with her. Up close, he smelled like expensive cologne and gunpowder. “Name,” he said simply. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. He stepped closer. Her breath broke. The wall pressed harder into her back. “Name,” he repeated, this time softer. Almost tender. As if the word were an intimate request instead of a demand from a killer. “A… Aria,” she whispered. He nodded, his thumb grazing her jaw with a control that felt more dangerous than violence itself. “My name,” he said, “is Matteo Ricci.” She didn’t recognize it. But she felt it. The weight of it. The danger wrapped inside it. Matteo studied her for a moment that stretched like a held breath. Then he leaned in, his lips close enough that she felt the warmth of his words against her ear. “You’ve seen something you shouldn’t have,” he murmured. “And now, Aria… your life belongs to me.” Before she could scream, before she could even inhale, two strong arms wrapped around her from behind. A cloth pressed over her mouth. Her world spun. The last thing she saw was Matteo’s eyes—calm, cold, and hauntingly certain—as darkness swallowed her.