Ava's POV
The door slams, and the sound echoes in the quiet apartment like a gunshot.
One second, Damiano was leaning over me, kissing me in that way that always feels like he's claiming me all over again… and the next, he's gone. I stare at my half-empty plate, the eggs gone cold. Something's wrong.
He told me to finish my breakfast—like I could. Like my mind isn't already spinning with the way his jaw tightened, the way his eyes went from warm to ice in an instant. I push away from the counter, pacing. I've seen that look on him before, usually right before some poor bastard disappears from the club and doesn't come back.
The clock ticks too loud. The apartment feels too still. And somewhere in that stillness, a chill slips under my skin. I grab my phone and text him.
Everything okay?
Three dots appear… then vanish. No reply. My stomach knots. My gaze drifts to the window, down to the street below. For the first time since last night, I feel exposed. It's ridiculous, I tell myself. I'm safe here. But deep down, I know safety isn't real in Damiano's world. It's just a promise wrapped in silk—and silk burns.
The knock is soft at first. Too soft. The kind of knock you give when you're not sure you want the person inside to hear you. I freeze halfway to the sink, my heart tripping over itself. Damiano wouldn't knock. He has a key.
Another knock. Louder this time. I grab the nearest thing that could be a weapon—a heavy glass from the counter—and edge toward the door, my bare feet silent on the hardwood.
"Who is it?" My voice is steady enough to fool anyone but me.
Silence.
My pulse pounds in my ears. Every instinct screams at me not to open it.
But then a girl's voice filters through, thin and urgent. "Ava?"
Relief slams into me—my sister. I unlock the door, but the second it opens, she throws herself inside, clutching her school bag like it's a lifeline. Her face is pale, eyes wide, breathing too fast.
"Two guys were watching me," she blurts, the words tumbling out in a rush. "At school. They were just sitting in a car… staring. I didn't know what to do."
The glass nearly slips from my fingers. I pull her close, my own fear sharpening into something darker. Damiano. He knew. He must have known. whatever world I've stepped into with him… it's touching her now.
I don't realize I'm shaking until she grips me tighter. I hold her, feeling the tremor in her shoulders. Her hair smells faintly of coconut shampoo—the cheap kind we used to share when money was tighter than our patience.
My mind starts pulling me backward. Back before the club lights. Before the debts. Before Damiano. It was the smell of my mother's kitchen—garlic sizzling in olive oil, the soft hum of her singing along to the radio. She always sang when she cooked. Said it was how she put love into the food.
My father would come home, jacket over his arm, and scoop me up no matter how old I got. He'd kiss the top of my head, then ruffle my sister's hair until she squealed.
We were loud then. Loud with laughter, loud with arguments over who got the last piece of bread, loud with the kind of love that fills a house so completely you never imagine it can vanish. But it did.
One night, there was no garlic on the stove. No singing. Just police lights flashing outside our window, painting the walls red and blue like some sick celebration.
The debts came after. My father's mistakes buried us, and my mother's absence gutted us. I had to grow up fast—too fast. My sister was just a kid. I can still see her face that day. Lost. Small. Clutching my hand like I was the only thing keeping her tethered to the world. And maybe I was.
I release her now, pulling back to look into her scared eyes.
"We're okay," I lie, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. "I won't let anything happen to you."
But the truth burns in my throat—if Damiano's enemies are circling, keeping that promise will be harder than I've ever imagined.
I grab her school bag and set it on the couch, my mind already made up. I can't sit here and wait for trouble to come knocking again—not when I know exactly where the trouble leads back to.
"Get changed," I tell her, my tone sharper than I mean it to be. "Stay here. Lock the door. Don't open it for anyone but me."
She starts to protest, but one look from me shuts her up. I'm already pulling on my jacket, shoving my feet into boots. The whole way to Damiano's club, my head is a storm. Images of my sister's pale face bleed into flashes of those men—faceless shadows with eyes sharp enough to cut through glass. And behind it all, Damiano's voice in my head, deep and deliberate, telling me that nothing in his world comes without a price.
When I reach the club's private entrance, the bouncer looks surprised to see me in daylight. "He's upstairs," he says simply, and steps aside.
The elevator ride is too short for me to calm down, but long enough for me to rehearse what I'm going to say—how I'm going to demand answers without losing my nerve. The doors slide open, and there he is.
Damiano Cavalli. Leaning back in his chair, dark eyes fixed on a glass of amber liquor like it holds all the secrets in the world. Those same eyes flick up to me, slow and deliberate, and my pulse does that traitorous thing it always does—stumbling into a sprint.
"Ava." His voice is a low caress, but I hear the warning in it. "What a surprise."
I step inside, the doors closing behind me with a soft thud that sounds a lot like a lock.
"We need to talk," I say, keeping my chin high. "Now."
His brow arches, a flicker of amusement curving his mouth. "I was under the impression you weren't taking visitors today."
"I wasn't," I snap. "But then my sister showed up at your penthouse terrified because two men were watching her at school. You want to explain why the hell that happened?"
Something sharp flashes in his eyes—gone before I can pin it down. He leans back, setting the glass on the desk with slow precision. "I told you before… there are people who would use you to get to me."
"This isn't about me," I shoot back. "This is about her. She's a kid, Damiano. She doesn't belong in your war."
He rises, the movement smooth, unhurried, like a predator that doesn't need to rush. "And yet here we are."
I fold my arms, glaring up at him even as his presence presses in. "I don't care how dangerous you think it is for me. I'm not hiding behind your locked doors while she's being—"
"You think I'd leave her unprotected?" His tone cuts clean through my words, low but firm. "Ava, I knew the moment she was being watched. I had men on her before she even left the school grounds." He steps closer, his voice softening, losing none of its weight. "She's safe because she's with me. And because you're with me."
I shake my head. "I don't feel safe."
"You will." He says it like a vow, like there's no room for me to doubt him. "But I need you back at the penthouse. Today."
"I'm not—"
"Now." The word lands like a command, but there's a gentleness in the way he frames my face in his hands. "Ava, I will not lose you. Or her. Let me handle this."
Something in his gaze makes my chest ache—something that feels dangerously close to honesty. And maybe it's the thought of those faceless men outside her school, maybe it's the knot in my stomach that hasn't loosened since this morning, but I find myself nodding.
He doesn't smile, doesn't gloat. Just takes my hand and says, "I've already arranged for clothes, shoes, everything you need. You and your sister aren't leaving my protection again."
The words should feel like a prison. But as we walk back to the elevator, his hand warm around mine, I can't tell if the shiver running through me is fear… or something far more dangerous.
.The ride back is silent, tension hanging between us like a live wire. Damiano's hand never leaves mine, his thumb tracing slow, deliberate circles against my skin, as if he's reminding me without words that I'm tethered to him now.
When the elevator doors open into the penthouse, my sister's voice greets us.
"Wow," she breathes, stepping out from the hallway, her eyes widening when she sees him.
Damiano stops just inside the door, his gaze sweeping over her with quiet calculation—not the kind that makes her flinch, but the kind that measures, assesses, protects.
"You must be Sofia," he says, his voice smooth but carrying an undertone of steel. "I'm Damiano."
She blinks, cheeks flushing. "Hi." It's almost a whisper.
I step between them, partly because I'm still bristling from this morning, partly because she looks like a deer in headlights. "She's fine. You can relax the interrogation look."
His mouth curves slightly. "I wasn't interrogating. I was memorizing her face."
That earns him a glare from me and a blush from her. Before I can bite back a retort, Sofia's attention is already being stolen by the row of glossy shopping bags lined along the leather sofa.
"What's all this?" she asks, crossing the room.
"Clothes," Damiano answers simply, shrugging out of his jacket and draping it over a chair. "For both of you. Shoes. Jewelry. Anything you might need."
Sofia drops to her knees in front of the bags like a kid at Christmas, pulling out sleek dresses wrapped in tissue paper, boxes of heels, velvet cases that click open to reveal necklaces glittering under the soft light.
"Oh my God," she gasps, holding up a diamond bracelet that looks like it could buy our old apartment building. "Is this real?"
Damiano's gaze flicks to me before he answers. "Everything I give is real."
She laughs, sliding it onto her wrist, spinning toward me. "Ava, look!"
I force a small smile, but my mind's not on the sparkle in her eyes. It's on the fact that all of this—the clothes, the jewelry, the safety—is still part of his world. And in his world, nothing comes without a cost.
Damiano crosses to my side, his voice pitched low so only I can hear. "Let her enjoy this. Let her feel safe."
Safe. I bite back the urge to tell him safety isn't bought in designer bags, but when I glance at Sofia's glowing face, I swallow the words. Maybe, for now, it's enough.
Sofia is too busy twirling in front of the mirror with a silk dress pressed to her body to notice the way Damiano moves through the penthouse.
He doesn't pace—Damiano never paces—but his eyes take in everything. The slight shift of the curtains. The angle of the balcony door. Even the way my phone is sitting on the counter. At one point, he slips his own phone out and fires off a text so fast his fingers blur, his expression unreadable.
When the knock at the door comes—not sharp, but deliberate—he's already halfway there before I register the sound. His body blocks most of the doorway, and I catch only a glimpse of the man on the other side: tall, broad, and holding a black case.
Damiano takes it without a word and shuts the door before the man can even glance inside.
"What was that?" I ask.
He sets the case on the counter, flicks it open, and inside—nestled in dark foam—are two sleek black phones, still in their packaging. "Secure lines," he says. "You'll both use these from now on. No more calls or texts on your old devices."
Sofia's excitement falters, just for a second, before she pastes on a smile and goes back to the clothes.
I watch him as he locks the case, sliding it out of sight like it's just another item in his arsenal. Every movement is smooth, practiced, controlled. He's not just giving us new phones—he's tightening the perimeter, drawing invisible lines around us that I can already feel.
Later, while Sofia is in the bathroom, Damiano catches my hand and pulls me in close. His lips brush my ear as he speaks, his voice barely a whisper.
"No one will touch you. No one will touch her. You have my word, gattina."
The way he says it makes something hot and fragile twist in my chest. I want to believe him. God help me, I do. But as I glance around at the glittering necklaces, the locked case, the drawn curtains, I know this isn't a promise that comes without chains.
And somewhere deep down, I'm starting to wonder if I'm willing to wear them.