Lucien De Rossi did not sleep. He sat alone in his Atelier.
The girl still haunted his mind.
The charcoal snapped between Lucien's fingers, leaving a dark smudge across the heavy cream paper.
He didn't notice. His focus was entirely on the sketch before him—a hauntingly accurate recreation of the girl on the terrace. He had captured the exact moment the mask slipped, revealing the sharp curve of her cheek and the icy, defiant clarity of her grey eyes.
He stared at it like it might breathe.
She had vanished.
He was a man who lived by logic, but what had happened in that storage closet defied every law of physics. She hadn't run; she had vanished.
Normal men would have been terrified. They would have called for the guards or questioned their sanity. But he wasn't normal.
He knew monsters existed.
He knew because one stared back at him every morning.
She hadn't flinched from him.
That was what unsettled him most.
Women usually sensed it — the thing beneath his skin. They softened, quieted, shrank. Even powerful men lowered their gaze in his presence.
But she had met his stare head-on. Amused. Curious. Unafraid.
Matched him.
Lucien's jaw tightened.
He would find her.
Not just because she intrigued him — but because she should not exist.
A soft knock broke the silence.
"Signore?" The voice of a maid drifted through t door, muffled and trembling. "Your father has sent for you. He... he is asking for you in the West Wing."
Lucien's eyes lingered on the sketch a second longer than necessary.
He straightened his cuffs, composed his expression, and gave the girl one last look — committing the curve of her face to memory like a prayer or a curse.
Then he stepped into the corridor.
As he approached the heavy doors of the Don's private chambers, the smell hit him.
It was metallic. Sweet. Overwhelming.
The scent of blood.
He pushed the doors open. In the center of the vast bed lay the Don, a man who had once ruled Italy with a single word, now reduced to a skeleton under silk sheets.
Lucien's gaze locked onto the IV stand beside the bed. It wasn't saline dripping into his father's veins—it was dark, viscous blood, the deep crimson pulsing through the clear plastic tubes.
Lucien's breath hitched. He felt the familiar, agonizing heat begin to stir in the marrow of his bones. His heart hammered against his ribs like a caged beast. Under the collar of his shirt, he felt the faint, crawling sensation of black veins beginning to map their way toward his jaw.
His pupils dilated, the hazel gold of his eyes swirling with a sudden, violent red. He stared at his father's pulsing neck, the thin skin fluttering with every shallow breath. The urge was a physical weight, a scream in his head telling him to finish it—to taste the life that was so close.
He clutched the edge of the doorframe, his knuckles turning white, his fangs aching behind his gums. He hated this. He hated the sight of blood and the monster it woke up inside him.
The struggle to remain human was tearing him apart.
"Lucien... come closer."
Lucien forced his feet to move. He didn't sit; he couldn't afford to be that close, because the demon inside him was clawing to get blood.
"I don't have much time left. Maybe days. Maybe hours."
The old man wheezed, his eyes cloudy but fixed on his favorite son. "The CEO title is yours by right of intellect, but the Mafia... the throne of the De Rossi... it demands a legacy. It demands an heir."
"I am aware, Father."
"Your step-brothers have wives. They have sons," the Don continued, unaware of the war raging in Lucien's veins. "They are wolves circling a dying lion. I cannot let them lead. They lack the iron. They lack... you. But tradition is our law. You cannot lead without a woman by your side to carry the next bloodline."
He didn't care about the brothers or the inheritance—he only cared about the silence that blood would bring to the screaming in his head.
"I will bring you a wife, Father," Lucien snapped, the promise a desperate lie to get out of the room. "I will find her, and I will take the position. Excuse me."
He turned and bolted, his movement a blur of unnatural speed.
The human in him had lost. The "monster" was holding the leash now.
He hit the terrace and vaulted over the railing. He wasn't running; he was flying. He moved with a speed that defied gravity, leaping from the high stone ledges of the mansion to the thick branches of the surrounding oaks.
He hit the pavement of the city outskirts like a lightning strike, jumping from car to car. To the drivers below, it was just a gust of wind, a sudden thump on their roofs that vanished before they could even look up. He was a shadow moving faster than the eye could track.
He found himself on a lonely street. He dropped to the ground, lying motionless.
"Oh, mio Dio! Sir? Are you okay?"
A young couple, arms wrapped around each other, stopped in their tracks. They saw a handsome man in an expensive suit lying in the street and felt only pity. They knelt beside him, the man reaching out a hand to touch Lucien's shoulder.
Lucien's eyes snapped open.
The couple gasped, freezing in terror. Before the man could even inhale to scream, Lucien was on the man in a heartbeat. He gripped the man's throat, his fingers digging into the flesh with impossible strength. With a sickening, wet tear, he ripped the man's head clean from his shoulders. He didn't waste a drop, drinking straight from the source as the body went limp.
The girl scrambled back, her eyes wide with a horror that transcended words. She turned to run, her head spinning back every few seconds to see if the monster was following. The street was empty. The man and her husband were gone.
Thud.
Something hit the ground right in front of her. She tripped, looking down, and let out a strangled shriek. It was her husband's body. His head sat a few inches away, eyes wide and vacant.
She looked up and froze. Lucien was standing there, blocking her path. The blood was smeared across his mouth. His eyes weren't hazel anymore—they were a glowing, demonic red, and the black veins under his skin looked like cracked glass.
She backed away, her voice trembling as the words finally clawed out of her throat.
"What... what are you?"
Lucien didn't answer. He just smiled, showing teeth that were never meant to be human.