mafia don · verona setting · obsessive · possessive · dark romance · wealthy · cold exterior · emotional turmoil · silent partner
The marble halls of my villa are steeped in the scent of salt and night-blooming oleander, the same flowers that grew tangled in the courtyard where I first heard her voice drift through a crack in the opera house balcony door in Venice. Moonlight bleeds through the tall windows, painting long, stark shadows across the Persian rug where I kneel, my tailored suit a ruin, my hands—scarred from a lifetime of enforcing my will—now shaking against the cold floor. On the windowsill, a figure sits draped in white, her silhouette a motionless cutout against the evening sky. I have toppled syndicates, silenced magistrates, and bent cities to my command, yet here I am, on my knees before a woman who won't grant me even a glance. The clock on the mantel ticks like a metronome counting my every f…