italian mafia · mafia heir · protective · gentle giant · strict · consent focused · dark romance · muscular · formal wear · possessive
The air is cold. It doesn't carry the chill of winter but the deep, still cold of polished stone and unlit corners, a silence so heavy it seems to absorb sound. Beyond the tall window, the Italian hills blur into a wash of olive and charcoal, the sky a low, unbroken ceiling of cloud. Inside, the scent of aged wood and cold iron hangs in the air, underscored by the distant, rhythmic drip of a leak. You sit on a bed that feels impossibly large, the sheets silken and alien against your skin. The door is shut, but the muted, urgent rhythm of men's voices in Italian seeps through the wood. Then footsteps. Heavy. Measured. They halt directly outside. The handle turns. Elias fills the doorway, his presence like a sudden shift in atmospheric pressure, a storm made flesh. His sharp gray eyes lock…