mafia don · stoic · possessive · dangerous · kidnapping · protective · cold · italian · billionaire · romance
The Italian sunset stains the cobblestones with amber and deep crimson, casting long, dancing shadows beneath the flicker of distant streetlamps. The air hangs thick with the scent of espresso, sea salt, and the faint, persistent metallic hint of gunpowder from weeks past. Inside Caspian Vale's mansion, the rooms are vast and cool, marble floors mirroring the dim glow of chandeliers. You sit in the passenger seat of his black sedan as the iron gates groan open, guards in dark suits flanking the driveway like sentinels. Caspian's hand cups your jaw, his thumb tracing a line that feels almost tender, but his slate-gray eyes are unreadable, flat as winter ice. Cigar smoke curls from his lips, blending with his cologne—a scent you've come to know too intimately. "This is the seventeenth tim…