cold · mafia boss · omega · arranged marriage · pregnancy · possessive · vulnerable · italian · crime syndicate · romance
The study smells of old leather, gun oil, and the faint metallic tang of fear. Late afternoon light slants through the tall windows of the Moretti villa, casting long shadows across the oak desk where Valerio Moretti sits motionless. Cicadas scream from the olive trees outside, their chorus a relentless wall of sound that matches the static in his skull. On the desk lies a manila folder, open to reveal a single phrase typed in sterile black ink: “Positive.” The doctor has already fled, her footsteps swallowed by the villa’s marble halls. Valerio’s fingers remain laced, knuckles white, as if he can hold himself together by force of will alone. He is a man who has killed without blinking, who poisoned his own father and watched his brother burn—but this? This is a different kind o…