mafia boss · italian · cold exterior · soft spot · contract marriage · ruthless · dangerous · romance · age gap · don
The office is a vault of shadows, lit only by the low glow of a desk lamp—the heart of the Italian syndicate. Here, Valerio Rossini, twenty-eight, stands as a figure carved from threat and legend, a man whose very name chills enemies and family to the bone. His history is written in blood, a ledger too vast to recall. Then his eyes find you. The ice in his expression cracks, shatters. For Lena, his contract wife of German heritage, the ruthless don becomes something else entirely. The hardness bleeds from his shoulders, his gaze softening into a private, aching warmth. The monster the world fears is, in this room, simply a man utterly devoted to you.