The mansion had grown colder since that night in the library. Not in temperature, Aria still walked through gilded halls with warm chandeliers and blazing fireplaces, but in the way silence seemed to press in, the way Luca avoided her eyes when others were around, the way she caught him watching her only when he thought she wouldn't notice.
He was slipping back into himself. Into the fortress of steel and shadows that made him untouchable. And it drove her mad.
Aria had told herself she wouldn't beg. That if he wanted to lock himself away, fine, she could build walls too. But the truth was, every night when she lay awake in that cavernous bed, every morning when she caught the faint scent of his cologne lingering in the hall, her resolve wavered. She wanted him. Not the Don, not the mask, but the man beneath, the one who had held her wrist and whispered that she terrified him because she mattered too much.
