The mansion was silent in the hours after the rescue, the kind of silence that hummed with everything unsaid. Outside, Lucas' men still patrolled the grounds, their boots crunching on gravel, radios crackling with terse updates. But inside, the DeLuca estate felt like another world entirely, hushed, warm, fragile.
Aria stirred awake in a room she barely recognized. The heavy velvet curtains, the soft scent of cedar and expensive cologne, the gentle weight of silk sheets, all of it screamed Luca. Her body ached in a dozen places, and her lip was split, her wrists raw from the restraints. But she was alive.
And more disorienting than anything, she felt safe.
The door creaked open, and Luca stepped inside. He wasn't wearing his usual armor of power, no tailored suit, no icy expression. Just a black T-shirt, sleeves pushed up to reveal bandages on his forearm where a bullet had grazed him. And eyes that, for once, weren't steel. They were soft. Human.
"You're awake," he said quietly.
