LOGINAmy's POV
I remained in that room for a couple more hours, another plate of food was brought for me and I chewed through it not really tasting anything but swallowing it down anyways.
Eventually Madame Loretta came for me. She handed me that same blindfold again, I guess I was working with spare trust.
I accepted the blindfold and erupted around my eyes then she took my arm and pulled me out of the room. We kept walking for a while and occasionally I would bump into something she would curse in a deep accent I don't know if it was targeted at me or the objects I bumped into after a while she stopped and said.
"She's here, Boss."
By the time I tore off my blindfold Madame Loretta was gone and I was in what appeared to be a lounge it was equipped with a poker table, and cushioned, plush sofas along with a small Crystal chandelier at the center.
Mr Moretti sat in one of the smaller sofas or perhaps it just shrank because of how tall he was.
There was a bottle of whiskey in one hand and two glasses in the other he poured into both and then gestured for me to come closer. I did then he told me.
"Take one..."referring to the glasses of whiskey, I gulped ironically even though I had worked as a bartender I wasn't the biggest fan of alcohol but something told me that this was a test Mr Moretti didn't look like the kind of man who just did things for the sake of so I took the whiskey and swallowed it in one gulp the burnt that rushed down my throat caused me to cough.
"You don't want drink?" He asked me picking up on it instantly the burn was still in my throat when I responded back.
"No, I don't really have the stomach for alcohol."
"Well then I hope that you are more thick skin for other things." He said then he told me to sit turning his eyes to the spot next to him on the sofa, I took it without question there was something about the way he spoke that made you want to listen to him even if you were also shivering with fear and anxiety.
As I was seated he pulled a small photo graph out of his pocket and then handed it over to me pressing it into my palm I spread the photo so get a good look at the person that was on it there was a man, was not as handsome as Mr Moretti but he had a presence that seem to carry itself through the photograph his eyes were turned away from the camera is cigarette tucked between his lips and his hand shoved into his pocket.
"Who is this?" I asked presuming that he was somebody important that Mr Moretti wanted me to know about. Mr Moretti tapped on the photograph.
"His name is Enzo Marino, a captain in the La Tigre Nera... There are talks about him being the next under boss but nothing is confirmed yet."
I could feel the parts of my fingers getting wet, things were becoming more real with every ticking second this info that he was spilling out to me wasn't something that's a normal civilian was supposed to know at least not this intimately.
The realization of what I had agreed to was beginning to sip in but I didn't want panic to overtake me, I kept listening with a deep intensity as he gave me more details about the man in the picture until it felt like I had a known him for a while.
I folded the picture when he finally got to the parts that involved me.
"The thing is Enzo has been a pain in my neck for a long while a bit too long, now there has always been the option of killing him. But then I would have the La Tigre Nera on me and he's not worth that much trouble. And Enzo is smart despite appearances... He knows how to cover his tracks but I know with him it's couldn't be anyone else."
The way he said this man's name, it rang with familiarity it made me wonder if there was a time that they used to get along before things became like this he noticed I was getting distracted in my own thoughts than snapped his fingers in my face forcing me to come back to the present.
"Did you understand what I want you to do?"
I was both embarrassed and scared at the same time I had to go to destructed while he was talking and now I had to know idea what he needed me to do.
"Yes of course," I said to him too afraid to admit that I had zoned off in the middle of the conversation without wanting to but it had happened anyways.
"Are you sure this is something you can do?" He asked coming closer close enough that I had no other choice than to smell his cologne mixed with his natural masculine scent that made my head start to spin and my heart racing a little bit faster.
"I can," I assured him still having no idea what he just asked me to do and beyond afraid of what it could be when I would eventually find out however it was better than telling him that I didn't hear him earlier.
"All right then..." He got up adjusting his shirt, "you have exactly one chance to prove that you are worth being kept like this if you fail then we will go back to the previous arrangement regardless of what you really want, do you understand, bunny?"
I still had no idea why he had given me that nickname but it was one of the many things I could not ask him but kept to myself.
I wore my blindfold again before madam Loretta came back to fetch me and all through day I wondered just what I had agreed to and what would come next for me.
ANTONIO POVA year had passed since the wedding, and I had learned, in that time, that nothing in my entire life — not the warehouses, not the territories, not the empire I'd built brick by bloody brick out of an inheritance that should have been mine from the start — had prepared me for the sound of my wife screaming in pain in the back of a car racing toward the hospital at two in the morning."Drive faster, Carlos.""I'm driving as fast as the law allows, boss.""I don't care about the law right now."Amy gripped my hand hard enough to bruise, breathing through gritted teeth the way the doctors had taught her in the birthing classes I'd sat through every week for the last two months, refusing to miss a single one despite the empire that still demanded my attention daily. Carlos had rearranged half my schedule without asking just to make sure of it, something I'd pretended not to notice and silently appreciated more than I'd ever admit to him out loud. "Antonio, if you don't stop ho
AMY POVI had never imagined a wedding for myself, not really. Growing up in a house full of shattered plates and slammed doors hadn't left much room for dreaming about white dresses and flower arrangements, hadn't left room for dreaming about much of anything beyond getting through each day without becoming collateral damage in someone else's anger. But standing in front of the mirror in the back room of the chapel, watching Loretta fuss over the last few pins in my hair, I realized I'd been dreaming about this without knowing it — not the dress, not the flowers, but this exact feeling, the one where my chest felt too full to hold everything inside it, where happiness pressed up against the edges of my body like it might spill out through my skin if I wasn't careful."Stop fidgeting," Loretta scolded gently, though her own hands were shaking slightly as she adjusted my veil, her reflection in the mirror showing eyes already glassy with unshed tears. "You'll ruin the pins, and then we
ANTONIO POVThe house had taken eleven months to build, and I had visited it more times than I could count, standing in empty rooms imagining furniture that hadn't arrived yet, walls that hadn't been painted, a life that hadn't started yet but that I could already feel taking shape in the bones of the place, the way you can sometimes feel a storm coming before the first cloud appears on the horizon.I'd started the project before Amy ever knew about it, back when I'd told myself it was simply a smart investment, another property to add to a growing portfolio, another asset to diversify the empire I'd spent my whole life clawing together out of nothing. It hadn't taken long for the lie to fall apart in my own head. I knew, even back then, lying awake at night with blueprints spread across my desk, exactly who I was building it for. Every choice I made — the wide windows that let in the morning light, the garden space out back, the extra room upstairs I told the architect I wasn't sure
AMY POVHappiness, I had come to learn, was not a single feeling. It was a thousand small ones stacked on top of each other until they became too heavy to carry quietly, until they spilled out of you in the form of humming while you brushed your hair, or smiling at strangers for no reason, or crying in the produce aisle because a song came on the radio that reminded you of someone who finally loved you the way you'd always hoped someone would.I cried in a lot of produce aisles those days. I'd given up being embarrassed about it months ago."You're doing it again," Ravenna said, eyeing me over the rack of sundresses we'd been picking through for the better part of an hour, her sunglasses pushed up into perfectly styled hair, a coffee cup balanced in one manicured hand. "That dopey little smile. It's honestly a bit much, Amy.""I can't help it." I held a blue dress up against myself in the mirror, turning side to side, watching the fabric catch the light. "Do you think he'll like this
ANTONIO POVDocuments, I had learned over the years, were more dangerous than guns.A gun could kill a man once. A signature, properly placed on the right document at the right time, could erase him entirely — his properties, his accounts, his legacy, all of it folded quietly into someone else's name while the world moved on without ever noticing the theft had happened at all. No headlines, no funerals for an empire, just paperwork changing hands in rooms no one thought to look into.That was the kind of war I preferred to fight.“Enzo's lawyer is being difficult,” Carlos said, dropping into the chair across from my desk with the particular weariness of a man who had spent the entire morning on the phone arguing in circles. “Says he needs proper documentation proving succession before he'll release anything.”“Proper documentation.” I almost laughed, leaning back in my chair. “Enzo is dead, Carlos. There is no succession committee left to argue with him. La Tigre Nera doesn't exist an
ANTONIO POVA week of peace was apparently the most the universe was willing to grant me, because by Monday morning the warmth of the celebration had already given way to the cold, familiar weight of work, the way it always did, no matter how badly I wanted to stay in that terrace light a while longer.“Silvio's been spotted twice this week,” Carlos said, setting a folder on my desk and dropping into the chair across from me without waiting for permission, a habit I'd long since stopped correcting. “Once near the docks. Once outside the warehouse on Fifth.”“My brother's warehouse.”“Was your brother's warehouse,” Carlos corrected, and there was something almost gleeful in the way he said it, the satisfaction of a man who had waited a long time to say those words in the past tense.I opened the folder. Photographs, dates, a man who had once been one of my brother's most trusted lieutenants now skulking around property that should have been buried in legal limbo for months yet, tied up
Amy’s POVThe clinking of silverware was driving me crazy. It wasn't just the noise; it was triggering the anxiety I already felt. Ever since that day I saw Enzo, he kept sending invitations for me to come to his estate, each of them branded with the symbol of his faction on the back. Antonio had b
Antonio’s POVI pushed my arms further onto the counter, my weight resting harder on the stool in my bathroom. I turned left and right, then over to one of my soldiers I had left in disguise to guard my bunny. He wasn’t trembling, but he looked like he would break right into it every time I looked
Amy’s POV"Is that all, Madam?" The nice clerk asked me. The other two behind me that had been making fun of me and Antonio had their hands filled literally, the weight of it shaking down to their knees. I was making one purchase after the other, surprising myself. I looked nothing like the frugal
Antonio’s POVHe unloaded a wad of spit out of his mouth. I barely flinched. I had seen worse than that. "He has been quite uneasy ever since he saw you with your latest woman," Diego said, stepping closer, his trembling fingers trying to balance the cigarette and lighter that he had only barely ma







