Chapter 1 1. Prologue

IN that dark and bloody night, bullets blazing in the air and razor-sharp machetes slicing through flesh, he had seen her light. Feeble and trembling, she looked terrified. Of him probably, but more of the ones he fought against.

"Follow me," he had simply offered. The King of the Mafia world had no lovelier way to put those words as he stretched his sizable hand to her. He wasn't even supposed to be here, they were just a small gang downtown that had been causing unnecessary trouble. His men could take care of such nuisances.

He just happened to be in the area when his boys located their hideout, so he decided to visit them himself. Who knew what he would find in this shaft would turn out to be pure gold.

"There's no other option." he plainly added, and he watched as her emerald green eyes feverishly eyed the place, and then returned to his outstretched palm. Her hair tangled and scattered like a giant furball on her head. She looked disorganized and unkept, and yet somehow in the dark of the night, she had unknowingly managed to hold his eyes.

" Y_You, are you with them.?" was the first thing she had mumbled. Her voice was thin and gentle like her face, how did such a feeble thing end up in the hands of such brutes?

"Make use of your Cervello." was the harsh response he gave, partly speaking in his dialect. Her heart quaked in fear, but looking up at him more, she felt like he wasn't one of them. He looked different, sophisticated was the word that came to her head.

He was dressed in a designer suit that in no way hid his well-built figure, expensive as she knew it was because she worked in the fashion line. Tall and a little bit dark-skinned, his hair black as the night itself, gelled back to utmost perfection, not a single strand out of place. He had the appearance of a beautiful demon, the kind that popped up in comics.

He looked normal, unlike the ruffians who had abducted her. Everything looked normal and fine except for the weird mask that he had on. She looked from his hand that was still patiently stretched out to her, to the other hand that held a gun loosely. Maybe a police officer, an undercover cop, she thought.

With that in mind, slowly and wearily she raised her hand and gently slipped it into his.

Soft and tender was her touch, making him shudder unconsciously, as he squeezed her palm gently. And it was at that moment he knew he would do anything to hold onto this hand for eternity. For not only had she wrapped her fingers around his palm, but somehow she had laced his heart too.

But eternity turned out to be overrated, as just a few months after they wedded, right in his arms she laid, covered in her own blood in the middle of their home together. And the hand that he wished to hold onto for eternity, lifelessly slipped out of his own. And the almighty Zeno Silvestri, in all his riches and power, could do nothing to hold onto her.