Chapter 3 Wounded

Alba Ricci

I close the door behind him.

My fingers remain clenched on the handle, knuckles whitened by tension. I close my eyes for a moment, inhale deeply. The air in my apartment is laden with a mixture of disinfectant and dried blood. The smell clings to my skin, my clothes, my thoughts.

Gabriel Moretti.

He came here, wounded, vulnerable, and yet he still managed to take control. Still him. Always the damn power he wields without even trying.

I slowly release the handle and turn away. My apartment is tiny, a refuge with no luxuries, no attachments. Just a bed, an examination table, a shelf overloaded with medical supplies stolen or bought on the black market. It's not a house. It's just a shelter.

But tonight, it became something else. An invisible battlefield, where words cut deeper than any blade.

I approach the sink, turn on the tap and let the water run over my trembling hands. The blood fades, but not the feel of her skin beneath my fingers.

I cling to the edge of the sink, staring at my reflection in the cracked mirror.

- Stop running.

Gabriel's words still echo in my mind.

He has no idea what it means.

I've never stopped running.

I can't do it.

I turn off the water with a jerk, grab a towel and press it against my face. My heart is beating too fast. The adrenalin won't go down. I've learned to stitch flesh, to heal wounds, to erase the traces of a night too violent. But I don't know how to extinguish the fire that still burns under my skin.

I should be asleep. But the idea of closing my eyes terrifies me more than I care to admit.

So I do what I always do: I get back to work.

I grab a bottle of alcohol and start cleaning the instruments I used on Gabriel. My gestures are mechanical, precise, an automatism learned from repeating the same movements over and over again.

I erase the evidence.

As if that would erase what just happened.

As if that would erase him.

But the truth is undeniable.

Gabriel Moretti found me.

And he won't let me disappear again.

Gabriel Moretti

The night is cold, the pain dull.

Sitting in the back of my car, I stare out the window at the lights of the city. The streets of Milan stretch out beneath me like a labyrinth of concrete and glass, illuminated by the neon lights of the bars and the flickering street lamps of the dark alleys.

- Where now, capo?

Matteo's voice breaks the silence. He sits in the front, hands firmly on the steering wheel. Faithful, efficient. He's been my shadow for years, and yet, tonight, I don't feel like answering.

I close my eyes for a moment, letting my head rest against the cold leather of the seat.

I can still feel the burn of Alba's fingers on my skin.

The look on her face when she stitched up my wound.

The tension between us was palpable, almost unbearable.

I open my eyes again.

- At home.

Matteo nods and drives off in silence.

The journey is quick. My men know how to avoid exposed roads, how to navigate this city of mine without attracting attention. When we reach my villa, the gates open immediately.

The house is a monster of glass and stone, perched high above Milan like a hawk ready to swoop down on its prey. A fortress. A symbol of power.

I get out of the car and climb the marble steps, my shoulder throbbing with every step.

Inside, the air is cool and still. Too still.

I cross the living room, walk around the large glass bar where several bottles of expensive whisky rest, and stop in front of the bay window.

The city stretches out at my feet.

But my mind is elsewhere.

I think back to Alba, her voice, her refusal to give in.

It's different.

Not just because she's Don Ricci's daughter. Not just because she's chosen to escape this fate.

She looks at me differently. As if I were not a king, not a monster, not untouchable.

She looks at me like a man.

A man she refuses to let take hold of her.

A smile grazes my lips.

I love a challenge.

And Alba Ricci has just become the most dangerous of them all.

Alba Ricci

Three o'clock in the morning.

I gave up sleeping.

I'm sitting on my bed, an old notebook open in front of me, my pen suspended over the blank page.

I've been keeping these notebooks for years. Thoughts on paper, fragments of me that no one will ever read.

But tonight, the words just won't come.

All I see is him.

Gabriel Moretti, sitting on my examination table, his gaze fixed on me.

Gabriel Moretti, wounded but still in control of himself, of the situation, of me.

I hate the effect it has on me.

I hate the way it has insinuated itself into my life, into my space, into my mind.

I abruptly close the notebook and stand up.

I have to move. Get out. Breathe.