Chapter 4 The enemy you can't unlove

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The name hit her like a blade between the ribs.

Luca Moretti.

Aria stood in the quiet of her father's study, the smell of gun oil and cedar thick in the air. Her fingers tightened around the aged leather folder clutched to her chest-a classified dossier sealed with her family's crest. The one her father had forbidden her to open. The one Bianca had stolen for her.

And inside, the confirmation.

Photographs. Names. Timelines.

Luca. Moretti.

The same man who had danced with her like no one else existed.

The man who had held her gaze like he wanted to unravel her.

The man who should've had a bullet in his skull the moment their hands touched.

Her knees trembled. Not from fear-but fury.

And heartbreak.

---

Across the city, in the belly of the Moretti stronghold, Luca sat at the long table of war. The family's inner circle had gathered-Dante at the head, Matteo silent at Luca's side, bodyguards lingering like shadows in the corners.

Dante tossed the file onto the polished wood. Aria's picture stared up at him-gorgeous, poised, lethal.

Dante's voice was calm. Too calm.

"You danced with her."

Luca didn't blink. "I did."

"You knew who she was?"

"Not at first."

"And when you did?"

Luca leaned back, jaw set. "I kept dancing."

A long silence followed.

Dante poured himself a glass of Barolo, swirling it like blood. "You are the heir of the empire I built from ash. The future Don. You do not get to want the enemy."

"I didn't choose to want her," Luca said coldly. "It just happened."

"That," Dante growled, "is what children say about fire before they're burned."

---

Aria paced in her room like a caged storm. She couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep. Could barely breathe without tasting him in her memory.

She remembered his hands on her waist. The whisper of his breath. The way his eyes had softened-just barely-when she teased him.

But it wasn't just the dance.

It was the way she had felt seen. Touched without being possessed. Challenged without being diminished.

No man had ever done that-not even the ones who claimed they'd die for her.

And now it was him.

A Moretti.

The very name made her father curse and spit.

---

She found Bianca in the courtyard that evening, barefoot on the marble, drinking from a wine bottle like it was water.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Aria hissed, snatching the bottle from her.

Bianca didn't flinch. "Would it have mattered?"

"I danced with him!"

"You didn't kill him. That's progress."

"Bianca, I let him touch me. I wanted him to."

Bianca studied her for a long moment. "And now that you know who he is?"

Aria sank onto the bench, eyes wild. "I still want him."

Bianca exhaled. "Then we're already in the part of the story where someone dies."

---

They met again.

Not by chance. Not by accident.

By compulsion.

It was the pier at midnight-abandoned and quiet, waves licking at the rotted wood. A place no one watched. A place that smelled like forgotten promises.

Luca was already there, leaning against a rusted railing, cigarette between his fingers.

She stepped from the shadows like a ghost in leather.

He turned.

"I figured you'd come."

Aria didn't speak for a long moment. Then, "You knew who I was and still danced with me."

"So did you."

"I didn't know then."

"And now that you do?"

"I hate you."

Luca took a drag of his cigarette, exhaled toward the stars. "You don't. Not yet."

She moved closer, wind tugging at her coat. "My father would kill me for being here."

"Mine would do worse."

"And yet here we are."

Luca crushed the cigarette beneath his boot. "So what now?"

She looked at him, all fire and grief. "I should walk away."

"But you won't."

Her voice cracked. "Because when I'm with you... I forget who I'm supposed to be."

"I know the feeling."

Silence stretched between them. Not empty-charged.

He reached for her hand. She let him take it.

Their fingers threaded together like war and poetry.

---

Back in their separate worlds, the lies deepened.

Enzo noticed her absences. Bianca covered for her.

Dante noticed Luca's unrest. Matteo questioned nothing-but watched everything.

The city simmered.

And still they met.

In shadows. In alleys. In abandoned churches and underground speakeasies.

They never kissed.

They didn't dare.

But the silence between them grew louder than any touch.

Every time Luca looked at her, he saw the battlefield between their fathers' names.

Every time Aria spoke, she heard the echo of bullets fired years before she was born.

But in their stolen moments, they were just two souls aching under the weight of bloodlines.

"I don't want to hate you," she whispered once.

"Then don't," he said. "Want me instead."

Her eyes closed. "You make it sound so simple."

"It is," he said. "Until someone dies."

---

Then came the night they almost crossed the line.

The storm had broken over Palermo, loud and unruly. They were soaked-hiding beneath the overhang of a centuries-old chapel, bodies trembling, adrenaline burning through them like fever.

Aria looked up at him, eyes wild with something unspoken.

Luca stared back, a war between instinct and reason flashing across his face.

Their lips were inches apart.

Lightning split the sky.

She whispered, "If you kiss me, I will never be able to pretend I don't want you."

He whispered back, "Then don't pretend."

And for a breath, just one heartbeat-he leaned in.

Their lips brushed.

Not a kiss. Not quite.

But enough.

Enough to damn them both.

---

They didn't speak afterward.

Not for days.

Because in that single moment, they had rewritten every rule.

They could no longer be strangers.

They could no longer be enemies.

But they could never be lovers-not without blood spilling in their wake.

---

Enzo knew.

He found the photo tucked in a manila envelope dropped at his doorstep. Aria. Luca. Holding hands. Eyes locked.

His sister.

With the devil.

His scream echoed through the De Luca estate, violent and primal.

War was no longer a matter of if.

Only when.

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