Because the next day, when flowers arrived from Orsini with an apology written in elegant ink, Mara found herself carrying the card to Luca’s office.
He looked up from his desk.
She placed the card in front of him.
“What do you want done?” he asked.
The question was quiet.
Respectful.
Terrifying.
Mara swallowed.
“I want him to understand I’m not alone.”
Luca’s eyes darkened.
“He already does.”
“I want him to understand it from me.”
For the first time, Luca smiled.
It was small and brief and devastating.
“Then we’ll teach him properly.”
That was how it began.
Not love.
Not even affection.
A conspiracy.
Luca taught her how to stand in a room full of wolves without lowering her eyes. Mara taught him that silence was not always strength. Sometimes it was cowardice dressed in expensive tailoring.
He learned she hated roses because they reminded her of funeral homes.
She learned he drank coffee bitter enough to qualify as punishment.
He learned she talked to plants when she thought no one was listening.
She learned he had a scar near his ribs from a knife wound he never explained.
At night, sometimes, they met in the kitchen by accident.
At first, Mara believed the meetings were accidental.
Then she noticed the tea she liked waiting on the counter.
“You don’t sleep,” she said one night.
Luca was standing by the window, sleeves rolled to his elbows, city lights reflected in the glass.
“Neither do you.”
“I’m trapped in a mafia penthouse. What’s your excuse?”
“My father used to say sleep was when enemies became creative.”
“That’s bleak.”
“He was a bleak man.”
“Was?”
Luca’s face went still.
Mara regretted the question immediately.
But instead of shutting down, he said, “He died when I was twenty-two.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You didn’t kill him.”
The answer was too quick.
Too practiced.
Mara wrapped her hands around her mug.
“Did you?”
Luca looked at her.
Any other man might have lied.
He didn’t.
“No.”
“But people think you did.”
“Yes.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Less than it should.”
Mara studied him in the dim kitchen light.
“You say things like that so people stop asking.”
“It usually works.”
“I’m not people.”
“No,” he said softly. “You are not.”
The air changed.
Mara felt it in her skin before she understood it.
Luca was looking at her the way he looked at locked doors, coded messages, distant threats.
As if she were a problem he could not solve.
As if he wanted to try anyway.
She set down her mug.
“I should go.”
“Yes,” he said.
Neither of them moved.
Then Mara stepped away first.
Luca let her.
That mattered.
Weeks became months.
The marriage contract sat unsigned in a safe because Mara refused to sign any clause she had not read three times, and Luca, to her surprise, never forced the matter. Her family remained safe. Her sister sent photographs from campus. Her mother called every Sunday and asked if Mara was eating enough.
Mara lied and said she was happy.
The terrible part was that, sometimes, it was not entirely a lie.
One evening, Luca came home bleeding.
Mara found him in the entry hall, one hand pressed beneath his jacket, his men speaking in clipped Italian around him.
The blood was dark against his white shirt.
Her body moved before her mind did.
“Sit down,” she ordered.
Every man in the hall froze.
Luca looked at her. “Mara.”
“Sit. Down.”
His right-hand man, Enzo Varric, opened his mouth.
Mara pointed at him.
“You. First-aid kit. Now.”
Enzo glanced at Luca.
Luca, unbelievably, sat.
Mara knelt in front of him and opened his shirt with shaking fingers.
The wound was a graze, ugly but shallow.
“You’re lucky,” she snapped.
Luca watched her clean it.
“You’re angry.”
“I’m furious.”
“Because I’m bleeding?”
“Because you walked in here like blood is a scheduling inconvenience.”
His mouth twitched.
“Would you prefer panic?”
“I would prefer survival instincts.”
“I have survived this long.”
“Despite yourself, apparently.”
Enzo coughed.
It might have been a laugh.
Luca’s eyes cut toward him.
Enzo became very interested in the floor.
Mara pressed gauze against Luca’s side harder than necessary.
He inhaled.
“Careful,” he murmured.
“Now you want careful?”
His gaze returned to her face.
“I always want careful with you.”
Her hands stilled.
The room disappeared around them.
Mara suddenly became aware of how close she was to him. Of the warmth of his skin beneath her fingertips. Of the way he had not once tried to take control back from her.
She taped the bandage in place and stood.
“There. Try not to get shot before breakfast.”
“I wasn’t shot.”
“Try not to get dramatically grazed before breakfast.”
This time, Luca smiled.
A real smile.
Small.
Unprepared.
Mara forgot how to breathe.