Chapter 3 - Shadows in the East WingThe words on the card seemed to burn into the paper, the ink blurring slightly as the storm outside unleashed a torrential sheet of rain against the French doors.
Murdered.
Not frightened away by his size. Not driven off by the cold, isolated life of a mountain estate. Dead.
I backed away from the desk, my breath catching in my throat as my mind violently replayed every moment since I had stepped out of the car. Luca’s haunted eyes. The way he braced himself for rejection like a man walking toward a firing squad. His reluctance to let me stay, his insistence that I take an exit route before the ceremony.
He hadn't been protecting his pride. He had been protecting me.
If the previous brides hadn't left voluntarily—if Elena’s dark accusation held even an ounce of truth—then Luca wasn't just a powerful mafia boss with a debt-ridden father-in-law. He was a man trapped in a nightmare, harboring a killer inside his own fortified home while the world blamed him for driving women away.
Boom!
A violent crack of thunder rattled the windowpanes, plunging the suite into sudden, absolute darkness as the estate’s power grid short-circuited under the strain of the storm.
The fire in the hearth cast orange, flickering shadows across the velvet walls, making the antique furniture look like crouching figures in the dark.
I froze, listening intently.
Through the roaring wind and the steady patter of rain against the balcony glass, I heard a sound that didn't belong to the storm.
Click.
A soft, metallic click coming from the hallway outside my bedroom door.
Someone was turning the doorknob.
My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped animal. I scrambled backward across the parquet floor, my bare feet slipping slightly before I caught my balance behind the heavy velvet armchair. I held my breath, straining my ears against the silence.
The heavy oak door slowly swung inward, an inch at a time, moving with eerie, well-oiled silence.
A tall, dark silhouette filled the doorway.
Lightning flashed outside the French doors, illuminating the figure in a brilliant, blinding strobe of white light.
It wasn't an intruder.
It was Luca.
He stood in the doorway, soaked to the skin, his dark hair plastered across his forehead, his heavy wool coat dripping water onto the pristine floorboards. In his right hand, he held a heavy tactical flashlight, its beam pointed safely at the floor.
When he saw the room was dark and empty, he stopped.
“Sophia?” his voice cut through the shadows, raspy and tight with panic. “Sophia, are you awake?”
I slowly stood up from behind the armchair, my hands shaking as I reached for the edge of the desk to steady myself. “I... I’m here, Luca.”
He spun around, the flashlight beam sweeping up to catch my face. The look of raw, unadulterated terror on his massive face made my breath hitch. It wasn't the face of a cold-blooded killer or a mastermind hiding dark secrets. It was the face of a man who thought he had just lost his entire world in the span of three seconds.
“The power grid blew,” Luca said quickly, taking two long, heavy strides across the room until he stood right in front of me. He reached out, his massive hands gently gripping my shoulders, checking me over from head to toe as if searching for injuries. “Are you hurt? Did you hear anything?”
“I heard the door,” I whispered, staring up into his dark, storm-tossed eyes. Then, summoning every ounce of courage I possessed, I asked the question that was burning holes in my chest. “Luca... what happened to the other five women?”
The air in the room instantly turned to ice.
Luca’s hands froze on my shoulders. The muscles beneath his fingers turned to granite. Every trace of warmth drained from his face, leaving behind a terrifying, deathly stillness.
“Who told you about them?” he asked, his voice dropping into a harsh, freezing whisper.
“Elena left a note,” I said steadily, holding his gaze even though my knees were shaking. “She said they didn't run away. She said they were murdered, Luca. In this house.”
For five seconds, he didn't move. He just stared down at me, his chest rising and falling in heavy, labored breaths. Then, slowly, he dropped his hands from my shoulders and turned away, walking over to the open French doors to stare out into the black, churning waters of the lake.
“My sister likes to play with matches,” Luca said, his voice hollow, carrying the weight of a thousand unspoken griefs. “She thinks she knows everything about the syndicate, about my business, about the blood on our family's hands.”
“Did she lie?” I asked, stepping closer to him, ignoring the cold rain blowing in from the balcony. “Did they die here, Luca?”
He turned back to face me, the lightning casting harsh shadows across his scarred knuckles.
“No,” he said quietly. “She didn't lie. Four of them died in accidents on these mountain roads after leaving the estate. Brakes failing on hairpin turns. Cars sliding over guardrails into the lake. The fifth... the fifth never made it out of the gates.”
My hand flew to my mouth. “My God.”
“And the police ruled every single one of them accidental or suicide,” Luca continued, stepping closer, his voice cracking with suppressed fury. “Because in Lombardy, nobody investigates a Moretti accident too closely. But I know better. Someone inside this estate—someone using my name, my house, and my intimidating reputation as a shield—is hunting every woman brought here to be my wife.”
The puzzle pieces snapped together with terrifying clarity.
The brides didn't leave because they were scared of his size. They were driven away—or eliminated—by a saboteur within the inner circle who wanted Luca isolated, vulnerable, and forever denied a family of his own.
“And you thought bringing me here would make me the next target,” I whispered, realizing the horrifying truth behind his reluctance to marry me.
“I thought if I married you, whoever is doing this would crawl out of the woodwork to try and break us,” Luca confessed, his dark eyes shining with unshed tears in the dim light of the fire. “I thought I could draw them out. But I didn't plan on actually caring. I didn't plan on you looking at me the way you did in the chapel, like I was a person instead of a monster.”
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He reached out, his calloused fingertips brushing a stray lock of hair behind my ear, his touch infinitely gentle despite the sheer, brutal power coiled in his massive frame.
“I brought you into the lion’s den, Sophia,” he murmured, his voice breaking. “And now the storm has cut us off from the mainland. We are locked in this estate with a killer.”
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