The leather crop was raised for another strike, suspended in the heavy, perfumed air of the sitting room. And standing directly in front of Emma, swirling a crystal glass of gin, was Alessia.

Dr. Rossi packed his black leather bag and practically sprinted out of the study, eager to escape the suffocating intensity of Luca’s presence.

When the heavy oak door clicked shut, the silence returned, thick and heavy with unspoken implications. Emma looked down at her bandaged arm, her mind struggling to process the seismic shift that had just occurred in her universe. Two hours ago, she was an invisible ghost dusting crystal chandeliers. Now, she was sitting in the inner sanctum of the most feared man in New York, and the woman meant to marry him had been exiled to the streets.

“I can’t stay here, Mr. Moretti,” Emma whispered, staring at the intricate pattern of the Persian rug.

Luca walked over to the desk, poured a second glass of bourbon, and took a slow sip before answering. “Where would you go? Your apartment in Queens? The one with the broken deadbolt and the landlord who drinks too much?”

Emma’s head snapped up. “How do you know about my apartment?”

“I know everything about the people who live under my roof,” Luca said smoothly, walking back to her. “I ran a full background check on you the day Mrs. Gable hired you. Emma Carter. Mother passed away when you were nineteen. Father absent. No siblings. You dropped out of nursing school to pay off your mother’s medical debts. You are quiet, entirely self-reliant, and you do not panic under pressure.”

He set his glass down on a side table and leaned forward, bracing his hands on the armrests of the chesterfield, trapping her in his imposing shadow.

“Alessia was a transaction,” Luca said, his dark eyes locking onto hers, refusing to let her look away. “A treaty between my family and the Vitiellos to secure the shipping ports. I never cared for her. I tolerated her because she was a necessary piece on the board. But a woman who strikes those weaker than her to feel powerful is a liability. A woman who tortures my staff in my home is a dead woman walking.”

He reached out, his knuckles gently grazing her uninjured cheek. Emma shivered, her breath catching in her throat. The touch was impossibly soft for a man whose hands were stained with so much blood.

“You are not going back to Queens, Emma. You are not going back to the servants’ quarters. If you walk out of those gates tonight, Alessia’s father will have his men hunt you down just to punish me. You are the catalyst for a war that is going to tear this city apart.” Luca leaned in closer, his lips mere inches from hers. “You are only safe with me.”

Emma swallowed hard, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. “And what am I supposed to be to you, Mr. Moretti? A mistress? A hostage?”

Luca’s gaze darkened, a possessive fire igniting in the depths of his eyes. “You are going to be mine. And you are going to call me Luca.”

He straightened up, breaking the magnetic tension, and offered her his hand. Emma looked at his large, calloused palm for a long moment. Taking it meant stepping over a line she could never recross. It meant leaving the safety of anonymity and stepping into the crosshairs of a mafia war. But as she looked up into Luca’s unwavering gaze, she realized she had stopped being afraid of him a long time ago.

She placed her hand in his. His fingers closed around hers, warm and unyielding.

He led her out of the study and up the grand sweeping staircase. The few household staff members lingering in the halls immediately averted their eyes, pressing themselves into the walls to let the Don pass. Word had already spread through the estate like wildfire. The maid had overthrown the princess.

Luca bypassed the guest wing entirely and led her to the massive double doors at the end of the corridor—the master suite. He pushed the doors open.

The room was vast, decorated in deep tones of charcoal, slate, and dark wood. A massive four-poster bed dominated the center, flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sprawling, snow-covered grounds of the estate. A fire was already crackling in the marble fireplace.

“The bathroom is through there,” Luca said, gesturing to a frosted glass door. “My clothes are in the wardrobe. Find something to sleep in. Tomorrow, a tailor will come to measure you for a proper wardrobe.”

He turned to leave, but Emma’s voice stopped him.

“Where are you going?”

Luca paused in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the frame. “Carlo Vitiello will know by now that his daughter has been cast out. He is a proud, violent man. He will demand blood for this insult. I need to meet with my capos to lock down the city before he makes his move.” He looked back at her, his expression softening just a fraction. “Lock the door behind me. Do not open it for anyone except me.”

When the door clicked shut, Emma stood in the center of the massive room, entirely alone. She walked into the sprawling walk-in closet, bypassing rows of bespoke Italian suits and crisp dress shirts, and pulled a soft, black cashmere sweater from a shelf. It swallowed her small frame, falling to her mid-thigh, smelling fiercely of cedar, gun oil, and his expensive cologne.

She curled up in the center of the massive bed, pulling the dark silk sheets around her. She expected to lie awake, terrified of the impending mob war she had inadvertently sparked. Instead, wrapped in the scent of the monster who had saved her, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The war began three days later.

Emma spent those days confined to the master wing, guarded by two massive men in dark suits who stood silently outside the bedroom doors. Mrs. Gable, the strict, terrifying head housekeeper who had once scolded Emma for using the wrong silver polish, now brought her meals on silver trays with a trembling reverence that made Emma profoundly uncomfortable.