Chapter 5 5

Aurora

It’s been days since the incident at the café, but the tension hasn't left my chest. The silence in my apartment isn’t comforting anymore, it feel kind of heavy, like something is coming, waiting just out of reach. That feeling hasn’t left since he walked through my doors.

So when Sophia and Gio suddenly suggest going to a club which is a little outside town, I don’t hesitate. I need air. Music. Lights. Noise that will drown out my thoughts. I need the distraction and I think going to the club is a great idea.

I wear my dark blue sequin dress, the one I’ve only worn once before then it was in the wardrobe all the time. It clings to me in all the right places, revealing my small curves, its shimmery is catching light with every step. My hair is down tonight, curled softly at my back. I line my eyes dark bold. I apply some touch of mascara and eyeshades, I don’t want to feel afraid tonight. I want to feel like a woman who owns her skin.

We arrive at the club just after eleven. The place is buzzing with music thumping like a pulse, strobe lights slicing through thick air. People are dancing, drinking and laughing. Gio buys us drinks and disappears into the crowd. Sofia pulls me onto the dance floor, our hands linked as we sway to the rhythm. I let myself smile and sofia takes my hand and makes me twirl around.

For a little while, I forget all the tensions.

Until I feel it again.

Eyes on me.

Someone is watching me. Not normally but intensely. I glance around but can’t find the source through the haze of bodies.

Gio steps outside to take a call, and Sofia heads to the bar. I’m alone for maybe sixty seconds when a man walks up to me, he steps too close, too familiar with a stranger’s entitlement. I step aside, but he follows. While laughing he reaches even closer, until his hand is brushing with my skin.

“Don’t,” I snap.

But he doesn’t care.

His hand grabs my waist with a hard grip. He pulls me back against him. I struggle, and he leans down to whisper something I don’t catch over the bass. His other hand snakes up—

And then I feel it. A sharp pinch on my breast, cruel and sudden.

I freeze. Pain. Disgust. Rage. Fear. It all mixes and I feel like I’m going to vomit.

“Get off me!” I shout while shoving him, but before I can move further, someone else does.

He flies. Literally. One second he’s groping me, and the next he’s slammed against the floor. Screaming follows. People part like a wave as someone drags him back up by the collar and punches him across the jaw so hard I hear the crack over the loud music.

Blood hits the floor.

The man doesn’t get back up.

The person standing above the corpse is breathing normally and knuckles bloodied is the familiar man in black suit from the café.

His eyes are dark, colder than I’ve ever seen them, and locked on the man as he leans in to say something only he hears. Whatever it is, it leaves the guy shaking then seconds later he is unconscious.

Vincent appears from the crowd. The bouncers start clearing the floor. The music cuts off mid-beat. People are yelling, leaving, tripping over one another. The whole club starts to empty.

The boss turns to me now. His face shifts—not soft exactly, but... careful. He steps forward and peels off his suit jacket without a word, gently draping it around my shoulders. It’s warm and it carries so weight. I feel like I can breathe again.

“You okay?” he asks, voice low but steady.

I nod because I can’t speak. My throat is tight and my hands are sweaty and shaky. I hate that I’m crying.

“Hey.” His hand brushes a tear off my cheek slowly. “You don’t have to say anything.”

He leads me toward a quiet booth away from the mess. We sit. I don’t know why I follow. Maybe because I feel safer beside him than I have in weeks. Or maybe because my legs won’t take me anywhere else.

I hold his jacket close, his scent wrapping around me—leather, earth, something masculine that tugs at something deep in my memory.

“Who are you? Why are you everywhere I go nowadays?” I ask with low voice and barely out.

“I am Damiano Lombardi. A mafia King.” His says with roaring confidence. Well it’s nothing new, he looked like a mafia already… I just needed to make sure that he is one.

No one’s ever protected me like that. Not without wanting something in return. Not like... this.

The man on the floor is gone. Vincent’s people have handled it. But Damiano doesn’t leave me. He doesn’t press. He doesn’t ask what I was doing alone or why I wore the dress that I wore. He just stays beside me like a silent wall which is dangerous and terrifying, and still, somehow... comforting.

“I shouldn’t have let that happen,” I whisper finally.

His eyes flick to mine. “It wasn’t your fault.”

His words hit harder than they should. I bite my lip and look down at my lap. My heels are off, tucked beneath me. I’m suddenly just a girl in a too-short dress wrapped in a mafia king’s jacket.

“Thank you, Damiano.” I murmur.

He nods once. Says nothing. But his hand stays on the edge of the table, just close enough that if I wanted to reach out, I could hold it for comfort.

And for the first time since I ran from my old life, I don’t feel hunted.

I feel watched, yes. He noticed me… out of all the people, he came to offer help.

But by someone who would burn the world if anyone ever touched me again.

And that terrifies me more than anything else.

DAMIANO

The bass thunders beneath my shoes as I step into Vicolo Nero, Vincent’s club tucked away just outside this quiet little town she’s been hiding in. It’s ironic, this place was built for shadows people like us, and yet tonight, light dances everywhere. But even in all the noise and flashing colors, I see her instantly.

Aurora.

She’s impossible to miss. She is so attracting, that nobody can take their eyes off her. That dark blue sequin dress hugs her like it was stitched only for her. Her hair tumbles over her back, her long hairs makes her look like a goddess, catching hints of silver from the overhead lights. She’s laughing and God, that laugh, it does something to my heart, and she’s moving with the kind of carefree rhythm I’ve only ever watched from a distance. She doesn’t even know I’m here.

She doesn't know I’ve been watching her for weeks.

Vincent confirmed it was her after the café encounter, but I had to see for myself. And now that I have, I can't breathe right. She's not just the girl who ran from me. She's something else now, she’s the girl I am obsessed to have now.

She’s mine.

I lean against the railing on the second floor of the club, scotch in hand, eyes never leaving her. Giovanni steps outside, probably a phone call. Sofia is dancing with someone else. Aurora moves to the bar, alone now. Vulnerable on her own.

That’s when I see him, some drunk, staggering idiot, slick hair and no sense of boundaries. He corners her near the edge of the bar, leans too close to her, says something in her ear. She freezes.

I know that look.

He touches her a little too low, too rough and when she recoils, he does it again. That’s when I move immediately.

I’m down the stairs before I’ve finished my drink. My fists are clenched. My pulse is a drumbeat of rage. She looks stunned, like her mind is somewhere else entirely, stuck in old memories she thought she buried.

He touches her again. And then all I see is red. Pure blood.

I grab him by the collar and slam him into the bar. Glass shatters. The crowd gasps. The music cuts. My elbow meets his nose, and it cracks beneath the pressure. He stumbles to the floor, bloodied and wheezing. I don’t care who’s watching. I will tear him apart if he lays another finger on her.

The bouncers rush in, dragging him out like trash. The crowd scatters. Vincent's already ordering an evacuation, clearing the place out in record time. But I don’t move, I watch her.

Aurora stands frozen in place with her eyes wide, chest heaving up and down. Her skin is pale under the club lights, and I see the tears threatening to spill, but she blinks them back. Brave girl.

I walk to her slowly, carefully, like approaching a wounded bird.

“Are you alright?” I ask, voice low, only for her. I offer her comfort because I know she needs it right now.

She doesn’t answer she just nods slowly. I take off my jacket and place it over her bare shoulders. The moment my hands brush her skin, a spark shoots down my spine. She’s trembling.

“I’ve got you,” I say, more to myself than to her.

Her eyes meet mine for a second. And in that second, something shifts.

The need in me isn’t just physical. It’s primal. Territorial. Dangerous. I want to shield her, keep her hidden from the world, but I also want her close, to taste the part of her she’s kept from me all this time.

I take a step back before I lose control.

“You’re safe now,” I whisper, and I mean it.

Even if she doesn’t know it yet, I’ll burn this entire world down to keep her safe. This girl saved my life when the bratva shot me in the rib. I could’ve died on the side of the road if she didn’t showed up on time.

And sooner or later, Aurora will know: she was never just an obligation or a deal. She’s always been mine. Yes I do have to accomplish the reason I am here. She ran from me and she will have to suffer her consequences. A fault is a fault after all.