Chapter three: The Arrival

Chapter Three – The Arrival

POV: Lucien Romano

Rainwater still clung to his gloves when the guards shoved the boy forward. Lucien watched him stumble across the marble floor, knees cracking against stone, head bowed, hair dripping into his eyes.

The wrong twin.

He had known it the moment the headlights carved through the storm and his men dragged the captive inside. Adrian Moretti—the reckless gambler, the traitor with debts and grudges enough to choke a city—carried himself like a wolf with a taste for blood. The one before him now was no wolf.

But Lucien did not correct his men. He let the name fall like a verdict. Adrian. Let the boy choke on it.

Because sometimes mistakes revealed more than truth ever could.

The boy stayed on his knees, rain pooling beneath him, breath sharp and uneven. Lightning flared through the windows, painting the great hall in flashes of white, and for the first time in years, Lucien felt his pulse stir with something dangerously close to intrigue.

He stepped closer, his shoes clicking against marble, every sound deliberate. The boy—Levi, his mind supplied, because he’d had him researched long ago—flinched under the weight of his gaze.

Not Adrian. Yet the same face, the same bones carved by fate’s careless hand. Identical, and not at all.

Lucien crouched, gloved fingers catching the boy’s chin, forcing his eyes upward.

Heterochromatic. One iris storm-gray, the other dark as obsidian. Adrian’s dossier had mentioned it in passing, a genetic accident. Lucien hadn’t forgotten.

He stared into those eyes, searching. Adrian’s gaze had always been hungry, restless, forever reaching. This one—Levi’s—was guarded. Trembling with fear, yes, but underneath it, a stillness Adrian had never possessed.

Interesting.

“I’m not Adrian,” the boy whispered, voice raw from rain and panic.

Lucien’s lips curved. Not a smile—sharper than that. “Names can lie. Eyes don’t.”

He let his thumb brush Levi’s jaw, studying the twitch of defiance in his throat.

Not Adrian.

And yet…

Something in that defiance pricked him sharper than the memory of Adrian ever had.

He rose smoothly, tugging the boy up by his bound wrists. “Take him to the east wing. Put him in the velvet suite.”

The guards obeyed, hauling Levi to his feet. He stumbled, struggling against the grip, but Lucien lifted a hand, halting them.

“No bruises where I can see them,” he said quietly.

The men nodded.

Levi’s breath hitched. Fear widened his eyes. Lucien’s gaze lingered there, feeding on it, filing it away.

When the guards dragged him toward the stairwell, Levi’s head jerked back once more, gray-black eyes locking with his.

And in that instant, Lucien felt it—a flare low in his chest, sharp, unwelcome, consuming.

Obsession was not new to him. He had built empires on it. Men. Money. Power. He knew what it cost and what it gave.

But this—this spark, born not of strategy but of instinct—was dangerous.

He turned, gesturing for Matteo, his lieutenant, to follow him into the study.

The fire there glowed low, painting the wood-paneled walls in embers. Lucien removed his gloves, flexing his fingers as Matteo closed the door behind them.

“You’re certain it’s the right one?” Matteo asked. “The men swore—”

Lucien poured himself a drink, the burn of scotch sliding down his throat. “It isn’t Adrian.”

Matteo froze. “Then—”

Lucien cut him off with a raised hand. “It doesn’t matter.” He set the glass down, gaze fixed on the window where the storm still raged. “Bring me the files on Levi Moretti. Everything we have.”

Matteo’s brows drew together. “Levi? The quiet one? He’s no threat.”

“No threat,” Lucien repeated, voice a low hum. His reflection in the glass met his gaze, sharp as the lightning tearing across the sky. “Do you know what no threats become, Matteo? Weaknesses. And do you know what weaknesses are worth in the right hands?”

Matteo swallowed, wisely silent.

“Bring me the files,” Lucien said again, softer this time.

The order left no room for argument.

When Matteo left, Lucien sat alone in the quiet, the scotch’s heat lingering.

He told himself it was strategy. That keeping the wrong twin would draw Adrian out, force him from whatever hole he was rotting in. That Levi was bait, nothing more.

But even as he repeated it, his mind replayed the image of the boy on his knees, rain dripping from his lashes, lips parting in denial. The sound of his voice saying Levi.

Not Adrian.

No. Something rarer. Something he hadn’t known he’d been hunting until fate had thrown it at his feet.

He leaned back in his chair, let the firelight burn shadows across his face, and whispered the name once into the silence.

“Levi.”

The stor

m outside roared, rattling the glass.

And Lucien knew with the certainty of a man who had killed for less: this mistake would cost him everything.

And he would not give it up.