Chapter 3 Stay Close

Ettore finally abandoned his admirers and crossed toward us, moving with the lazy confidence of a man who had never once questioned whether the room belonged to him. Several women tracked him openly as he passed, their attention lingering over broad shoulders and expensive charm, and honestly, if I didn’t know him personally, I might have understood the appeal. 

Unfortunately, I did know him personally. Which ruined everything. 

“My beautiful fiancée,” Ettore said smoothly as he reached me, leaning down to kiss my cheek. 

His cologne smelled expensive and overpowering, something dark and spicy layered over whiskey, and beneath it lingered the faint scent of ego. 

I resisted the urge to wipe my cheek afterwards, if barely. 

“Ettore,” I greeted. 

His eyes drifted briefly over the twins before returning to me. “Your father informed me about the additional security.” 

Translation: his father had complained, and now he was pretending the decision had involved him somehow. 

“How brave of you,” I murmured. 

His smile tightened slightly. Tiny victory. 

Ettore extended a hand toward Luca first. “Ettore Moretti.” 

The men shook hands. The contrast between them hit me instantly. 

Ettore was a man of polished wealth. Luxury and perfect image. 

Luca looked like he’d dragged men out of war zones with blood on his hands and then gone home without speaking about it afterwards. 

Leon, meanwhile, looked like he’d started at least half the wars personally. 

“This is excessive,” Ettore said casually, though his eyes flicked briefly toward the ballroom entrance again. “Surely the estate is secure enough already.” 

“It is,” Luca replied calmly. “Until it isn’t.” 

Something about the answer settled strangely against my skin. No dramatics. No reassurance. Just fact. 

The storm outside cracked suddenly with a low growl of thunder, distant enough not to interrupt conversation but loud enough that several guests glanced toward the windows. Rain began moments later, soft at first against the glass before steadily thickening into silver streaks beneath the garden lights. 

I watched it for a second too long. Rain always made me restless. 

When I was younger, before my father had fully perfected the art of turning me into a decorative political asset, I used to sneak outside during storms barefoot and furious at the world, letting rain soak through silk nightgowns while security guards panicked somewhere behind me. Apparently, my mother had done the same thing when she was alive. 

The only story about her my father had ever told me willingly. 

Maybe that was why he hated when I did it. Maybe it reminded him too much of loving someone. 

“You’re drifting,” Ettore said beside me. 

I blinked back toward him. “I’m sorry. Did you say something fascinating?” 

Leon made another suspicious choking sound nearby. Honestly, I was starting to enjoy him immensely. 

Ettore’s jaw flexed faintly before he recovered his composure for the watching guests around us. Everything with him was performance. Controlled image. Even his irritation had tailoring. 

“You should mingle more,” he said quietly. “People are here to celebrate us.” 

“Yes, nothing screams romance quite like strategic alliances and armed guards.” 

His smile sharpened. “You enjoy provoking people.” 

“I enjoy honesty. Unfortunately, most people find it provocative.” 

Before Ettore could respond, Luca’s attention shifted suddenly toward the far side of the ballroom. 

Not casually. Instantly. 

Every muscle in his body tightened almost invisibly beneath the black suit jacket, his focus sharpening with such abrupt intensity that the fine hairs along my arms lifted before I even understood why. 

Leon noticed too. The easy amusement vanished from his expression so quickly that it was almost frightening. 

The twins exchanged a glance. Not a dramatic one, not obvious to anyone not paying attention, but something smaller. Professional and dangerous. It was only a second, but it looked like they had an entire conversation in utter silence, maybe that twin telepathy thing I’ve heard about. 

A cold uneasy sensation slid down my spine. 

“What is it?” I asked quietly. 

Luca didn’t answer immediately. His gaze tracked slowly across the ballroom, scanning faces, exits, movements. 

Calculating. 

Then finally: 

“Stay close tonight, Miss King.” 

Something heavy settled low in my stomach at the tone of his voice. 

Not fear exactly. More like instinct, the kind animals probably felt right before the forest went silent. 

The orchestra continued playing, and somehow that felt like the strangest part of all. 

Not the way Luca’s body had gone subtly rigid beside me, nor the sudden disappearance of Leon’s easy amusement, but the fact that somewhere beneath the glittering chandeliers, violins still swept softly through the ballroom as though nothing had changed, as though danger had not just threaded itself invisibly through six hundred guests wrapped in diamonds and silk. 

Maybe that was what wealth truly was. The ability to keep music playing while the room quietly prepared for violence. 

My fingers tightened slightly around the stem of my champagne flute, the cold crystal damp against my skin as I studied Luca’s profile more carefully. Up close, the sharpness of him felt almost unnatural beneath the warm gold lighting of the ballroom, every line of his face composed with the kind of control that made me irrationally curious about what it would take to fracture it. His attention moved steadily across the crowd without hurry, but there was nothing relaxed about him now. Every glance looked deliberate. Calculated. Dangerous. 

“You’re being cryptic,” I murmured lightly, though the unease coiling low in my stomach had already started tightening. 

Luca’s gaze remained fixed on the ballroom. “I’m being cautious.” 

“That sounds significantly less fun.” 

Leon shifted slightly closer to my side then, the movement subtle enough that nobody watching would notice anything except another bodyguard adjusting position, but I noticed immediately. The heat coming from him brushed against my bare arm in fleeting waves beneath the scent of rain drifting through the open doors, expensive cologne, and something warmer underneath that smelled distinctly male in a way that felt unfairly distracting. 

The closer the twins stood to me, the more aware I became of the tension radiating quietly beneath their composure. Not nervous tension. Not fear. Something sharper. Focused. The kind of heightened awareness that made my own instincts begin responding before my mind fully caught up. Luca’s attention continued moving steadily across the ballroom, his eyes tracking exits, corners, movements. 

And once I noticed it, I started noticing everything else too. 

One of the security guards near the western entrance touched his earpiece twice in quick succession before moving toward the garden corridor. Another subtly repositioned closer to the ballroom doors. Conversations still flowed around us, but there was a slight tightness beneath them now, a faint awareness humming invisibly through the crowd like static before a storm finally breaks. 

Even my father had gone still. 

That more than anything made my pulse shift unevenly beneath my ribs.