Chapter 2 - The Marks Beneath the Silk
The grand staircase had never felt wider, nor the silence heavier.
Luca didn’t wait for an answer. With Sofia tucked securely against his broad chest, her small head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, he turned his back on his fiancée and continued upward toward the second-floor nursery.
Every step he took was effortless, deliberate, and entirely devoid of hurry. That was what made him terrifying. When Luca Moretti moved fast, things were already over. When he moved slowly, it meant he was deciding precisely how much ruin to bring down on someone’s head.
“Luca,” Isabella called out, her voice sharpening as she took the first two steps after him. “We need to talk about the guest list for the foundation gala. The caterers called twice, and—”
He didn’t turn around. “Go to the terrace, Isabella.”
“I’m trying to handle our obligations—”
“Go to the terrace,” he repeated, without raising his voice by so much as a decibel. “And do not enter the north wing tonight.”
Isabella stopped on the second step. I caught the briefest glimpse of her profile as she stood frozen under the chandelier. Her hands, tipped with manicured plum-colored nails, curled into tight fists against the silk fabric of her designer dress. A flush of pure, humiliated venom stained her porcelain throat.
Then she looked up at me.
I was still clinging to the mahogany banister three steps below the landing, my left foot hovering slightly off the polished wood. The throbbing in my ankle had evolved from a dull ache into a searing, rhythmic fire.
Her eyes met mine, and the threat in them was as clear as a knife drawn across a throat: *Say one word, and you will regret drawing breath.*
I looked away, keeping my eyes fixed on the grain of the floorboards until I heard her heels retreat across the marble foyer, clicking with rigid fury toward the French doors that opened to the gardens.
“Emma.”
Luca stood at the nursery doorway, looking back at me down the long, dimly lit gallery.
“Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Can you make it to the armchair in Sofia’s sitting room, or am I coming back down to carry you?”
A hot wave of embarrassment rushed through my chest. “I can walk, sir.”
“Don’t lie to me twice in ten minutes. It doesn’t suit you.”
He disappeared into the nursery with Sofia before I could answer. Gritting my teeth until my jaw ached, I hauled myself forward, keeping my weight entirely on my right leg while dragging the left behind me. By the time I reached the sitting room attached to Sofia’s bedroom, beads of cold sweat had broken out across my forehead. My vision swam with gray spots.
I collapsed onto the velvet armchair near the cold hearth, panting quietly.
A moment later, the connecting door opened. Luca emerged, his jacket already draped over the back of a chair, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing the intricate black ink that wound around his muscular wrists—vines, thorns, and old Latin script whose meaning I had never dared to ask about.
He crossed the room without a sound and picked up the house phone on the antique side table.
“Doctor Evans,” he said the second the line connected. “Come to the estate. Private entrance. Now.”
He hung up without waiting for an acknowledgment.
“Mr. Moretti, please,” I said, my voice shaking slightly as I pressed my hands flat against the velvet cushions. “You don’t need to call your personal physician for a twisted ankle. An ice pack and some elevation will be plenty. I can take a cab to an urgent care clinic in the morning.”
Luca didn’t answer. Instead, he knelt on the Persian rug directly in front of my chair.
My breath trapped in my throat.
Luca Moretti didn’t kneel. Not to business rivals, not to city commissioners, and certainly not to the domestic staff. Yet there he was, his dark eyes level with mine, smelling faintly of cedarwood, rain, and the distinct, metallic edge of the night air.
“Give me your foot,” he said.
“I can manage—”
He didn’t ask a second time. His large, warm fingers wrapped around the back of my calf, just above the hem of my simple navy skirt. The heat of his touch was a startling contrast to the cold sweat on my skin. Gently, but with immovable strength, he lifted my leg and set my heel onto his thigh.
His brow furrowed. The swelling around my ankle had ballooned past the edge of my modest flat, turning the pale skin a sickening shade of violet and angry crimson.
“The east guest room has thick carpeting,” he murmured, his thumb brushing near the swelling without pressing down. “A fall there wouldn’t twist a joint this violently. Not unless you were pushed.”
I swallowed hard. “I tripped on the runner outside the nursery. Sofia told you the truth.”
“I know my daughter tells the truth,” he said softly, lifting his gaze to mine. “What I’m trying to figure out is why you covered for the woman who caused it.”
“I didn’t want to cause trouble.”
A cynical, humorless smirk touched the corner of his lips. “Trouble lives in this house, Emma. It pays rent and sits at my dining table. You covering for Isabella doesn’t prevent trouble—it just guarantees she gets away with it.”
Before I could reply, the heavy double doors of the suite opened. Dr. Charles Evans walked in, carrying a leather medical bag, his silver hair slightly windblown. He had been Luca’s private doctor for over a decade, a man who had treated everything from boardroom stress to gunshot wounds without ever asking questions that weren't strictly clinical.
“Luca,” Dr. Evans said, nodding deferentially before glancing down at me. “What do we have?”
Luca stood up, stepping aside to give the doctor room. “Severe inversion injury to the left ankle. Assess it. X-ray if needed. I have the portable unit in the basement clinic.”
Dr. Evans knelt where Luca had been, pulling a pair of medical shears from his kit. “Let’s get this shoe off first. Hold tight, young lady.”
He carefully snipped through the leather of my flat, easing it off my foot. Even with his delicate hands, a wave of nauseating pain tore through my joint. I gasped, biting down hard on my lower lip, my right hand shooting out instinctively to grip the arm of the chair.
Instead of the chair, my fingers clamped onto something warm and unyielding.
I opened my eyes and realized I was gripping Luca’s forearm. My fingernails were digging into the dark ink of his skin.
I instantly went to pull away. “I’m sorry, Mr. Moretti—”
His hand closed over mine, anchoring my fingers right where they were. “Hold on. Don’t apologize.”
Dr. Evans pressed his thumbs against the lateral malleolus. “No obvious dislocation, but there’s significant ligamentous tearing. Might be a hairline fracture at the base of the fibula. We’ll brace it, ice it, and run the plate downstairs in an hour.”
The doctor reached up to steady my leg, pushing back the hem of my skirt slightly to check circulation at the knee. As he did, his fingers brushed against my right forearm, pushing up the sleeve of my cardigan.
Dr. Evans paused.
The silence that fell over the room was instant and suffocating.
There, stark against my pale skin, were four distinct, dark purple bruises shaped like fingertips, with a matching thumb-print bruised deeply into the inner curve of my wrist.
Fresh bruises. The exact shape of a slender woman’s hand clamping down with frantic, furious pressure.
Dr. Evans didn’t say a word. He merely shifted his eyes toward Luca.
Luca’s hand, which was still holding mine, went completely still.
Slowly, his eyes traveled from my swollen foot up to my forearm. He reached out with his other hand, his fingers barely skimming the purple welts on my flesh. His touch was feather-light, but the air around him suddenly felt charged with electric violence.
“Isabella wears three platinum rings on her right hand,” Luca said. His voice was unnervingly calm. “One has a raised sapphire.”
He touched a small, crescent-shaped cut embedded in the center of the largest bruise on my wrist.
“She broke the skin.”
“Mr. Moretti, it was an accident,” I whispered, desperate to stop the dangerous tide rising in his eyes. “We were arguing. I pulled away too quickly—”
Luca looked up from my arm, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made the breath die in my throat.
“She put her hands on you,” he said, every word clipped and lethal. “In my house. Outside my child’s bedroom.”
He straightened his posture, turning toward the heavy oak door that led down the corridor toward the terrace.
“Doctor Evans,” Luca said without looking back. “Finish wrapping her ankle. Give her something for the pain. Make sure she is comfortable.”
“Where are you going, Luca?” Dr. Evans asked carefully.
Luca buttoned his cuffs over his tattoos, his expression like carved obsidian.
May you like
“To remind my fiancée,” Luca said quietly, “whose home she is living in.”
***
