Page 2 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
His gaze holds mine with the unnerving weight of someone who has already seen too much, someone who understands exactly what kind of room he has entered and what kind of woman I have been made to become.
He looks at me like he sees the lineage stitched into my spine, the obedience sharpened into my smile, the blood soaked into the hem of a family legacy I never asked to inherit.
And in that endless breath of quiet recognition, something dark and electric thrums beneath my skin, waking in places I thought I had long since turned to stone.
A slow, burning blush creeps across my cheeks.
If Mama were nearby, she would insist I lower my gaze, for it is not becoming for a young woman like me to be so apparently smitten by someone so much older and directly tied to the one family abhorred by Papa.
Taking a moment to compose myself, I smooth down my dress and descend.
My heels strike the marble, the hem of my gown trailing like spilled wine in my wake.
The hall glows warm and golden around us, but the only thing I feel is the cold certainty that this night will not unfold the way anyone expects it to.
I greet the Salvatores in turn, my voice smooth, my smile gracious, offering pleasantries that I have rehearsed a hundred times over.
Luca kisses the back of my hand like a man enjoying the performance, Marco offers a murmured compliment I barely register, and then I reach Enzo, who does not extend his hand.
I do not offer mine.
Once more, we only look at each other, and in that breathless pause, something ancient and wordless passes between us, something far older than this truce or these families or the velvet-covered violence we've all been taught to wield.
His eyes are darker up close, more shadow than color, and they move over my face with the kind of stillness that feels like a decision being made.
"Enzo Moretti," he says at last, his voice low and quiet, wrapped in gravel and midnight.
I feel it more than I hear it.
"Aria Lombardi," I reply, though I suspect he already knows.
His lips twitch, not quite a smile, not quite anything, and the space between us seems to contract by a fraction.
It is the smallest shift, the subtlest thing, but I feel it in my chest like a pull, a warning, a promise.
Someone brushes past us and the spell breaks, or perhaps just thins.
He steps back into the line of his family, I return to mine, and the negotiations resume.
Shortly afterwards, we are summoned to dinner, and it is not a moment too soon.
This is a high-profile event celebrating the uneasy truce between the Salvatore and Lombardi families, with a select few present.
All of them have ties to one family or the other.
The dining hall glows beneath chandeliers imported from Venice, each crystal teardrop catching the candlelight like it's been lit from within.
Gold-edged plates gleam on the long table draped in ivory linen, flanked by polished silver, fine stemware, and the kind of floral arrangements that require a private jet and three florists to survive the journey from Palermo.
The room smells of wealth and ambition, of wine aged longer than some of the guests have been alive, of truffle oil and roasted meat, of women wearing too much jasmine and men wielding too much power.
This is not a celebration.
It is a performance, down to the last guest being seated in a chair that is specifically chosen for them.
Papa is seated at the head of the table, as expected.
Luca Salvatore is placed to his right in a gesture of diplomacy.
