Page 17 of The Seventh Circle
In my chambers, I shed my clothes and washed my face in the porcelain basin, staring at my reflection in the mirror, before reclining back on the mattress. I looked unchanged—the same Benedetto features that had stared back at me for twenty-six years—yet everything felt different. The problem wasn’t just that I desired Antonio. The problem was that I’d glimpsed something in him that resonated with the part of myself I kept hidden—the part that read philosophy instead of ledgers, that questioned the necessity of violence, that wanted to create rather than destroy.
My own scarf was still missing, and the thought of it—of him—was a persistent heat at the base of my neck. I imagined him in his small, cold room, the expensive wool a foreign object there. Had he folded it carefully? Or was it still around his neck, carrying the scent of my cologne and the impossible intimacy of the gift?
Here, in the solitude of my rooms, walled in by the wealth and power that kept us apart, I could allow the fantasy to take hold. My hand, slick with water from the basin, came awayfrom my face and drifted lower, an almost involuntary act of surrender. I closed my eyes as my fingers wrapped around my own length, the touch a poor substitute for the scarred, capable hands I truly wanted.
I moved my hand, at first slowly, tentatively, as if exploring a forbidden idea. The friction was a whisper against my skin, but in my mind, it was his touch—rough, calloused, sure. I imagined those hands, the ones I’d seen break a man’s jaw, tracing the lines of my body with the same focus he gave his books. My breath hitched.
The fantasy became more vivid, more demanding. I saw him standing before me, his thoughtful eyes dark with a need that matched my own. The memory of his deep, careful voice finally sayingLorenzowas a sound that echoed not in the room, but in my blood, a dark and pulsing rhythm that my own hand matched. The pace quickened, no longer tentative but desperate, my knuckles brushing against my stomach with each deliberate stroke. I was chasing a phantom, a feeling I could only conjure in secret. I pictured his mouth, usually set in a firm line, softening against mine; his body, powerful and compact, pressing me down into the mattress.
A guttural sound, half-prayer, half-curse, tore from my throat. My hips arched off the bed, meeting the insistent pressure of my own hand as the fantasy consumed me. The image of him, finally unguarded, looking at me with the same desperate want I felt—it was enough to shatter my carefully constructed control. The climax seized me in a violent shudder, spilling my release, warm and thick, against my own skin. His name was a choked, pathetic whisper on my lips.
The release was a hollow echo in the grand, empty room. It solved nothing. The pleasure faded instantly, leaving behind only the cold, sharp ache of reality and the stickiness cooling on my flesh. It was a phantom relief that only sharpenedthe edges of my loneliness and the impossibility of my desire. Wiping myself with a cloth, I felt a fresh wave of shame—not for the act itself, but for my own weakness. I was the heir, a man trained in control, and I had been undone by the fantasy of an enforcer’s smile.
I fell back onto the sheets, covering my eyes with my arm. I should have assigned another enforcer to the market collection. Should have maintained professional distance. Should, at minimum, take steps now to correct my error in judgment.
I would not.
The truth hit me with crushing certainty. I would not step back from Antonio Romano...
...Liar, whispered a voice in my head.You've already started down this path.
Sleep eluded me for hours, my mind cycling between Antonio's rare smile, Paolo's suspicious questions, and my father's expectations. By the time I drifted off, dawn was threatening the horizon, and I'd made no progress resolving my conflict.
My dreams, when they finally came, were filled with scarred hands holding books, brown eyes warming with unspoken understanding, and a future that could never exist—one where I wasn't the Benedetto heir, where Antonio wasn't my soldier, where we were simply two men discovering each other without blood and family obligation between us.
I woke with his name on my lips and the weight of impossibility on my chest, more exhausted than when I'd fallen asleep. The morning light streaming through my window felt like an accusation.
I dressed mechanically, mind still tangled in dreams and the lingering shame of my nocturnal confession. Part of me hoped Paolo would find nothing—that Antonio's concerns about being followed were misplaced. But another part, the Benedetto heir trained by my father, hopedPaolo would find Torrino's men. Give them the message that touching what belonged to our family—what belonged to me—would have consequences.
The thought of Antonio asminesent a possessive heat through my body that had nothing to do with anger.
I caught my reflection again as I straightened my tie. My face betrayed nothing of the turmoil beneath, schooled by years of practice to project only calm authority. But inside, everything had shifted.
I could deny it to Paolo, to Father, to the world, but I couldn't lie to myself any longer.
I wasn't just attracted to Antonio Romano.
I was falling in love with him.
And I had no idea what to do about it.
5
ANTONIO
Iwoke before dawn, the confusing dreams of Lorenzo's hands still lingering like bruises on my mind. Sleep had come in fits, interrupted by images I couldn't—shouldn't—entertain. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw his face, heard his voice asking about my dreams as if he actually cared what a street rat like me might want from life.
The scarf he'd given me lay draped over the chair beside my bed. I'd told myself I'd left it there because I had nowhere else to put it, but that was a lie. I'd wanted to see it first thing when I woke, wanted that reminder of his casual generosity.
My body betrayed me with morning hardness that had nothing to do with the usual causes and everything to do with remembering the brush of Lorenzo's fingers against mine, the intensity in his eyes when he'd spoken of carpentry, of a different life.
"Fool," I muttered, splashing cold water on my face from the basin. "He's the heir. Your boss."
But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was this: I was a man having these thoughts about another man. My mind flashed to childhood stories of men burned in the village square for such abominations. To whispered words about sin and perversion. To the church paintings of hell, where such souls were tortured for eternity.
I dressed quickly, careful not to wake Enzo who slept deeply on his pallet. Mama would be up soon to start the day's bread, but for now, the apartment was quiet. I slipped the scarf into my pocket, not wearing it but unable to leave it behind.
Outside, Rome was still waking. I walked past the men setting up market stalls, past the vendors starting their braziers, nodding to those who recognized me. Not as Antonio Romano, but as a Benedetto man. The thought left a sour taste. I'd become what I needed to be for my family, but never before had I questioned the price of that choice as deeply as now.
