Chapter 1 The Butcher’s Debt
The air in my father’s study felt heavy, almost suffocating, thick with the scent of expensive scotch and the sharp, metallic tang of fear. The walls were lined with dark mahogany shelves filled with books no one ever read symbols of power rather than knowledge. A single lamp cast long shadows across the Persian rug, stretching them like silent witnesses to the destruction unfolding inside this room.
My father, Lorenzo Downs, was a man who usually commanded any space he entered with nothing more than a glance and the slow curl of cigar smoke. He was feared, respected, and obeyed. Tonight, that man was gone. In his place stood a hollow version of him, shoulders slumped, hands trembling as he clutched a crystal glass like it was the only thing keeping him upright. He looked like a ghost draped in a silk suit, already halfway buried.
"I don’t have the money, Silvio," he whispered, his voice cracking under the weight of desperation. "The shipment was seized. I just need more time."
I stood frozen behind the double oak doors, my fingers digging into the carved wood as my breath hitched painfully in my throat. I shouldn’t have been listening. I knew better than to eavesdrop when men like my father conducted business. But something deep in my gut, an instinct sharper than fear, kept me rooted there. That same instinct had been screaming at me since I missed my period two weeks ago, warning me that my life was already slipping out of my control.
I pressed my palm against my stomach, a small, unconscious gesture. A silent promise to the secret growing inside me. To the fragile life that had already complicated everything.
"Time is a luxury you wasted months ago, Lorenzo."
The second voice sliced through the room like a blade wrapped in velvet. Cold. Smooth. Absolute. It was a voice that didn’t need to be raised to be obeyed. I had never heard it in person before, but I recognized it instantly.
Silvio Moretti.
The Butcher of Milan.
A man whose name was spoken in hushed tones, if at all. A man who didn’t just run the city; he owned it. Every street, every dock, every corrupted soul bowed to his will. He didn’t negotiate. He collected.
"I’ll give you the shipping routes," my father pleaded, panic thickening his accent. "The docks in the north. Everything I have. Just, just leave my family out of this."
My heart slammed violently against my ribs. Family. Me.
I heard the slow, deliberate scrape of a leather chair against the marble floor. It was unhurried, calculated, as if Silvio had all the time in the world to dismantle us piece by piece.
"I don't want your docks," Silvio said calmly. "I want the girl."
The silence that followed was deafening. The world seemed to tilt, the sound draining from my ears until all I could hear was the thunder of my own heartbeat. It pounded so loudly I was sure they could hear it through the thick oak doors.
"Lisa?" My father’s voice broke completely. It came out as a whimper, stripped of pride and power. "She, she’s my only daughter. She has nothing to do with the syndicate."
Silvio’s footsteps grew closer, each one measured, predatory. "She has everything to do with it," he said softly. "I’ve seen her, Lorenzo. I’ve watched her. The way she looks at the world. She has his eyes."
My blood ran cold.
"The man who butchered my father twenty years ago," Silvio continued. "You’ve been raising my enemy’s legacy under your roof. Feeding her. Protecting her. And now, I’m claiming it."
He knew.
The secret my mother had whispered to me on her deathbed, the truth she had begged me never to reveal: that Lorenzo Downs was not my biological father. That I was the daughter of a rival, a dead man, a ghost Silvio Moretti had been hunting for decades.
I wasn’t just collateral.
I was revenge.
My legs moved on instinct. I turned to bolt for the stairs, panic flooding my veins, but the doors swung open with violent force, slamming against the walls hard enough to make the frames shudder.
"Running so soon, Little Bird?"
I froze.
Silvio Moretti stood in the doorway like a dark omen made flesh. He was taller than the rumors suggested, broader, radiating a terrifying stillness. His black suit was impeccably tailored, the kind that cost more than my entire college education. But it was his eyes that pinned me in place stormy grey, turbulent, devoid of mercy or warmth.
"I am not a debt to be settled," I hissed, forcing my chin up even as my knees threatened to give out beneath me.
A faint smile curved his lips, sharp and humorless. Silvio stepped into my space, crowding my lungs with the scent of sandalwood, leather, and danger. He lifted a gloved hand and traced the line of my throat with chilling intimacy. His touch was cold, clinical, yet it sent a traitorous jolt of electricity through my skin.
"You aren't a debt, Lisa," he murmured, leaning down until his lips were only inches from mine. "You are the collateral."
His gaze flicked slowly over my face, my body, lingering far too long at my waist. My breath caught as fear twisted with something darker, something I didn’t want to acknowledge.
"And until your real father crawls out of whatever grave he’s hiding in to save you," Silvio continued, "you belong to me."
For one terrifying heartbeat, I wondered if he could sense it. If he could feel the fragile life fluttering inside me. The life that didn’t belong to him.
The life that belonged to his brother, Dante.
"Pack your things," he commanded, straightening as if I no longer mattered. His voice vibrated in my chest. "You leave for the Moretti estate in ten minutes. If you’re late, I’ll start by taking your father’s fingers. One for every minute I have to wait."
He walked past me without another glance, his presence lingering like a curse long after he was gone. The scent of my impending ruin clung to the air.
I turned to my father, my vision blurring, but he couldn’t meet my eyes. He stared at the floor, a broken man who had just sold his daughter to a monster.
I wasn’t just a prisoner.
I was a ticking time bomb.
Because if Silvio Moretti discovered the truth that I was carrying a Moretti heir, and that it wasn’t his death would be the kindest mercy he’d offer me.