Bound by Shadows

Alessandro De Luca ( Valentina's father )~

Patience had never been my strongest virtue.

But I had learned to master it.

Decades in this business had taught me that power belonged to those who could play the game—not with rage, not with recklessness, but with cold calculation.

And this?

This was my masterpiece.

I leaned back in my chair, swirling the whiskey in my glass as I watched my daughter struggle against her bindings. Futile. Predictable.

Valentina had always been too much like her mother.

Too emotional. Too trusting. Too foolish to understand the weight of the world she was born into.

But I would fix that.

I would break whatever illusion Dante Ricci had poisoned her with.

She was never meant to belong to him.

"You look at me like you despise me," I mused, taking a slow sip of my drink. "Like you don't share my blood."

Her dark eyes burned with hatred. "I don't."

I smirked. "A Ricci has already tainted you, then?"

Her entire body went rigid, and I knew I had struck a nerve.

Interesting.

I leaned forward, placing my glass on the table with a soft clink. "Tell me, figlia, did he make you believe you were something more than a pawn?"

Her silence was answer enough.

Foolish girl.

Dante Ricci was no better than me—just younger, more reckless, more blinded by his own arrogance. He had taken my daughter like a thief in the night, kept her like a prized possession, and now...

Now, he was going to die for it.

I turned to the man standing at my side. "Any movement from Ricci?"

Marco, my second-in-command, nodded. "His men are already searching. But he's not making any rash moves yet."

I smirked.

Good.

I needed Dante to be desperate. To be unhinged.

Because desperate men made mistakes.

And Dante's mistake would be walking into my trap.

I glanced back at Valentina, watching as she glared at me with barely restrained fury.

"You're underestimating him," she said quietly, but there was something in her tone—something dangerous.

I arched a brow. "Am I?"

"He won't just come for me," she whispered. "He'll come for you. And he won't stop until you're dead."

A slow chuckle rumbled from my chest. "Then let him come."

Let him walk into my hands like the lovesick fool he was.

Let him burn with his rage.

I would crush him beneath the weight of his own love for my daughter.

Because if there was one thing I knew about love—

It was the greatest weakness of all.

And Dante Ricci was about to learn that the hard way.

To Be Continued...