Love,Written In Ruins-Chapter 18: Say One More Word

Luciano sat alone in his home office, the late afternoon sunlight slanting through the tall windows like molten gold—warm, soft, and utterly incongruous with the cold, controlled storm currently moving through him.

​He leaned back in his black leather chair, the fine hide squeaking faintly beneath his weight, his fingertips tapping lightly against the polished desk. He replayed the morning in his mind: Eloise’s staggering defiance. Her fire. The moment she had looked him dead in the eyes and said no, refusing to remove the pathetic gold chain.

​Most people trembled before he even opened his mouth. But not her. Never her.

​The memory coaxed a grin out of him—slow, lethal, and deeply appreciative. She had made a grave mistake insulting his mothers. That crossed a line he didn’t tolerate from anyone, anywhere. But even then... even then, she’d been breathtaking.

​Because beneath her fury, beneath her trembling voice and the tears of pain, her eyes had betrayed her.

​He was still tasting her. Not her mouth—he hadn’t kissed her lips yet, reserving that intimacy for the shared room he promised—but the instant her pupils blew wide when he yanked her head back. The way her breath stuttered, a fractured, broken sound that was half pain, half something darker.

​The way her thighs had pressed tightly together under the table even as tears slid into her hair.

​She had fought him with words, but her body had screamed for the punishment.

She had liked the punishment.

​His little dove had fire in her veins and sin in her blood, and the discovery made him hard all over again.

​He had allowed her to see her friend without Marcos and Leo not because he believed her. No—he knew, with absolute certainty, that she was going to use this opportunity to run. He wanted her to try.

​The attempt would tell him things about her strategy, her limits, and her resolve that words never could.

​He smirked, running his tongue over his teeth.

​"So cute," he murmured to the empty room, the sound full of predatory affection. "Let’s see how far you get, paloma."

​Ian knocked once—a barely audible sound—and entered the office.

​"Mr. Starling’s driver is outside, Sir," Ian said, his voice level. "He insists you return to the mansion. The sperm donor wants you there. Now."

​Luciano’s predatory smile turned razor-sharp, anticipating the confrontation.

"And the pretense for this sudden urgency?"

​Ian’s face stayed perfectly blank, adhering to his role as the impassive bearer of bad news. "To confirm your engagement to Marcia Davis is proceeding smoothly. The tailor is waiting to measure you for the engagement-party suit. The engagement party, he wishes to remind you, is precisely one month from today, as per the agreement."

​Luciano laughed once—low, delighted, deadly. The entire charade was a joke only he truly understood. His father was still blissfully unaware that his chosen pawn had been discarded for a replacement of Luciano’s own, chaotic making.

​He opened the top drawer of his desk, lifted the matte-black Sig Sauer P226, and checked the magazine with a soft metallic click, the sound slicing through the silence.

​Ian didn’t blink, but offered a gentle caution. "Sir. You are visiting the Starling estate, not starting a war. At least, not yet."

​Luciano tucked the pistol securely into his waistband, the cold metal a familiar comfort, and shrugged into a charcoal coat that cost more than most men’s yearly salaries. He adjusted the lapels precisely.

​"Someone always crosses the line, Ian. That man’s wife, most often. Putting them back on the right side of it is simply... etiquette."

​Then he walked past Ian, the confident echo of his expensive leather boots ringing through the silent hall, leaving the scent of high-end cologne and faint gun oil in his wake.

---

​The Starling mansion crouched on its manicured hill like a bloated toad—Georgian brick, cold, pretentious columns, every window glowing with the kind of money that screamed insecurity and desperation for old-world legitimacy.

​Luciano hated the smell of it: stale air, old cigars, older lies, the lingering stench of hypocrisy, and the cloying, overbearing perfume Eleanor Starling had worn for thirty years like brittle, expensive armor.

​The butler—Reginald, poor, aged bastard—paled the moment he saw who stood, unannounced, in the foyer.

​​"Mr. Solis De La Vega," he stammered, his polished professionalism momentarily cracking. "Your father is in the study with the tailor. He’ll be with you shortly. Please, the drawing room—"

​Luciano walked past him without a word. He didn’t need directions; he knew the map of this house and all its poisonous secrets by heart.

He hated waiting. He hated being summoned like a dog. He hated this house and the portraits lining the walls—particularly the oil paintings of his two older, legitimate half-brothers who looked soft and spoiled and useless, born to titles they could not defend.

​He was studying a particularly hideous oil painting of the Starling family—Eleanor front and center, lips pursed like she’d swallowed a wasp—when he heard her voice echoing in the hall.

​Eleanor Starling. Cold. Sharp. Poison sugar on the surface. His true adversary in this house.

​​"Where is my husband? He should have met the Davis family representative hours ago," she snapped at the hapless butler.

​"In the study, madam. We also have a visitor, Mr. Solis De La Vega."

​"And you failed to inform me that, earlier?" Her designer heels clicked hastily as she crossed the marble hall, clearly agitated by the presence of her husband’s ’mistake.’ "Have the maids prepare lunch immediately. And ensure the bastard is kept in the drawing room, away from the good silver."

​She swept into the drawing room—and froze the moment she recognized him.

​"Luciano," she pronounced his name like spitting out something spoiled.

​Eleanor Starling stood framed in the doorway, dark hair scraped into a chignon sharp enough to cut glass, large diamonds glittering at her ears and throat like warnings.

Her gaze raked over him—the casual arrogance of his posture the platinum hair that marked him as his mother’s son. The black coat, the faint blood of his origins still staining his soul—and her mouth twisted into a sneer of pure distaste.

​"What is the son of a maid doing in my house, standing beneath my ancestors?"

​Luciano didn’t turn immediately. He finished his analysis of the hideous portrait.

​"Your husband summoned me, he replied, his voice soft, almost bored. "He’s rude, by the way. Inviting a guest and making him wait. One might think the Starlings still need lessons in basic hospitality or perhaps manners entirely."

​He turned slowly to face her. As if he Luciano was any better. His own manners were perfectly tailored to cause maximum discomfort.

​Eleanor’s smile was all venom and brittle teeth.

​"Careful, you little savage. That mouth of yours will get you—"

​"Engaged to Marcia Davis, apparently." He stepped closer, his voice silk over steel, deliberately closing the distance. "Tell me, Lady Eleanor—why me? You have two older sons still unmarried. Why force the bastard to carry the family’s future? Is it because they are simply incapable?"

​He said her title like an insult, drawing out the syllable with mocking reverence.

​She laughed, cold and brittle, regaining her composure through cruelty.

​"Of course, it is to give the son he had with a mere maid a little backbone and some proper social standing. To clean up your savage image, boy."

​Luciano laughed then. A deep, sharp sound that made the butler flinch and the crystal in the chandelier tremble.

​"Backbone and background? Eleanor, I have all those things without relying on him. If anything, it’s your precious sons who need them, as they sit uselessly on boards they cannot control."

​Eleanor’s eyes glittered with cruelty, sensing the true weakness behind his defense: his intense loyalty to his mother and aunt. "Oh? You mean that little fortune you made by selling yourself like that little aunt of yours did? Before she di—"

​The gunshot cut her off.

​It was impossibly loud in the enclosed space. Glass shattered from a vase on the mantlepiece inches from her head. The bullet grazed her ear, slicing a thin, bloody line across the top ridge of cartilage, before embedding in the wall.

​Before Eleanor could fully register the sound, or the shock of the injury, Luciano moved.

​His hand was around her throat—fast, powerful, inescapable.

​He slammed her against the wall with stunning force, the impact rattling the house.

​​Her breath left her in a strangled gasp, her eyes bulging.

​The Sig Sauer, heavy and cold, pressed flat against her forehead, the smell of gunpowder sharp and acrid between them.

​Reginald, dropped the silver tray he was holding. Crystal shattered on the floor. Tea bled across the antique Persian silk rug.

​Eleanor’s eyes went wide, pupils blown with terror, staring into the dark muzzle of the pistol. The shock of the near-death experience paralyzing her. Her ear was ringing, her lungs fighting desperately for air.

​"Say it again," Luciano whispered, his thumb stroking her wildly beating pulse point like a lover, his voice quiet, conversational, and utterly terrifying. "Say one more word about my mothers, Eleanor. One more word about their history, their lives, or their fate."

​Her manicured nails scrabbled uselessly at his wrist. A thin, slow line of blood traced her earlobe where the bullet had kissed it a second earlier.

​Footsteps thundered across the marble floor.

​"Luciano! What in God’s name are you doing!"

​Starling Senior burst in, his face purple with shock and fury, the tailor trailing behind him like a frightened duck, clutching his measuring tape.

​"Let her go!" Starling roared.

​Luciano didn’t move, didn’t shift his gaze from Eleanor’s terrified face.

​"Why should I? She called for it. She spoke treason in my presence. That was merely a warning shot. The next one is less messy."

​"I said—!"

​"You don’t give me orders." Luciano’s voice was dangerously soft, almost conversational. "Ever. You summoned me here, remember your place."

​He leaned closer to Eleanor, his lips brushing the shell of her bleeding ear.

​"The next time you speak my aunt’s name—or my mother’s name—that is not right. The next time you speak either of my mothers’ names—will be the last time you speak at all. This is not a threat, Eleanor. This is a promise sealed in blood. Do we understand each other?"

​She nodded frantically, unable to speak, choking on air when he finally released her.

​Eleanor collapsed against the wall, clutching her throat, smearing blood and terror across thousand-dollar wallpaper, gulping air like a drowning woman dragged from the ocean. Her composure was shattered, her terror absolute.

​Starling opened his mouth—rage, threats, bluster rising in his throat.

​But Luciano was already walking away, dismissing the scene entirely.

​He paused at the threshold, his black coat flaring like dark wings.

​"Since you’re all so eager for this engagement," he said without looking back, his voice cutting through the ringing silence. "I’ll bring my fiancée next weekend. You’ll meet her. You’ll smile. You’ll behave. She is mine, and she will be treated with the respect due to the De La Vega name."

​He glanced over his shoulder, his smile slow and terrible, encompassing the wreckage of the room.

​"And if anyone in this house ever forgets whose woman she is—I will burn this mausoleum to the ground with every one of you inside it. I am not the soft son you wish I was."

​Then he was gone, the heavy front doors closing behind him with a resonant, final sound.

​The drive back was quiet except for the low growl of the Huracán and the echo of Eleanor’s choked whimper in his ears. He was satisfied.

​He was still smiling when he walked through his own front doors.

​Ian met him in the hall, utterly unsurprised by the speed of his return.

​"She’s not back yet," Ian said quietly, checking his own watch. "She has exactly thirty minutes."

​Luciano checked his own watch. The game was in its final, tense moments.

​He loosened his tie, rolling his sleeves up his forearms, the faint scent of gunpowder still clinging to his skin.

​"Good," he murmured, the word holding a world of expectation.

​He walked to the dining room, poured himself two fingers of bourbon, the amber liquid catching the light, and settled into his chair at the head of the table.

​Listo leapt into the seat beside him, silver eyes gleaming with approval and anticipation.

​Luciano scratched the fox behind the ears, looking toward the empty, still-open doorway.

"Let her run, viejo amigo," he said softly, raising the glass to the silent, waiting mansion. "Let her taste the world without chains, so she learns how much better the cage can be. She’ll come home."