Chapter Two – The Warning
The ride home was silent, except for the hum of the car engine and the occasional swish of the tires on wet pavement. I sat in the backseat of my father’s sleek black sedan, staring out the tinted window at the city lights blurring past. The ballroom’s music still echoed faintly in my ears, as though it had followed me into the night.
But more than the music, more than the chatter and laughter, it was him I couldn’t shake. Damian Rossi.
Even thinking his name made my stomach twist. The way he’d looked at me—calm, unreadable, like he was studying a puzzle only he knew how to solve—had lodged itself in my mind like a thorn. My father’s voice from earlier rang louder than the memory of Damian’s eyes. Stay away from him.
“Stop fidgeting.” My father’s tone cut through the silence, sharp but not loud. His gaze was fixed ahead, but I knew he was watching me through the reflection in the glass. “You’re drawing attention to yourself, even now.”
I forced my hands to still in my lap. “I’m not fidgeting.”
“You’re thinking,” he countered smoothly, sipping from the crystal glass he insisted on carrying even in the car. “And when you think too much, it shows.”
I bit back the urge to roll my eyes. “Is that a crime now?”
His head turned slowly, his eyes pinning me with that same weight I’d grown up under—authority wrapped in affection, possession disguised as protection. “In our world, Elena, yes. Thinking too much can be dangerous. Especially when it involves men like Damian Rossi.”
There it was again. His name, dropped like a warning bell.
I hesitated, then asked, “What’s so dangerous about him?”
Father’s lips tightened. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, considering his words. “He’s not a man you need to understand. You need only to avoid him.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It wasn’t meant to,” he snapped, then exhaled as though reeling his temper back in. “Elena, you’re my daughter. You live under my roof, protected by my name. But that name comes with enemies. You saw how the Rossis looked at us tonight. How he looked at you.”
I thought back to Damian’s gaze across the room, the way it had unsettled me to the bone. My cheeks warmed despite myself. “He just… looked at me.”
Father’s hand gripped the edge of his glass so tightly I thought it might shatter. “No, he didn’t just look. Men like him don’t do anything ‘just.’ Remember that.”
The car slowed as we entered the gates of our estate, the ironwork arching above us like a warning itself. I stayed quiet, chewing on his words. Men like him don’t do anything ‘just.’
But then what had Damian wanted? Why me, after all these years?
When we arrived, I hurried inside, relieved to shed the satin gown and its suffocating shimmer. In my room, I pulled the pins from my hair and let the dark waves tumble free. The mirror reflected a girl who looked tired, restless, and still too aware of Damian Rossi’s stare.
I tried to shake it off, crawling onto my bed with a book. But the words blurred, replaced by his voice, low and smooth as it wrapped around my name. Elena.
A knock pulled me from my thoughts. My father entered without waiting for permission, as always.
“Still awake,” he observed, his eyes narrowing on the open book I hadn’t been reading. “Good. Then listen to me carefully.”
I sat up straighter, heart skipping.
“You are to have no further contact with Damian Rossi. If he approaches you, you turn away. If he speaks to you, you keep your answers brief. You do not meet him in private. Do you understand?”
I bristled at his commanding tone. “I barely spoke to him tonight. Why are you so worried?”
“Because I know him.” His jaw clenched. For a moment, I saw something flicker in his expression—anger, yes, but underneath it… fear. My father didn’t fear many men. That alone made my stomach twist tighter.
“Then tell me why,” I pressed, softer this time. “What did he ever do to us?”
He turned his back, pacing toward the window. “What he did is irrelevant. What matters is what he can do. Damian Rossi is not a man you entertain curiosity about, Elena. He is a man you avoid.”
“But he isn’t—” I stopped myself before the words slipped out. He isn’t what you think. But how did I know what he was? One look across a ballroom didn’t tell me who he truly was.
Still, the thought lingered. Damian hadn’t seemed reckless. He hadn’t seemed cruel. Dangerous, yes. Calculating, certainly. But there was something else there, something I couldn’t name.
My father turned back to me, his eyes softer now, almost pleading. “I’ve worked too hard to protect you from this life. You don’t see the knives hidden in smiles, the poison poured into crystal glasses. You’re young enough to believe a man’s stare is just admiration. But it’s not, Elena. Sometimes, it’s possession.”
His words chilled me. Possession. The way Damian’s eyes had pinned me in place… it hadn’t felt like admiration at all.
Father stepped closer, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Promise me you’ll do as I say.”
I swallowed, my throat dry. “I promise.”
But even as I said it, a part of me knew it was a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep. Because something deep inside whispered that Damian Rossi wasn’t done with me.
And worse… I wasn’t sure I wanted him to be.














































