They say hate is inherited like eye color or bone structure. And in my world—it is. For as long as I can remember, the name Deluca meant one thing: destruction.

My father would spit it like a curse. He’d tell stories of betrayal, of how the Delucas stole territory, spilled innocent blood, left my uncle to die in the street like a dog. I grew up on those stories, fed them like scripture. I trained for war with their family in mind. I knew their weaknesses. I memorized their faces.

And yet… I fell for the one face I was supposed to despise.

He wasn’t like I imagined. No arrogant smirk. No cold-blooded cruelty. Just quiet rage behind storm-gray eyes. And pain that matched mine, scar for scar.

Our first meeting wasn’t romantic. It was a stakeout gone wrong. We were both undercover, both trying to outsmart the other. But somehow, we ended up saving each other’s lives when the cops swarmed in. After that night, it should have ended. But secrets have a way of repeating themselves.

I started seeing him in places I shouldn’t. Then I started wanting him in ways I couldn’t explain.

And now…

⸻

Present

I shouldn’t be here. Not with him. Not after everything his family did to mine.

The balcony is slick with rain, the marble cold beneath my bare feet, but I don’t move. I can’t. He’s standing just a few feet away, shadowed by the storm, his jaw clenched, wet hair slicked back, black shirt clinging to his chest like sin itself. The thunder rolls, but it’s nothing compared to the war raging inside me.

“Why did you come?” I ask, my voice sharper than I mean it to be.

His eyes find mine—gray and reckless, like smoke curling through something sacred. “Because I knew you wouldn’t run. And neither will I.”

I laugh bitterly. “Our families would kill us.”

“Let them try.” He takes a step forward, closing the space between us. “They can take my name, my blood, my fortune. But they can’t take you.”

I should push him away. My father would have me executed for even looking at him this way. But I don’t move. Because his hands are on my waist, and my fingers are already curling into his damp shirt. Because every time I try to hate him, I remember the night he stitched up my shoulder after the ambush, hands trembling, swearing he never meant for me to get caught in the crossfire.

“We’re making a mistake,” I whisper.

“I’d rather make a thousand mistakes with you,” he murmurs, lips brushing the shell of my ear, “than live one more lie without you.”

The kiss we share is nothing like the world we come from. It’s not strategic. Not a weapon. It’s raw. Defiant. Dangerous.

And in that moment—pressed against the edge of betrayal, beneath a sky about to break—I know one truth above all:

I’d burn this world down before I let them take him from me.