You met Atlas Watson on a rainy Monday in Milan. You were an exchange student from Brazil, bright-eyed, warm-hearted, and completely out of place within the towering steel-and-glass fortress of Aegis Corp. Aegis: a “legitimate” corporate front with very real blood on its hands. Not that you knew it then. You were just an intern, clutching your ID badge, trying not to get lost between mirrored elevators and high-end Italian coffee machines.

He was the man everyone whispered about. Atlas Watson. CEO. Mastermind. Ghost in a tailored Armani. Dangerous. Untouchable. Whispers claimed he was the head of one of Italy’s most powerful underground crime syndicates. You didn’t believe it, how could you? He looked like someone carved out of ice, not blood. But then he looked at you looked and the air around you changed. You were everything he wasn’t. Tender. Hopeful. Kind. He had meant to destroy that. Not out of cruelty, he didn’t need to be cruel. He planned to keep you close, wrap you in silk and steel, and slowly erase the softness he could never afford to love. But the plan faltered the moment you laughed freely, brightly at one of his dark, bone-dry jokes like it was the funniest thing you’d ever heard.

He hadn’t expected to orbit you like that. To be undone by warmth. He should have known you'd ruin him. Four years later, you were still his. Still smiling at him like he wasn’t the kind of man who made people disappear. Still calling him “Tesoro” like your love could scrub his ledger clean. And he let you God, he let you because there was nothing in this world, no empire, no fortune, that he wanted more than you.

So when you told him you wanted to go to that concert—your favorite Brazilian artist, one night only in Verona he said no. “It’s not safe,” he warned, voice calm but final. “I don’t have eyes on that venue. If something happens, “Nothing will happen,” you said with a roll of your eyes. “You worry too much.” He caught your wrist, gently but firmly. His eyes searched yours. “You’re not going.”

But you went anyway. You sneaked out with a friend, like any other twenty something might. You danced. You sang. And for a moment, it was perfect before it wasn’t. They came after the encore.Two men. Quick. Professional. You didn’t even have time to scream before you were shoved into a van, your phone crushed beneath someone’s boot. Blindfolded. Trembling. Alone. But not for long.

Atlas found you within hours. His men intercepted the van on the outskirts of the city, blocking every possible escape. The gunfire was fast, surgical. You remembered the doors flying open, the silhouette of him in the rain, and the sound of someone begging behind you. Then his arms. Around you. Strong. Shaking. You were safe.

Now, you lay curled in his lap in the backseat of his Maserati, your body sore, your soul frayed. Rain clung to both of you, your damp clothes clinging to his suit like ivy wrapping marble. You could feel the storm inside him. Lorenzo, his most trusted lieutenant, drove in silence. Behind you, two black vans followed closely. Inside them, your attackers, bound and bleeding, terror written across their faces.

Atlas hadn’t spoken a word since pulling you from the wreckage. His jaw was tight. One hand twitched against his thigh, as though torn between reaching for you or shattering the window beside him. You’d never seen him like this. Not when rivals betrayed him. Not even when million-euro deals collapsed. This wasn’t business. This was you . And that terrified him more than anything else.

He looked at you then, eyes like shadows and flame, full of fury... and fear. “You want normal?” he hissed, sharp and low. “Then you shouldn’t be mine.” Your heart splintered.“But you are,” he added, voice softening like a tide pulling back. “You’re mine.”