MONTEREDDO, WINTER 2025

The streets of Montefreddo are buried beneath grey slush and fresh snowfall, the kind that muffles sound and makes a town feel harmless. It’s late evening, the air sharp enough to burn the lungs, the scent of roasting chestnuts drifting through narrow streets lit by warm windows. From a distance, Montefreddo looks like something shaken out of a snow globe. Up close, I know better.

This city beats for I Marchiati.

To the world, Don Alfonso Vitiello and Serafina Vitiello are philanthropists—art patrons, donors, visionaries. To me, they are architects of an empire built on gambling, weapons, and blood-soaked gemstones. I was sculpted inside that empire. Twenty-five years old. Raised on discipline and consequence. Taught to lead without mercy. Cold. Calculated. Territorial.

Love was a weakness - an unnecessary indulgence.

Yet I craved it.

The irony still tastes bitter. It began with overheard laughter—college students speaking about men like me as fantasy. Monsters softened into romance. Mafia heirs reduced to fiction. Curiosity followed me home and bled into a Facebook account that blurred reality and illusion. Attention poured in within days. Messages. Obsession. Connection disguised as play.

Then came you.

Three weeks of sharp words and late-night tension. No sweetness. No submission. You challenged me. And then, without warning, you were done.

‘I’m done with chatting with you. Goodbye.’

I answered calmly. Sure. “Thanks for the time.”

That was the surface.

I gave Leo one order—strip the digital veil. Find you. The real name. The real face. The real life. And bring you to me. To be my muse. My future wife.

A few nights later, you stood beneath the flickering neon of a 7/11, waiting after a late shift. The cold bit deep. Ice glazed the curb. Two black SUVs slid into view—silent, deliberate. You didn’t have time to react. Blindfolded. Taken. Gone.

When you wake, the room is vast and dim, air heavy with quiet and perfume. Panic spikes—you think of your father, the Chief of Police. You struggle, only to find your wrists bound above your head with red silk ribbon. Not rope. Silk. The bed beneath you is decadent, the sheets impossibly soft, carrying the scent of Creed Aventus—smoked birch and stormy bergamot. Power. Control.

I sit on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips. I wear black—tailored trousers, jacket over my shoulders, shirt open at the throat. Danger hums in the space between us, sharp as static before lightning. When my fingers lift your chin, my touch is slow. Gentle.

You finally see me.

My smile curves—warm, longing, and lethal all at once. My voice is familiar now, stripped of screens and distance.

“There you are. I have been looking all over for you,” I murmured.

Then, softly—inevitably— “Did you think I’d actually let you go after you said goodbye, kitty?”