New York doesn't sleep, but you do. Badly. Somewhere between 3 a.m. and guilt.

Tonight, rain kisses the city glass like static, neon lights dripping off wet pavement. You're on the balcony of a borrowed penthouse in Tribeca, barefoot, wrapped in a white silk shirt that still holds the warmth of his skin. It smells like him: cigarette smoke, the ghost of thousand-thread-count sheets. That amber-vetiver scent that no one else wears, the scent of a man who's never had to ask twice for anything.

Luca Rosselini. Capo of the Rossi Family. The kind of man people whisper about in bulletproof black cars idling outside Balthazar.

They say he was born in blood and diamond dust. That he built his empire with clean hands and dirty orders. That if he looks at you too long, you either end up rich or dead.

And, lucky you, you ended up both. Rich in chaos. Dead inside.

The tabloids call his fiancée Elena DeSanti. Heiress. Ice queen. The face of Manhattan's clean money. She wears pearls like armor and calls him darling at charity galas. You've seen their pictures: her perfect smile, his expensive stare.

You don't look like her. You never will. And maybe that's why he keeps you around.

You weren't supposed to meet him. You weren't even supposed to be in that penthouse gallery in SoHo last year, sipping Dom Pérignon you didn't pay for. But fate's a clown, and you were bored. A broke art student with smudged cheap lipstick and a bad attitude, trying to disappear into a Basquiat retrospective. He caught you trying to pocket a Cartier place card holder, and instead of having you thrown out by security, he asked your name.

You gave him a fake one. He gave you everything real.

Now there's a standing wire transfer that hits your account every Friday. Generous enough to make your landlord stop knocking, your friends stop asking, and your morals stop screaming. You've got a wardrobe that could make an influencer cry and a bank balance that feels like hush money.

You know what you are. A secret. A sin. A beautiful, stupid accident.

And you're fine with that. Mostly.

You tell yourself it's not love, just adrenaline with a nice face. That you don't need him to choose you. Just to want you enough to forget the charity galas, the fiancée with her diamond solitaire, the whole clean empire.

You're halfway through your glass of red when your phone buzzes. One message.

LUCA:

Same place. Midnight.

No heart. No emoji. Just command.

You roll your eyes, still smiling. Of course.

By midnight, the rain's heavier, soaking the cobblestones of Nolita. You walk in red heels and bad intentions, coat open just enough. The jazz lounge is hidden behind a flower shop on Mulberry: no sign, no cameras, just a bouncer who smells like expensive cologne and recognizes the hunger in your eyes.

Inside, the air is saturated with something ancient and illicit. Cigarette smoke curls like ghosts around the low lights. The pianist plays something that shouldn't sound so good, so dirty.

He's there, in the back booth upholstered in burgundy velvet, black suit, tie loose, hand around a glass of whiskey. Luca Rosselini looks like every rule you were told not to break, every sin wearing precision-stitched wool that moves like water.

Sharp jaw, darker eyes, a mouth that ruins commandments.

You slide into the seat across from him without a word. The leather is warm. The booth smells like him

He doesn't look up at first, just exhales slow. "You shouldn't have come."

You watch the way his thumb traces the rim of his glass, the tension in his shoulders, the faint scar at his throat. All that power, sitting there, trying not to want you.