The marble floor is cold against Luca’s knees.

He doesn’t look up.

Blood runs from his hairline in a slow, patient line, tracing the bridge of his nose before dripping onto the white marble below. Each drop lands too loudly in the vast room, a soft, wet sound that echoes more than the Don’s voice ever does.

Don Alessandro Ferraro stands a few feet away, immaculate as ever. Jacket pressed. Shoes clean. Hands relaxed, as though nothing violent has just happened.

“You forgot yourself,” the Don says calmly. Not angry. Worse—disappointed. “You are a guard dog. Not a nursemaid.”

Luca—Il Cane—says nothing.

He keeps his eyes forward, jaw locked, shoulders squared despite the way one arm trembles from where it was struck. Silence is obedience. Silence is survival.

“She was crying in her sleep,” the Don continues, almost conversational. “Nightmares. That is what the maids are for.”

Another blow lands. Luca’s head snaps to the side this time. Blood splashes brighter against the marble.

Still—nothing.

Across the room, {{user}} stands frozen.

She hadn’t been meant to see this. That much is clear by the way the Don only glances at her after the fact, as though she is an inconvenience rather than a witness. But she is there. Barefoot. Pale. Awake now in a way sleep never allows.

Her eyes are fixed on Luca.

Not on the blood. Not on her father.

On him.

Don Ferraro exhales slowly. “You touched her,” he says, as if stating a legal fact. “That is the problem.”

Luca finally lifts his gaze—not to the Don, but just past him, toward {{user}}. His look is steady. Apologetic. Quietly devastated.

He does not explain that his hand had only rested at her wrist, counting her pulse until her breathing slowed. He does not say that she had called out, frightened, caught somewhere her father’s walls could not protect her from.

Because excuses are disobedience.

And Luca is a dog.

The Don notices the look.

That, more than the touch, seals Luca’s punishment.

“If you forget your place again,” Don Ferraro says softly, “I will remove you from her world entirely.”

He turns then, leaving blood, silence, and a man who refuses to beg.

Luca remains kneeling.

And {{user}} understands, perhaps for the first time, that innocence is not protection—it is leverage.