Page 4 of Entwined Lies (Entwined #1)

Luca

The house was as silent as a crypt. Only my footsteps echoed through the living room as I walked across the cool marble floor.

It was a vault, not a home, locked tighter than a nun’s knees.

The decor? The perfect blend of classic elegance and modern touches. Exactly how I liked it. Controlled, orderly, not a single thing out of place. It mirrored my life—or at least, how it should be.

I pushed open the heavy mahogany door of my office.

The room was just as I’d left it—dark, intimidating, a reflection of my soul, if I had one.

It was the one room I personally designed when I bought the house, and it quickly became my favorite.

Black ceiling, built-in shelves to match, dark floors, with my desk at the center.

Some found it unsettling, a place where shadows kept secrets, but for me? It was home.

Her background check was already there, neatly placed on top of a stack of documents.

Enzo always impressed me with his efficiency. He could crack a joke at a funeral, but when it came to business, he didn’t fuck around .

I poured myself a glass of Macallan and watched it swirl in the crystal.

Some nights, scotch was the only proof that life wasn’t all shit and blood.

But comfort was a luxury I couldn’t afford right now.

Too many plates spinning, too many knives in the air—one wrong move and they all come crashing down.

The investigation against Senator Parker was getting uncomfortably close to exposing things that should stay buried.

The DA was poking around like a rat sniffing out cheese, and if he connected the dots between Parker and us, it wouldn’t just bring Parker down.

It would drag my family into the spotlight, and I’m not exactly the “lights, camera, action” type.

Exposing how we blackmailed Parker to weaken the Russians was a real threat, and those guys wouldn’t hesitate to retaliate and spark a full-scale war.

And war wasn’t profitable. War was a fucking disaster.

The Capo responsible for this fuck-up had already paid the price—and paid it dearly. Stupid fucker gave his real name to an escort. Not just any escort either—the same one who turned out to be a key witness in Parker’s case and ended up in a body bag. Fucking idiot.

Now, here I was, cleaning up someone else’s shit, as usual. It’s amazing how one asshole’s bad judgment can turn into a goddamn nightmare for everyone else.

Blackmailing the DA might be my only shot at pulling this back from the brink, but just thinking about dealing with that hard-nosed prosecutor made my throat tighten.

The guy had a reputation for being stubborn as hell—a real bulldog with a bone.

And I wasn’t in the mood to play carrot-and-stick.

If he decided to play the hero, things could go sideways fast. Because heroes have a nasty habit of fucking things up for everyone.

Time was running out, and every second of hesitation brought us closer to disaster.

I needed to move fast, pull every string, call in every favor, lean on every connection I had.

The DA had to be dealt with, one way or another, to tip the scales back in our favor.

In this world, strength is the only currency that matters, and I wasn’t about to lose everything over one dumb fuck’s mistake.

But this wasn’t just about survival; it was about preserving the empire my father had bled to build.

I sat down on the black Chesterfield, took a slow sip of my whiskey, and let the warmth spread through me before turning my attention to her file.

Isabelle Ellis. The woman who’d become a complication I didn’t need but couldn’t ignore.

The file was thin—just a couple of pages—with a photo clipped to the front.

Even in the picture, she was a knockout—blonde hair, green eyes, full lips. The kind of beauty that makes your mind go straight to the gutter without even trying.

At first glance, nothing in her background screamed trouble. Thirty-four, middle-class upbringing, no siblings. A single mom with no mention of the father of her child. She looked like the poster child for normalcy—a little too normal, if you ask me.

I skipped the other personal stuff. Boringly vanilla.

Her professional life? That was the red flag.

The solid academic background and spotless record didn’t bother me, but her conviction rate?

That was a whole different story—off the fucking charts.

She didn’t just play by the rules; she bent them until they worked in her favor, and did it with ruthless precision.

That kind of success doesn’t happen by accident.

She wasn’t just some pretty face with a law degree; she was a predator in the courtroom, and that made her a threat.

Because prosecutors like her don’t stop until they get what they want.

As I dug deeper, something caught my eye. It was a small detail but it was enough to make me stop and look twice. From the age of 19 to 22, she spent the summers in Palermo with her parents.

Sicily, during those years, was a fucking war zone for my family and our associates. If she was there, our paths had to have crossed there.

Memories started creeping back—vivid, intense images of faces, places, and nights I hadn’t thought about in years.

“No fucking way.” The words slipped out before I even realized I’d said them.

I shot upright and drowned the rest of my drink in one hard gulp. The burn of the Macallan was nothing compared to the scenes flooding back.

Isabelle was her. The girl from that night. The one I’d tried to forget—but never could. Her face blurred over the years, but she’d haunted me like a ghost I couldn’t quite shake.

Back then, she’d been the picture of innocence.

She was shy, quiet, the kind of girl you’d think twice about corrupting.

But that night in the VIP room? She was all too eager to get on her knees.

The way she looked up at me behind her glasses, those green eyes, made my brain short-circuit.

She held back at first, torn between what she felt and what she thought she should feel.

That made it even better when she let go.

It was like watching something pure darken right in front of me, and I couldn’t get enough.

After the VIP room, I took her back to my place.

I never took one night stands home, but with her, I couldn’t resist. The shy girl from earlier?

Gone. Replaced by someone who craved everything I gave her and hungry for more, and God help me, it was enough to make me lose my fucking mind.

Going bare was never on the table; it was a line I didn’t cross.

But with her, none of that mattered. She was so into it, so into me, that I lost my grip on everything else.

I was too far gone, too wrapped up in the moment to care .

And here’s the fucked-up part—I knew, even then, that this wasn’t just another night.

She wasn’t just a quick fuck I’d forget by morning.

That woman was the one I thought I could never have.

The one who shut me down without a second glance.

The one who looked right past me like I was nobody—when everyone else bent over backwards just to be in my orbit.

Then, somehow, she was in my lap, looking at me like I was exactly what she wanted.

I told myself it was just the thrill of it—of having something untouchable, of proving to myself that I could. But the way she made me feel stuck with me. And believe me, I tried to forget. Tried to shove it into the same box as every other night, every other woman, but she didn’t stay there.

She kept slipping into my thoughts when I least expected it—when I was alone, when I was with someone else, when I was supposed to be thinking about anything but her.

And every time, it was the same—her in my lap, barefoot in my shirt, tasting like whiskey and coke, making the meaningless feel like a prize I wasn’t meant to fucking receive.

One I wanted to keep and never let anyone touch.

The realization hit like a freight train.

I jumped up and rushed to the wardrobe in my bedroom. I hadn’t opened this safe in years, but my hands moved on autopilot.

I dug through the secrets I’d buried deep, and there it was, tucked away in the back—a long-forgotten USB stick.

I’m not sentimental, and I sure as hell don’t collect shit like this. So why the fuck did I keep it? I wiped the original myself—didn’t trust my men, didn’t want anyone else’s eyes on it. Erased every trace. Except for this one copy.

Now, holding it in my hands, I had to admit—this was a bad fucking look.

From the outside, this definitely made me seem like some obsessed, keepsake-hoarding psychopath.

Which, in my defense, I usually only am when it comes to debts and grudges.

And technically, I never even opened the damn thing.

Never let myself look . Never let myself go there .

But survival rewrites everything.

Plugging in the drive, I scrolled through the files and cracked open the encrypted folder. There it was—the one file I swore I’d never touch.

I told myself I was just going to check. Just going to confirm what I already knew. Then, like a goddamn masochist, I pressed play.

And thirty seconds in, I regretted everything.

Because instead of thinking like a rational man, instead of analyzing this with the cold detachment I needed—

My body reacted.

Jaw clenched. Pulse spiked. And my dick decided this was a great fucking time to get involved.

I clicked pause so fast my laptop nearly launched off the table.

Jesus fucking Christ.

This was not that . This was business. A goddamn lifeline. Not something I needed to be thinking about in that way .

I sat there and took slow, steady breaths, trying to fix my very real fucking problem.

After a couple of minutes, because I hate myself, I hit play again.

And yep.