CHAPTER 1

DANTE

Rome, twenty years ago—

Why does a man feel such a powerful sense of possession when he looks at something that does not yet belong to him?

That was the day I understood it.

I was ten years old… yet what was growing inside me had nothing to do with childhood.

When the doors of Santa Lucia Church opened, the incense spilling inside carried a coldness that matched the marble beneath our feet. The Marcelli and Di Stefano families had gathered to bury centuries of hostility beneath holy water for a few sacred hours. I stood there with a weight on my shoulders no child should ever bear: my future was about to be sealed by the breath of an infant.

My father wore that diplomatic mask he always used when he called an agreement peace—but I knew better. When he wanted something, the rest of the universe existed only to comply.

When they brought in the Di Stefano family’s newborn daughter—Viviana—wrapped in layers of white blankets, something stirred inside me. Years later, they might call it obsession…

But I remember with absolute clarity what I felt in that moment:

It was as if my life had been bound to that tiny being.

The first time I saw her, light filtered through the church’s stained-glass windows and brushed her lips. Of course, she didn’t look into my ice-blue eyes—babies don’t look at anyone. And yet it felt as though I were staring straight into my own fate through hers.

A fate that smelled of innocence.

My father leaned in close, his voice a murmur at my shoulder. “Look carefully,” he said. “One day, she will be your wife.”

Picture a baby girl. Pale blond strands clinging to her forehead, cheeks flushed pink. Too clean—far too pure—to exist anywhere near someone like me.

And yet, if I am honest, the first sentence that formed inside me was this:

She is mine.

When the holy water touched her head, a thin cry rose from her throat. Something inside my chest tightened violently in response. Instinct—raw, feral, protective.

The kind of feeling that could drive a man to violence even in the house of God.

I folded my arms and chastised myself, afraid of tainting her, terrified that if I touched her she would darken. But I did not stop wanting. I never did.

My gaze drifted to the Di Stefano patriarch—Giuseppe. A counterfeit smile, a calculating gleam in his eyes. Even then, he unsettled me; the fact that such a man had fathered that child made my stomach churn. It was obvious the agreement served their interests—honor and family loyalty meant nothing to them. But at the time, I did not yet understand what kind of danger this would become.

Viviana’s mother, on the other hand, carried a fragile calm about her. Her eyes followed every hand that touched her baby; she never moved more than a step away from her husband. I didn’t understand the fear in that woman’s gaze back then.

Years later, when I remembered her, I finally did.

The storm surrounding her daughter had already begun.

When the baptism ended, the baby was returned to her mother’s arms. I remained where I stood.

Her tiny hands moved in the air. For one fleeting moment, her eyelids parted, and the purest shade of blue brushed against me.

I was Dante Marcelli—ten years old, a boy born into darkness…

And that day, a light fell upon the darkest half of my soul.

I didn’t know then that this light would one day burn me as well.

I knew only this:

Viviana Di Stefano was my fate. And I would never—ever—abandon my fate.

—------------------------------------

Viviana’s Tenth Birthday Italy — a small summer evening in the back garden of the Marcelli estate.

I am no longer that trembling ten-year-old boy who first held her in his arms.

But there is one thing that has not changed in twenty years:

My bond to that girl.

Every month—every single month, without exception—I see her. Either I go to the Di Stefano villas… or her mother brings her to me, accompanied by her nanny.

The reason is always different.

One month, she wants to look at the roses in the garden. Another month, she wants to show me her drawings. Another, simply because she says, “Dante, I missed you.”

But the real reason never changes:

The time I spend with her is the only silent corner of my hell.

Watching her each month… seeing her grow… her laughter, the tiny secrets she whispers to me, the way she scolds the wind for messing up her hair… The way she exists—untidy, innocent, wholly herself—

She is the only thing that makes me feel human.

While I suffocate inside my own world, her presence becomes breath.

No one knows this. No one understands it. And I do not want them to.

Vivi is not just my fate—

She is an escape. A refuge. A sense of belonging.

And this bond, formed through those once-a-month meetings, has taken root over the years—grown deep, wrapped itself around me from the inside, tethered me to her.

And today…

I am looking at what that bond has become after ten years.

The moment I step through the gates of the villa, I hear the quick patter of her small feet.

“Dante!”

The joy in her voice— A brightness untouched by anything corrupt.

She runs toward me.

I don’t like children. I never have.

But the sweet excitement in her steps… I have only ever seen it in her.

And that is why— The only child’s voice in this world that can make me smile is hers.

She stops in front of me. I have to bend down; she still barely reaches my waist.

Her hands are hidden behind her back as she giggles. Every month, the same thing:

A little angel, impatient to show me something.

“I have a surprise for you,” I say.

She immediately brings her hands forward, eyes bright with excitement. “I have one too!”

It’s impossible not to smile.

My voice softens when I speak to her—I’m aware of it. Even Dante Marcelli’s closest men have never heard this tone from me.

“You go first,” she says.

“No,” I reply, shaking my head slightly. “Birthday girl first.”

“No, you first!”

When she looks at me with those wide eyes… I surrender.

I always do.

Dante Marcelli makes the world tremble— But before Vivi’s eyes, he holds no authority at all.

I pull a small box from inside my jacket.

A custom design: a white-gold necklace. An angel figure.

Just like her.

The moment I open the box, her breath catches.

“This… is for me?”

That light in her eyes— The one thing in this world that cannot be bought.

“Yes, Vivi.” My voice softens without my permission. “For your tenth birthday.”

I lean down to fasten the necklace around her neck. She gently lifts her hair.

She isn’t afraid of my touch. There is no fear of me inside her.

Only limitless trust.

For a man like me… That should be dangerous.

But the only dangerous thing about Vivi—

Is that she belongs to me.

I am careful as I clasp the necklace, As if I might shatter a porcelain heart.

Then I take her hand with quiet certainty. She places her hands into my palm—

Completely.

“Little lady,” I say, lightly teasing. “You’re growing up.”

“I’m always growing!” she says proudly. “You…” She tilts her head, studying me. “You always stay the same.”

I smile.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No.” She tilts her head again, thinking. “I just… want you to always see me like this.”

Something tightens inside my chest.

This is what innocence does.

And I— Each month I watch her, as she grows, as my bond to her deepens— I make this innocence more and more mine.

“I will always see you, Vivi,” I say. As much as the truth allows.

“Promise.”

She trusts me. Unconditionally. Without question.

I don’t think I don’t deserve this bond.

On the contrary—

This bond belongs to me alone.

And as I look at Vivi’s smile, I know this:

As she grows, my darkness does not shrink.

But her light— It burns only for me.

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DANTE

Present Day — New York

I like the nights.

Because darkness does not hide the truth.

Shadows are loyal to me—unlike people.

The New York harbor…

The sea blows in heavy with the smell of rust.

Containers line up like metal graves—silent, massive, threatening.

I flex my fingers inside my black gloves.

I only do this when my nerves are tight.

And for the first time in years…

they are.

“Dante,” Luca says from just behind my shoulder, his voice low.

He’s the only one whose voice I can always distinguish in the dark.

Because he’s been beside me since childhood; because he doesn’t see me as something divine like the others do.

He knows me only as—

Human.

I stare without blinking at the narrow corridor between the containers.

“Talk,” I say.

“If the intel is right, Verreni’s men chose the night to steal the weapons shipment. They’re using signal jammers. Tracking them is difficult.”

“Not difficult,” I reply. “They smell.”

Luca raises an eyebrow.

He knows that whenever I say that, something will go wrong…

but in the end, I will still be the one standing.

The wind hits my face, scattering my black hair slightly.

I lift my hand and push it back—

At the same moment, a footstep lands on the mud.

One.

Then two.

Then… five.

“They’re here,” Luca whispers.

I don’t draw my weapon.

A man like me only needs a gun when the final act begins.

Five men emerge from the darkness.

Black hoods pulled low, silenced pistols in their hands.

Every one of them knows who I am; anyone who doesn’t wouldn’t be allowed this close.

“Marcelli,” one of them says.

I’ve never liked hearing my name from their mouths.

When I’m silent, they’re afraid.

When I speak, they tremble.

So I stay silent.

Luca shifts a step to the side, instinctively moving into a protective position, but I lightly catch his arm.

He steps back.

Because he knows he can’t stop me.

“This harbor belongs to me,” I say at last.

My voice is calm.

Cold.

Sharp as a blade.

“And you,” I continue, locking eyes with one of them,

“are stupid enough to believe you can touch what’s mine.”

They can’t speak.

When a man feels death breathing down his neck, words lodge in his throat like splinters.

One of them raises his gun.

Wrong move.

I rule this city.

I rule this family.

I rule this night.

And this man… chose the wrong night.

I walk toward them.

Not like an attack—

like a verdict.

“Dante—” Luca warns.

Too late.

The gun goes off.

Quiet, brief, like a fractured breath.

The bullet slices past my ear.

I grab the man’s wrist—there’s a crack as it breaks.

The gun hits the ground.

The others panic.

This is always their greatest mistake:

They assume a man like me is just another leader.

They think I give orders from behind a desk.

My hands are dirty.

Dirty—and powerful.

The clash lasts only seconds.

Gunfire, metal echoing, harsh breaths—

all of it collapses into a single chaos.

The last man tries to run.

I shoot him in the leg.

He falls.

He trembles like someone trapped in a nightmare.

I crouch in front of him.

My ice-blue eyes flare like fire in his darkness.

“Do you know the price of angering my patience?” I ask.

He shakes his head.

He doesn’t know.

No one ever does.

They pray they never will.

“Luca,” I say.

Luca appears at my side.

“Take this message. And tell Verreni—”

I lean down, whisper into the man’s ear.

“Marcelli’s patience is finite.”

Luca grips the man by the collar and drags him away, disappearing into the darkness of the night.

I remain standing amid the broken wrist, the fallen weapons, the scent of blood.

Every harbor night tells a story.

Tonight’s was this:

No one—

no one enters Dante Marcelli’s world without permission.

And yet the old, deep ache in my chest—

the wound that has never closed—

the shadow of Vivi’s imagined face…

It returns after every victory.

And in the quietest moment of the night, I always think the same thing:

If she were still alive…

Would I have made this world worthy of her?