THE DEVIL’S ORCHID

*PROLOGUE*

- Blood Debts & Dangerous Bargains.’

~ Location: Itay - midnight. A bloodstained chapel ruin. ~

They say the devil doesn’t knock. He crashes through the door, draped in Armani and blood, and smiles like God sent him.

Mine came on a storm-drenched night, with a gun in one hand and my father’s severed ring finger in the other. SALVATORE MORETTI. The underworld king.

“Debt paid,” he said, dropping it into my lap like a spoiled offering. “Now it’s your turn to suffer.”

‘’You killed him.’’ I said breathless.

‘’No. I ended him.’’ He replied.

He kneels, grabs my chin with disturbing tenderness.

‘’Now you’ll carry his sins… in my name.’’

He slides a ring onto my trembling finger.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I looked into those his ice-cold eyes with bloodshot eyes filled with disgust and pure hatred and made a vow:

If I survive you, I’ll destroy you

And if I fall?

Then I’ll drag you down to hell with me.

That was two years ago.

Now I’m the one in his bed.

Now he’s the one bleeding for me.

But vengeance is a bitter lover.

And love is a weapon I never meant to wield.

~

Location: ~Positano, Italy~

The waves hit the rocks below like gunshots. Sharp. Relentless. Unforgiving. Positano doesn’t sleep quietly. It screams against the cliffs, crashing itself apart again and again, like it’s trying to remind the world that beauty is always violent up close.

I light a cigarette I stole from the chef’s pocket this morning and lean against the balcony of Villa Cortez, watching the night swallow the last of the sun.

“Smoking kills,” a voice growls behind me.

I don’t turn. I know that voice.

Deep. Cold. Tainted with a strange warmth that feels like fire wrapped in silk.

SALVATORE MORETTI.

Naples’s most feared kingpin. Murderer of my father. My captor. My fiancée.

“So does kissing you,” I say, exhaling a thin stream of smoke into the night. “But I seem to have a death wish.”

Footsteps approach. Barely audible. He moves like a predator who knows the prey has nowhere left to run.

“I warned you,” he says. “You enjoy playing with fire though.”

“No,” I murmur, turning my head just enough to meet his reflection in the glass. “I enjoy pretending it won’t burn me.”

Salvatore laughs. A deep, low sound that I hate more than I hate him.

Because it makes my thighs clench.

And I can’t afford to feel.

Not for the man I plan to ruin.

Two years ago, he didn’t laugh. Two years ago, he came to my door on a storm-soaked night, dressed in sin, I remember the way the rain slicked his hair back. The way blood streaked across his knuckles like he’d dipped them in wine. The way he smiled at me like I was already his. I can’t forget. I kept reminding myself.

I’d looked him in the eye and promised him hell. That promise still burns.

Salvatore came closer, close enough that I can feel his heat. He smelled like expensive cologne and something darker beneath it. Power. Violence. Control.

“You’re quiet tonight,” he says. “That usually means you’re planning something stupid, to run away again?”

I take another drag of the cigarette and finally turn fully to face him.

He’s barefoot, sleeves rolled up, veins dark against olive skin. The kind of man painters ruin their hands trying to capture. The kind of man mothers warn their daughters about.

“Maybe I’m planning your funeral this time” I say sweetly.

His mouth curves, slow and deliberate. “I’d like to see you try as long as you won’t dare try to run away again.”

I flick the cigarette over the balcony edge. It disappears into the dark.

“You didn’t bring me here to threaten me,” I say. “So stop pretending.”

His eyes sharpen. That gets his attention.

“Why did you bring me to Positano, Salvatore?” I ask. “Why lock me in a gilded cage overlooking the sea instead of burying me where my father lies?”

Silence stretches between us. Then he reaches into his pocket.

My body goes rigid before my mind can catch up. He doesn’t pull out a gun. He pulls out a ring.

Gold. Scratched. Familiar.

My father’s ring. My throat tightens, but I refuse to let it show.

“You kept it,” I whisper.

“I keep what belongs to me,” he says evenly. “And you belong to me now. Something to remind you of what happens to those who go against me”

I laugh, sharp and bitter. “You bought me with a body part?”

“I bought you with truth,” he corrects. “Your father stole from me. He hid behind family and faith and thought blood would protect him.”

He steps closer, lifting my chin with one finger. Not rough. Not gentle. Controlled.

“Blood always pays its debts,” he says.

I slap his hand away.

“You don’t own me,” I hiss.

His gaze drops to my mouth, then rises again, dark with something dangerous. “Not yet.”

The implication hangs heavy between us.

“You want revenge,” he continues calmly. “I want loyalty. We can give each other what we need.”

“And if I refuse?”

He leans in, close enough that his breath brushes my ear. “Then I finish what I started.”

I close my eyes.

For a moment, I see my father’s smile. Hear his voice. Feel the weight of that ring in my lap all over again.

When I open my eyes, I meet Salvatore’s gaze head-on.

“Fine,” I say. “But understand this.”

He arches a brow.

“If I’m making a deal with the devil,” I whisper, “I intend to learn all his weaknesses.”

Something flashes in his eyes.

Interest. Danger. Approval.

“Careful, Luna Valenti,” he murmurs. “You might discover you enjoy the darkness.” He turns toward the villa doors, already confident I’ll follow. And I do. But only to slam the door shut behind him.

He made me an offer. And I intend to collect far more than he ever expects.