Florence, Italy — Six Years Ago
The first time Isabella Moretti met Leonardo Valentini, she was seventeen and already promised to someone else.
It was the spring of the Galleria Mascherata—an exclusive private gala held only once every decade, hosted in the ancient ruins beneath the Valentini estate. Her father hadn't wanted her to attend.
But Don Moretti rarely said no to his wife.
And his wife wanted their daughter to be seen.
Isabella wore ivory. Pale silk, no jewelry. Her mother said she looked like purity incarnate. Her father called her a pawn in a lace gown.
She didn't care.
She was bored. Restless. Beautiful and aware of it.
And then she saw him.
He wasn't wearing a mask like the others. Just a crisp black suit, a loosened collar, and a stare so direct it made her chest tighten. One hand in his pocket, the other swirling wine like blood in a glass.
Isabella looked at him once.
He looked back without blinking.
And just like that, the room began to dissolve.
---
"Who is he?" she asked her cousin in a whisper.
Her cousin stilled. "You don't know?"
"Should I?"
"That's Leonardo Valentini. Raffaele Valentini's son. The Ryu bloodline."
She stiffened. The name fell like ice into her veins.
The Valentinis had been at war with her family for generations.
And yet—here he was.
And worse, he was walking toward her.
---
"You're Moretti's daughter," he said when he stopped in front of her, his voice smooth, young, but with an edge that was already dangerous.
"And you're Valentini," she replied, chin raised, like she'd been taught.
He smiled. Not the kind you trust.
Then, to her absolute horror and inexplicable thrill, he bowed—slowly, mockingly, like a prince in a fairytale that had already gone wrong.
> "If I kiss you now, will our fathers start another war?"
She stared. Then whispered, "Maybe."
He stepped closer. Close enough that she could smell the leather and smoke clinging to him. His voice dropped.
> "Then I think it would be worth it."
---
That night, he didn't kiss her.
But he did steal her earring.
She noticed it missing only when she got home.
He never gave it back.
And from that moment on, she never forgot him.
That night, she sat in front of her mirror, one ear bare, her mother brushing out her hair with silent approval.
Isabella barely heard her.
Her mind was still in the ruins, still standing in candlelight and cold stone, still staring into the eyes of the boy who shouldn't have looked at her like that.
Valentini.
Enemy.
Beautiful.
She ran her fingers along the hollow where the earring used to be. She should have been angry. She should have told her father. She didn't.
Instead, she slipped into bed and closed her eyes to dream of the boy who hadn't kissed her—but should have.
Across Florence, in a darkened room at the top of the Valentini estate, Leonardo turned the delicate gold earring between his fingers.
He brought it to his lips once.
Then tucked it into his drawer, next to his knife.
Something had begun.
And neither of them could stop it now.