MATTEO
I didn't know a single goddamn thing about her.
Sin.
That's all she ever gave…a name that was less an introduction and more a public service warning. She always wore that mask: sleek, black, unreadable porcelain. I'd never seen the flesh behind it. Not once.
Our last exchange played on a loop in my head like a fever dream. She'd had the audacity to tell me…a Ricci…to clean up the hole I'd put in her wall. The way she said it was calm, commanding, and utterly devoid of fear. It was as if she wasn't standing in front of a man people whispered about in cold terror.
No one, except my father, had ever spoken to me with that brand of icy authority.
So, I didn't know what the hell I felt for her. Was it absolute, annihilating hate? Or was it a dangerous, consuming excitement? A perverse curiosity that gnawed at my bones? Did I want to hurt her for her defiance, or was I desperately fascinated by the shield she carried?
Maybe the truth was far dirtier: it was both.
I kept replaying her voice, her movements, the quiet, terrifying power in her eyes. It unsettled me. It made me feel precisely what I never allowed myself to feel: off-balance. Exposed.
A massive part of me wanted her on her knees…begging, trembling, remembering exactly who she was speaking to. But the dark, true part of me… it wanted to hear her purr my name again. It wanted to see the raw, exposed truth of her lips when she smirked. I needed to know what kind of woman hides behind a mask and still manages to make the most dangerous man in the room lose his fucking mind.
So I kept coming back. Same rotten club. Same dead time. Same exclusive seat.
And every night, she was gone.
I'd asked about her. I'd described the scent, the movement, the damn mask…everything. Yet no one seemed to know her. Or maybe they did, and they were smart enough to keep the secret locked deep in their throats. Even money didn't move them…and in this city, money usually makes people confess their sins, their bodies, and their darkest secrets instantly.
This time, the staff acted like the name "Sin" was a foreign language. Maybe it wasn't her real name. Maybe it was just another necessary layer of her disguise. Still, I couldn't stop the obsession. She was power wrapped in silk, mystery wrapped in pure, unadulterated sin.
And the way she made me feel? Like I was the one about to be stripped bare.
"How can we entertain you, sir?"
The voice was saccharine and professional…too polished for this den of thieves. I looked up, my vision already swimming from the sharp burn of top-shelf whiskey. The heavy glass felt like a lead weight in my hand, matching the heavy rage in my skull.
I wasn't a man who drowned in alcohol. But being in this family, watching those spoiled bastards I call brothers, was enough to make a man want to pull the trigger on his own head just for a moment of goddamn peace.
"I don't want anyone," I muttered, my voice low, flat, final.
"Name your preference, sir. We'll bring her in. Whatever you need."
My jaw flexed. I almost said her name. But I'd been here before. Every damn time, the response was a scripted lie: "No one here goes by that name."
"Or maybe…" the girl hesitated, her eyes darting nervously to the exit, "...you prefer men? We're inclusive here, it's a safe space."
I lifted my head slowly. One hard, lethal glare was all it took. She froze, her forced professional smile shattering into shards of pure panic.
"I'm sorry…I just meant…we cater to all tastes, sir."
"Not for long if you keep talking to me like I'm a joke."
The threat was soft, quiet…the kind that made the air itself hold its breath. She stumbled back, stammering apologies that I didn't care to hear. I let her almost reach the door before my voice cut through the air like a blade.
"Wait."
She spun around, trembling.
"Send me a dancer," I said, rubbing a rough thumb across my bottom lip. "Private room. Now."