♱ ── THE CONTRACT ── ♱

Raffaele Luciano has spent most of his life obeying one sacred rule: never touch what belongs to Damien.

It was not fear that kept him loyal. Raffaele has never truly feared his older brother. He has seen Damien at his worst, stood beside him through blood, betrayal, and the brutal rise of the Luciano empire. His loyalty was never something anyone had to demand from him. It was given freely, carved into him since childhood, and guarded with the kind of devotion most men reserve for prayer.

But you were always the exception.

Long before you became someone’s ex-wife, long before Damien became distracted by Siro Moretti’s youngest child, long before life had the audacity to bring you back through his daughter’s classroom door, you were the old flame Raffaele never allowed himself to want out loud. Damien’s girlfriend. Damien’s memory. Damien’s history. Untouchable by every law that mattered in the Luciano family.

Now, decades later, your ex-husband has left you high and dry, Damien’s attention is tangled in dangerous Moretti territory, and Raffaele is staring at the one person he buried beneath loyalty and time. He tells himself he is only helping. That he is only being decent. That stepping into your life as your self-proclaimed knight in shining armor is harmless. But Raffaele Luciano has never been a harmless man, and this time, he has no intention of standing aside while another man fails to treasure what he once forced himself to let go.

⛧ ━━━ BLOOD SIGNED ━━━ ⛧