Luca Vitiello (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles, #0)

by Cora Reilly

If she’d died because of me, if I’d lost her, I’d have lost my mind. Even just thinking about it, reliving that moment when I thought she was dead, it ripped a huge black hole into my chest.

I cupped her face, bringing our faces close but never close enough. I searched her eyes, trying to understand how she could love me, how she found something in me that deserved to be loved. “You love me,” I repeated. No one had ever said those words to me. No one should. “You shouldn’t love me, Aria. I’m not someone who should be loved. People fear me, they hate me, they respect me, they admire me, but they don’t love me. I’m a killer. I’m good at killing. Better probably than at anything else, and I don’t regret it. Fuck, sometimes I even enjoy it. That’s a man you want to

Aria gave me that smile; the smile that burst like a ray of sunshine through my darkness, that warmed even my cold heart. “It’s not a matter of want, Luca. It’s not like I could choose to stop loving you,” she whispered.

looked at her. Didn’t she know? Couldn’t she see? “But I don’t care, because loving you is the only pure thing in my life.” Aria’s eyes filled with tears and incredulity. “You love me?”

“But you are my first choice, Aria. I’ll burn down the world if I have to. I’ll kill and maim and blackmail. I’ll do anything for you.” She couldn’t possibly fathom what I’d do for her, the length I’d go to protect her.

“Maybe love is a risk, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take and, as you said, it’s not a choice. I never thought I would, never thought I could love someone like that, but I fell in love with you. I fought it. It’s the first battle I didn’t mind losing.”

Only she brought happiness into days of blood and violence, only she could fill my dark world with light.

She was my light, my love…my life.

A cruel heart that only beat for her.