The De Rossi estate looked like a palace carved out of vengeance. It rose beyond the private iron gates like a Roman temple built not for prayer, but punishment. Marble columns, golden gargoyles, courtyards designed to intimidate—every brick told a story soaked in blood.
Alessandro Moretti—Ales—stepped out of the armored convoy, boots crunching against white gravel, shoulders squared under a tailored black suit lined with Kevlar-threaded wool. His jaw clean-shaven, hair slicked back, expression unreadable. He looked every bit the elite protection specialist they'd engineered him to be.
Beside him stood the rest of Team A—Lena Vieri, cold and catlike; Juno Kael, the beautiful psychopath; Cassian Drex, the silent sniper; and Niko Vale, their tech tactician wrapped in tactical fabric and stillness. They waited in formation, weapons holstered but posture alert. Around them, ten more candidates—across three teams—each handpicked from the deadliest corners of the world.
The doors of the estate opened with slow reverence, as if warning them that what waited inside would demand something permanent.
Vito De Rossi stood at the center of the marble hall like a god carved from empire and rot.
He didn't need to speak to command the room.
He was tall, terrifyingly calm, his navy silk suit immaculate. Silver-threaded hair. Piercing, pale eyes that missed nothing. A glass of wine sat in his left hand, while his right bore a ring as thick as brass knuckles—gold, ancient, and soaked in symbolism.
Behind him, De Rossi guards lined the hallway like black statues with guns tucked beneath their coats.
Vito didn't welcome them.
He looked them over like butcher stock.
Director Falcone broke the silence with practiced authority, stepping forward from Team A's left flank.
"Mr. De Rossi, your selection candidates, as requested. Twelve of our most elite."
Vito's wine swirled in his glass. His gaze moved from one face to the next—judging, measuring, dissecting.
"Begin," he said.
The tests started immediately.
The first was physical: disarmament under pressure. No time to think. One guard would attack, weapon drawn, and the candidate had ten seconds to disable him.
Three failed.
One miscalculated and got slammed face-first into the marble.
Vito didn't flinch. He sipped his wine, unimpressed. "Weak. Get them out."
The second test came in silence. Each candidate was sealed into a glass chamber where sensory hallucinations were pumped in—audio and visual loops of children crying, friends dying, faces melting into horror. Screams layered on screams, whispers of failure, of betrayal, of pain.
A girl from Team C clawed at the walls after seven minutes. A man from Team R collapsed to his knees, sobbing.
Team A stood tall.
And Ales? He didn't even blink. He watched the simulation play out like someone watching distant rain fall on another world. On the fifth minute, his ear bled from the audio frequency, and he didn't so much as wipe it away.
Falcone's mouth twitched. Not a smile. Just recognition.
"He's born for this," he muttered under his breath.
Then came obedience.
Strip, Vito commanded one man. The candidate hesitated.
Vito didn't speak again. Two guards stepped forward and ripped his shirt off, dragging him out by the arms.
Another was told to slap his teammate, hard. He faltered.
"Out."
When the command came to Team A, there were no questions.
Lena slapped Juno across the face with such precision it was surgical. Juno grinned and winked back.
Still standing. All five.
Vito turned toward them, his steps slow, echoing across the marble.
Then he stopped in front of Ales.
You, he said. The quiet one. What's your name?
Alessandro Moretti, sir, Ales replied, eyes lowered in deference but voice steady.
And why should I trust you with the life of my daughter?
A silence passed, taut and wire-thin.
I don't ask for trust, Ales said. Only the mission.
Vito's stare lingered like a needle pressed against skin. He stepped closer, voice lowering to a quiet blade.
She will ruin you.
I'll protect her anyway.
Another pause.
Then came the clap.
Once. Loud. Sharp.
Vito De Rossi straightened, looked at Director Falcone.
"Team A."
That was all he said.
But it was enough.
The remaining candidates were escorted out—some angry, some broken, all defeated.
Ales didn't smile. Neither did anyone else on Team A.
They knew better.
The real test hadn't even started yet.
Vito spoke again as he turned his back, already walking down a hallway drenched in shadow. "She refuses to see them. Says she doesn't want protection. I don't care."
He stopped, hand resting on a silver-handled cane.
"She doesn't have a choice."
Falcone gave a curt nod. "Understood."
As the De Rossi patriarch disappeared into the depths of his empire, the weight of his decision settled like smoke around them.
Team A had made it in.
But now, they had to survive it.
Back at the vehicle, Falcone walked beside Ales in silence, until they reached the side door of the transport.
"You stood like stone in front of the lion," he said. "No fear. No hesitation. I've seen grown men lose control in that room. You didn't flinch."
Ales didn't respond.
Falcone handed him a sleek, encrypted chip.
"Her data. Her schedule. Full access to the estate's perimeter zones. The inner wings are sealed unless she allows you in herself."
His voice dropped low.
"She won't want you. But she'll watch. And when she finally turns her eyes to you…" He paused. "Don't look away."
Ales gave the slightest nod.
Falcone straightened.
"Tomorrow morning. She wakes late. You'll already be inside."
The convoy began to roll down the long road that slithered out of the estate's heart.
Through the tinted window, Ales stared at the silhouette of the mansion behind him—white marble against a dying sky.
She was in there.
The girl with his sister's blood.
The cruel heiress. The mafia's jewel.
The door had opened.
Now he would walk inside.
And become the leash around her throat.
When Alessandro Moretti stepped through the main doors of the De Rossi estate, he did not come through the back like help. He came through the front.
He came with Vito De Rossi's personal seal and his shadow riding behind him.
The guards didn't speak. They saluted.
The steward didn't give orders. He bowed.
Even the lieutenants—those hounds who roamed the estate with knives under their smiles—nodded with measured respect when he passed.
He wasn't "the new bodyguard."
He was Vito De Rossi's chosen weapon.
And that changed everything.
Ales was escorted through the heart of the estate without delay, a silent procession through a house that held its breath around him. Every hallway was lined in wealth—onyx floors, crystal chandeliers, velvet-draped portraits of dead men whose names still made blood spill.
The room they assigned him was not a servant's quarter. It was on the second floor—strategically placed near Celeste's west wing, with a direct view of her corridors.
Spartan, but spotless.
Inside: a cot with reinforced frame, a biometric access terminal synced to the estate's blackline surveillance, a gear locker lined with military-grade tools, and a sleek tactical suit pressed and waiting.
A knock came shortly after he arrived.
It was the head of interior security, a tall man in a gray suit with a steel gaze. He didn't offer a name—only bowed stiffly at the door.
"If you need anything," he said, "I'll assign a runner."
"I won't," Ales replied.
The man nodded once and left.
Not another word.
Not a flicker of condescension.
Ales had status here—not because he asked for it, but because Vito had spoken his name.
And in this house, that was law.
By the time dusk painted the halls in gold and shadow, Ales had memorized every angle of the estate.
He walked the perimeter silently, logged blind spots in the surveillance, charted the guard shifts with surgical precision. He watched maids scurry to corners when they saw him coming, and lieutenants lower their voices when he passed through the strategy room.
They feared him.
But they also recognized him.
Not as a man.
As a message.
No one questioned why he was there.
No one dared to test his authority.
Only one person would.
He first saw her at exactly 10:14 the next morning.
Celeste De Rossi.
She appeared like smoke around a corner—barefoot, loose silk robe sliding from one shoulder, eyes half-lidded from sleep or something stronger. Her hair was a cascade of raven-black chaos down her spine. A ring glinted on her finger—a silver serpent wrapped tight.
She saw him.
And she did nothing.
Didn't pause.
Didn't nod.
Didn't blink.
Her eyes passed over him like fog rolling off stone—like a dog Vito had picked up off the street.
And she kept walking.
That was it.
The guards behind her tensed, as if waiting for some reaction. But Ales didn't move.
He simply stood.
Still.
Watching.
That was Day One.
Day Two, she passed him in the garden.
Lush vines, overripe fruit, a fountain that spilled wine-colored water. She sat beneath a flowering tree, reading a book of poetry with one leg folded over the other like a queen too bored to rule.
She didn't speak.
Didn't look.
But she plucked a cherry from a silver bowl and dropped it to the ground near his boots.
He didn't touch it.
He let it rot in the sun.
By Day Four, the staff whispered less.
They didn't question his presence anymore.
When he entered a room, they stepped aside.
When he gave an order, it was followed.
He had no need to raise his voice—his name came with power preloaded.
But Celeste?
She acted like he didn't exist.
And only she could.
It became a dance.
She dropped things near him—hairpins, gloves, pens, teasing the moment he might kneel to retrieve them.
He didn't.
She crossed into his path deliberately, once leaving the shower with only a silk robe clinging to damp skin, walking past him like a storm that wanted to be chased.
He didn't.
She was waiting for him to react.
He gave her nothing.
And that infuriated her more than anything else.
By Day Five, she whispered to one of the guards as she passed him. Something cruel. Something mocking. He didn't hear it—but the guard paled.
Ales turned his head.
The guard looked away instantly.
Didn't speak.
Didn't breathe.
And in that quiet, unbroken silence—Ales smiled for the first time since he'd arrived.
Because he understood now.
This house was a cage made of diamonds.
Everyone inside it followed rules.
Everyone, except her.
And she wanted him to break one.
To crack.
To touch.
To speak.
But he was patient.
The longer he waited, the harder she'd fall when she finally turned her full attention to him.
And when she did?
He'd be ready.
Not as her bodyguard.
But as her undoing.