The moment he said those words, everything shifted.
"I own half of the mafia in this city. And the other half wants me dead."
Aria stared at him, heart pounding in her chest like a war drum. The intimacy of a few minutes ago was suddenly a distant memory, eclipsed by the razor-sharp tension now slicing the air between them.
She sat up slowly, the silk sheet clutched to her bare chest, eyes wide.
"You're kidding," she whispered, but even as she said it, she knew he wasn't.
Raiden didn't move. He simply stared, expression unreadable, jaw tense.
"You thought I was just some arrogant professor who liked to play games with his students?"
"No," she whispered, shaking her head. "I didn't think—"
"That's the problem," he snapped, rising from the bed and grabbing a glass of whiskey from the minibar. "You didn't think. You walked into my arms like a flame chasing the matchstick."
Aria's fingers tightened around the sheets.
"Then why didn't you stop it?" Her voice cracked, part defiance, part heartbreak. "You knew who you were. I didn't."
He turned back to her slowly, his expression softening just for a second—just long enough to look like regret.
"Because I'm weak when it comes to you," he said simply. "And weakness gets people killed in my world."
She rose from the bed then, letting the sheet fall away, baring herself completely as if that would somehow show him she wasn't afraid. But inside, her soul trembled.
"I'm not going to run," she said. "Not yet. Not until I understand what the hell I've walked into."
Raiden crossed the room in three slow steps. He cupped her jaw, his thumb grazing her lower lip.
"You've walked into a war, Aria. A war between families that have spilled blood over empire, drugs, betrayal, and power. I've tried to keep my distance from the old ways—but it always finds me. My name is a currency. My bloodline is a weapon."
She leaned into his touch.
"And what am I to you in this war?"
His eyes met hers, dark and burning.
"You?" He exhaled sharply. "You're the first good thing to walk into my life in a long, long time. Which is exactly why you're in danger."
---
That night, Aria didn't leave.
They didn't touch again.
But they didn't sleep either.
She sat on the couch wrapped in one of his shirts, listening as he slowly unraveled the truths of his life. His father had once ruled the underworld. His mother died in a revenge hit when he was sixteen. He was raised in blood and violence but earned his degrees like a ghost—silent, brilliant, untouchable.
"Teaching keeps me sane," he murmured, sipping his drink. "But the moment I touched you, I lost that sanity."
Aria swallowed hard.
She should leave.
She should run.
But all she did was lean closer.
---
A week later
It began with a black car.
Sleek. Silent. Parked outside her apartment.
Then the phone calls. Blocked numbers. No one speaking on the other end.
Then, the note on her windshield:
"He can't save you."
Aria stood frozen in the parking lot, her heart thudding in her ears as she crumpled the paper.
She rushed into her building and locked the door behind her.
Raiden was already calling.
"Where are you?"
"Home," she breathed. "But someone was here. They left a note. They're watching me."
Silence.
Then a clipped, furious response:
"I told you this would happen. I should've never let you walk out that door. Pack your things. I'm coming to get you."
"Where will we go?"
"Somewhere they can't find us."
"And when they do?"
"Then I kill them."
---
Aria had never been to a place like this.
Raiden's safehouse was hidden deep in the forest outskirts—gated, guarded, and isolated. A mansion carved from obsidian stone, designed for silence and control.
She wandered the halls, trying to understand the man who lived like a king in a cage.
When she found him, he was in the basement.
Training.
Shirtless. Bloody knuckles. A heavy bag swinging wildly from the ceiling.
She stood silently in the doorway, watching.
He didn't notice her until she stepped inside.
"You shouldn't see this part of me," he muttered, not turning around.
"But I already have," she said. "And I stayed."
Raiden stopped punching.
The room was silent.
Then he turned around, breathing hard, eyes blazing.
"Then don't blame me when your heart breaks."
"I won't," she said. "But if mine breaks, I promise to shatter yours too."
That made him smirk.
The next second, he had her pinned to the basement wall, lips crashing onto hers.
It wasn't romance. It wasn't sweetness.
It was war in the form of desire.
---
To Be Continued...