Love,Written In Ruins-Chapter 63: Don’t Lie To Me

The master suite felt smaller as Luciano’s presence shifted from a man satisfied by a meal to a predator catching the scent of blood. He watched Eloise, noting the slight slump in her shoulders, the way the oversized suit jacket swallowed her frame.

​"You’re exhausted, Eloise," he said, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that seemed to settle deep in her bones. "The day has taken enough from you. Go, take a bath. Soak the world away."

​Eloise looked up, a small, tired smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Then she looked at the empty plate—the remains of the Osso Buco she’d labored over—and reached for the dishes.

"And the plates? I was going to—"

​"I’ll handle it," his hand shot out, his fingers brushing hers as he took the tray. "I’ll handle these. I’ll send them downstairs myself. Go. Don’t come out until the water is cold and your mind is quiet."

​That earned him a small, relieved smile. She nodded, feeling the weight of the day’s tensions—the shopping, the encounter with Maya, the secret Mary had whispered—pressing down on her, but for a moment she hesitated, as if expecting him to say something else. He didn’t. He simply watched her walk away, bare feet gliding across the marble floor, the quiet echo of her presence lingering even after she disappeared into the sanctuary of the master bathroom.

Luciano watched the door close before his expression shifted, the softness he reserved only for her evaporating into a mask of cold, calculating steel.

​

Luciano gathered the dishes with mechanical precision. Control. Order. Familiar things. He descended the stairs with the silence of a predator. He didn’t walk; he prowled. When he entered the kitchen, the clatter of silverware stopped instantly. Mary, was hunched over the marble island, scrubbing a spot that didn’t exist.

​The moment she saw him, the color drained from her face.

Her hands froze mid-motion. The cloth trembled between her fingers.

So, she thought dimly. This is it.

She had always known this house did not forgive betrayal. She had felt it in the walls, in the way silence pressed heavier than sound. Being a spy for the Starlings had never been a question of if she would be discovered—only when. And getting close to Eloise had sealed her fate. Mary braced herself, spine rigid, eyes lowered, waiting for her sentence.

​Luciano didn’t strike. He simply set the plates on the counter with a controlled, rhythmic clink.

​"Did something happen today?" he asked.

The question was quiet, but it carried the weight of a death warrant. Mary turned slowly, her face pale. Luciano was standing there, his sleeves still rolled up, his icy blue-gray eyes boring into her soul.

Mary blinked. Once. Twice. She had expected rage. A gun. A knife. Death spoken softly in his velvet voice.

Instead—this.

"I—sir?" she said cautiously.

Luciano’s eyes narrowed. He had seen the emerald silk dress in the laundry basket upstairs—soaked in apple juice, ruined before it had even been worn. He knew Eloise. She was a woman who had lived with nothing; she treated quality with a reverence that bordered on sacred. She wouldn’t be clumsy with a designer piece.

"Let me rephrase my question again: Did something—or someone—happen to her?"

​Mary swallowed hard, her voice trembling. "Yes, sir," she replied quickly. "I... I don’t know what you mean, Sir. We... we went shopping. Had coffee. Milkshakes—"

​Luciano’s hand lifted, stopping her mid-sentence. His gaze sharpened, darkening like a storm tightening its grip.

​"I didn’t ask for a travelogue, Mary," Luciano said, stepping into her personal space. The air around him felt heavy, pressurized. "I asked if something, or someone, did something bad to Eloise."

​The air in the kitchen felt like it was being sucked out of the room.

Mary hesitated. The truth balanced on her tongue, heavy and dangerous. Finally, she spoke.

​"I... I wasn’t there for the whole time sir," Mary hesitated, her loyalty to her new mistress warring with her terror of the man in front of her. "But Maya came to find me. She said Miss Eloise was asking for me, and Maya looked... satisfied. Angry, but smug. When I got there, Miss Eloise seemed... different. Angry, but quiet. She asked me to help her with her zipper." Mary’s voice dropped an octave. "The dress was soaked. And when I lowered the zipper... I saw it. A bruise on her waist. A dark, ugly pinch mark."

​The sound that came from Luciano wasn’t a word; it was a low, guttural growl that made the glassware on the shelves vibrate. His jaw tightened so hard Mary feared his teeth might shatter.

"That will be all," he said after a beat.

Mary exhaled shakily—until he spoke again.

​​"I know why you’re here, Mary. ​You were sent here by the Starlings to be a rat," Luciano said, his voice coming from somewhere deep and dark. "You are still breathing for one reason, and one reason only: Eloise pleaded for your life. She sees something in you that I find a waste of my mercy. Do not make her regret it. If you ever—ever—hide a threat to her from me again, I will forget her request."

​He didn’t wait for her to collapse. He turned and headed back upstairs, his mind a dark storm of calculated violence.

​

​In the master bathroom, the room was a haze of steam and the fragrance of expensive oils. Eloise lay in the oversized tub, her eyes closed, mounds of white foam shielding her body from the cool air. She was finally starting to drift, trying to let the heat soak away the lingering sting of Maya’s fingers.

The door swung open.

​Eloise startled, opened her eyes, clutching a sponge to her chest as Luciano stormed in. He looked like a storm cloud had taken human form. His face was a thundercloud, his eyes dark with a murderous intent that made her blood run cold.

​"Luciano? What is it? You look..."

​He didn’t say a word. He walked to the edge of the tub and reached down. Before she could protest, he gently but firmly gripped her shoulders and turned her around.

​"Luciano, wait—"

​He ignored her, his hand sweeping away the thick foam from her lower back and waist. As the water cleared, the mark was revealed. Against her pale, porcelain skin, the bruise was a violent violet-red—a clear, intentional pinch that had broken the capillaries.

The silence that followed was terrifying. Luciano stared at the mark—a defilement of the skin he considered sacred. It wasn’t just a bruise; it was a signature of disrespect. It was a common maid laying hands on the woman he had chosen.

​As his thumb brushed the edge of the mark, Eloise flinched, a sharp intake of breath escaping her.

​That flinch was the final straw. Luciano stood up abruptly, the air around him practically vibrating with the urge to destroy. He turned toward the door, his hand already balling into a fist.

"I’ll be right back," he said flatly.

​"Luciano, stop!" Eloise cried out, splashing water as she reached out to grab his hand. Her fingers were wet and trembling, but her grip was firm. "Not now. Please."

​Luciano looked down at her hand wrapped around his. His voice dropped, dangerous and low. "You want me to let this go?"

"Someone laid their hands on you, Eloise," he continued, fury slipping through the cracks. "She touched what is mine. She disrespected the woman of this house in a private space, thinking she could get away with it because you are too kind to speak up."

​"If you go down there now," she said, her voice steady despite the circumstances, "you will kill her. I see it in your eyes."

​"Yes. Of course, I will kill her!" he said, voice flat, lethal, the sound echoing off the marble walls. "How dare she? How dare she lay a finger on you in my own home?"

​

​She didn’t let go of his hand. She pulled him closer, forcing him to look at her—not as a victim, but as his partner.

​"Luciano, listen to me," she said softly. "This isn’t why you allowed the spies in here, Luciano. Don’t lie to me. You’re the most meticulous man I’ve ever met. Maya and Mary wouldn’t have made it past the front gate if you didn’t want them here."

Luciano went still, his eyes narrowing.

She looked down at the water, cheeks flushing. "Andrés said it would be easier to get what you need from them if you torture it out of them. But you held back. For me. Because I asked."

​He stared at her—long, unblinking. "Don’t look at me like that," she whispered, shy now. "Why would a man who hates noise let maids chatter through his halls? You wanted something."

She took a shaky breath, looking at him with a startling amount of insight. "Maya is backed by someone powerful, isn’t she? Someone who thinks they can use her to keep tabs on you."

Luciano’s expression shifted. The murderous rage didn’t vanish, but it was joined by a cold, calculating logic. He sat on the edge of the tub, his hand still in hers.

"You’re too smart for your own good. You’re right. Maya is backed by the family of the woman that man who likes to call himself my ’father’ wants me to marry. She wants to undermine you, to make you feel small so you’ll run away and leave the seat open for a ’proper’ bride."

​He looked at the bruise again, his jaw working. "But it doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t need her for information. I can find another person to torture. I can break a dozen of them before breakfast to get what I need. I am taking care of this."

​​"No," Eloise said firmly.

​Luciano blinked, confused. "No?"

​"You said I’m the woman of the house," she said, her voice quiet but iron-clad. "A woman doesn’t need her fiancé to swat every fly that bothers her. Maya tried to humiliate me because she thinks I’m weak. She thinks I’m just a ’passing fancy’ who will cry and run to you the moment things get hard."

​She leaned forward, the water rippling around her. "If I am the woman of this house, then let me handle the household staff. If you kill her now, you lose your leverage."

​Luciano looked at her for a long time. He saw the fire in her eyes, the same fire that had drawn him to her in the first place. He reached up, his hand cupping her cheek, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw.

He looked at her hand, still clutching his wrist, and then at the bruise. The conflict in his eyes was palpable—the urge to destroy battling the dawning respect for her agency.

​"Fine," he rasped, the word sounding like a concession of a kingdom. "But I’m giving you a short leash, Paloma. If this goes south—if she so much as looks at you the wrong way again—I’m taking charge. And there won’t be enough of her left for them to bury."

Eloise nodded, a small, somber smile touching her lips. "I understand."

His thumb brushing over her lower lip where he had bitten her earlier. The two marks—his and Maya’s—were a study in the different kinds of pain this house offered. One was a claim; the other was a curse.

​"Finish your bath," he said, his voice regaining its possessive edge. "I’ll be in the bedroom. Don’t be long."

​As he walked out, the silence of the bathroom returned, but it was no longer heavy with fear. It was thick with a new kind of power. Eloise leaned back into the water, her mind already racing.