From “A Promise in the Rain”

Chapter One

The rain came down like a curtain, washing the city in a silver blur that made neon signs bleed into the pavement. Isabella Moretti stood under the awning of the café she had once owned, watching the street as if it might reveal a secret it had been keeping. Her hands were warm around the paper cup, but the heat did nothing to steady the tremor in her fingers. Tonight, everything felt like a decision she had been postponing for years.

She had learned to read the city the way other people read faces. The way a taxi hesitated at the corner, the way a delivery man tucked his chin against the rain—each small motion was a sentence in a language she understood. And in that language, the black sedan that eased to a stop across the street spelled one word: arrival.

He stepped out with the kind of casual precision that made people notice without trying. Tall, coat collar turned up against the rain, hair dark and wet, he moved like someone who had rehearsed every step. When his eyes found hers, the world narrowed to the space between them. There was recognition there, but not the easy kind. It was the kind that acknowledged debts and promises and the weight of names.

Luca Romano had a reputation that arrived before him and lingered after he left. He was the kind of man who could make a room go quiet without raising his voice. Rumors clung to him like smoke—businesses that prospered overnight, rivals who disappeared, favors that were never forgotten. Isabella had heard those rumors the way everyone in the neighborhood had: whispered, exaggerated, then swallowed whole. She had also heard the softer stories, the ones that never made the papers—how he kept his word to the people who mattered, how he protected what he considered his.

He crossed the street and stopped beneath her awning, close enough that the rain stitched a silver line between them. For a moment they simply looked at each other, two people who had once been part of the same life and had been pulled apart by choices neither had fully controlled.

“You look like you could use a dry place,” Luca said, voice low and even. It was not a question.

Isabella let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “You could say the same,” she replied. Her voice was steadier than she felt. “You’re not exactly a stranger to umbrellas.”

He smiled, and it was a small thing that did not reach his eyes. “I prefer to keep my hands free.”

They moved inside together. The café smelled of espresso and lemon oil, familiar and domestic in a way that made Isabella’s chest ache. The place had been her refuge once—before the debts, before the threats, before the night she had closed the doors and walked away. Now the lights were dim, the chairs stacked, but the counter still bore the faint ring of a cup left too long.

Luca took the seat opposite her. He watched her with a patience that felt like a test. “You shouldn’t be here alone,” he said finally.

“I’m not alone,” she answered. “I have the city.”

He laughed softly. “You always did have a flair for the dramatic.”

She met his gaze. “You always did have a flair for showing up when I least expect it.”

There was history between them—years of friendship that had blurred into something more, then snapped under the strain of family expectations and the kind of choices that leave scars. Isabella had left because staying had meant losing herself. Luca had stayed because leaving would have meant losing everything he had built. They had both survived, but survival had a way of changing people.

“You shouldn’t be mixed up with them,” Isabella said, the words slipping out before she could stop them. She hated how small she sounded, how the fear in her voice betrayed the calm she tried to wear.

Luca’s expression hardened, but only for a second. “Who are you talking about?”

She didn’t name names. There were things you said and things you didn’t, and in their world, silence could be a weapon. “People who think they can buy the neighborhood. People who think fear is currency.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and for a moment the man in front of her was not the myth but the person who had once taught her how to tie a tie and how to keep a poker face. “You know I don’t want trouble for you,” he said.

Isabella’s laugh was bitter. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“No,” he admitted. “But I get to try.”

Outside, a delivery truck idled, its engine a low hum that threaded through the café. The rain softened to a mist. For a heartbeat, the city felt suspended, as if it were holding its breath for what came next.

“You could leave,” Luca said. “I can make arrangements. A new name, a new place. No questions.”

She looked at him then, really looked, and saw the cost behind his offer. He could move mountains for the people he cared about, but mountains demanded payment. “And what would that cost?” she asked.

He hesitated. “Everything I can spare.”

Isabella’s mouth tightened. “That’s not an answer.”

He reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. The contact was electric and familiar, a map of old promises and new dangers. “I can’t fix everything,” he said. “But I can keep you safe.”

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to fold into the safety of his words and let the world blur away. But there were memories that would not be erased—the night her brother had been taken, the look on her mother’s face when the bills came due, the way fear had settled into the bones of their block. Luca’s protection had always come with strings, and strings could be pulled.

“Protection from you is different,” she said quietly. “You’re part of the problem.”

He closed his fingers around hers, not in a possessive grip but in a steadying one. “I’m part of the solution too.”

A bell chimed as the café door opened. A man in a soaked suit stepped in, shaking rain from his coat. He glanced at Luca, then at Isabella, and his eyes lingered a fraction too long. Luca’s jaw tightened. The man’s presence was a ripple in the water—small, but enough to show where the current ran.

“Everything all right?” the man asked, voice polite but with an edge.

Luca’s smile was a blade. “Fine. Just catching up.”

The man nodded and left, but the air between Luca and Isabella had shifted. The city had noticed them, and the city remembered.

When the man was gone, Luca leaned back and let out a breath. “They’re moving faster than I thought,” he said. “I underestimated them.”

Isabella’s heart thudded. “Who?”

He didn’t answer directly. “People who want what we have. People who think they can take it without paying.”

She thought of the boarded storefronts, the families who had left, the way the neighborhood had been hollowed out. “You could stop them,” she said.

He looked at her then, and for the first time the armor slipped. “I can try,” he said. “But trying isn’t the same as winning.”

There was a long silence, filled with the sound of rain and the distant city. Isabella felt the weight of the choice pressing against her ribs. She could run—take Luca’s offer, disappear into a life that would be safe but small. Or she could stay and fight, but fighting meant danger, and danger meant the people she loved could be hurt.

“You don’t have to decide tonight,” Luca said softly. “But know this: whatever you choose, I’ll be there.”

She wanted to ask him what that meant. Did he mean he would stand by her, or that he would stand in front of her? Did he mean he would use his power to protect, or that he would use it to control? The questions crowded her, but she kept them inside. Words could be weapons too.

Instead she stood, the cup now empty and cold. Rain had soaked the hem of her coat, but she didn’t notice. “I have to close up,” she said. “There’s work to be done.”

He rose as well, and for a moment they were two silhouettes against the dim light of the café. “Be careful,” he said.

She smiled, a small, private thing. “So are you.”

Outside, the rain had stopped. The street glistened like a promise and a threat at once. Luca watched her walk away, the coat around his shoulders a dark flag against the wet pavement. Isabella kept her head down, but she felt his gaze like a hand on the back of her neck—steady, possessive, impossible to ignore.

As she reached the corner, a car idled in the shadows. Two men stepped out, their faces set in the kind of expression that meant business. Isabella’s breath caught. She had thought the night would be a conversation and nothing more. She had been wrong.

Luca moved before she could think, a shadow folding into the other shadows. He was at her side in an instant, his presence a shield. The men stopped, measuring him, then smiled in a way that did not reach their eyes.

“Evening,” one of them said. “We’re looking for Miss Moretti.”

Isabella’s pulse hammered. She had been careful, but the city had a way of finding you when you were most vulnerable. She looked at Luca, and in his face she saw a promise and a war.

“Then you found her,” Luca said, voice calm as a blade.

The rain began again, soft at first, then harder, as if the sky itself had decided to drown out the sound of what was coming.