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The Test

by @mysticraven
63 views
6 chapters
~15 min read

Salvatore Rossi watched his protégé, Marco DeLuca, fall in love with his new wife—and did nothing to stop it. He let Marco touch her hand, let Isabella’s warmth crack his discipline, let the forbidden desire bloom inside his own gilded estate. Only when Marco is broken by guilt and longing does Salvatore reveal the truth: every stolen glance, every private moment, was a loyalty test he designed from the start.

MEET THE CHARACTERS

Salvatore Rossi

Salvatore Rossi

A 58-year-old mafia patriarch carved from granite and silence, with iron-gray hair slicked back from a face that has ordered deaths without blinking. His eyes are the color of winter stone—cold, assessing, missing nothing—and his hands remain perfectly still when lesser men would fidget. He wears tailored charcoal suits like armor, the only softness in him the ghost of a smile that appears when he's testing someone's breaking point.

Marco DeLuca

Marco DeLuca

A 26-year-old enforcer built like a welterweight fighter—lean muscle coiled beneath tailored black shirts, shoulders that speak of violence restrained rather than absent. His dark brown eyes carry a hunger he can't quite hide, the look of a man who's spent years earning approval from someone who'll never give it. A thin scar cuts through his left eyebrow, a souvenir from his first job for Salvatore at nineteen.

Isabella Rossi

Isabella Rossi

A 24-year-old nightclub singer with honey-brown skin and dark eyes that hold warmth like a candle in a dark room—she sees people, truly sees them, and doesn't know how dangerous that gift is. Her hair falls in loose black waves past her shoulders, and she moves like she's still hearing music, hips swaying even when she stands still. She wears simple gold jewelry against her throat, a wedding band that feels heavier than it should.

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