Luna

The car was black, sleek, and foreign — just like her. When it rolled into the sleepy town of Miravale, everyone stopped to stare. Out stepped Luna Moretti, the daughter of the man whispered about only as Il Nero. Nobody said mafia out loud here, but everyone knew.

Luna didn’t care what they thought. She never did. She tugged her dark hoodie over her dyed-red hair, lit a cigarette, and watched the smoke twist into the cold morning air. She was seventeen, rich beyond imagination, but looked like a ghost in ripped tights and heavy eyeliner.

Her father was busy “handling business.” That meant she had to handle herself — which mostly meant wandering the streets, looking for something to make her heart feel anything.

That’s when she saw him.

Across the street, at the flower market.

He wasn’t like the boys back in Milan — no designer clothes, no arrogance, no games. Just a boy in a faded shirt, his hands covered in soil, arranging roses like they were holy. Eli, the name on his apron read.

Every day after that, Luna came back. Sometimes with a camera, sometimes with nothing but her cigarette and curiosity. She’d lean against the lamppost and watch him work — the way his smile barely showed but always reached his eyes.

He never looked up. He never noticed her. And that made her want him even more.

Soon, it wasn’t curiosity anymore. It was obsession. She learned when he opened, when he closed, what songs he hummed under his breath. She followed him once — just once — through the narrow backstreets until he disappeared into a tiny apartment above the bakery.

Her chest ached in a way that felt new and dangerous.

Sometimes, she imagined walking up to him, saying hi, pretending to be just another girl. But she wasn’t just another girl. She was the daughter of a man whose smile made men disaper…