His to Love, Not to Claim

Dominic POV

They say power changes a man.
But Dominic knew better.

It wasn't power that changed him.
It was loss.

He was fifteen when his father bled out in front of him  throat slit in a quiet backroom of a warehouse that smelled like sweat and secrets. No sirens. No news report. Just silence. The kind the world reserves for criminals when they die.

His father had been a king of shadows.
Now he was just a body.
And Dominic became the heir to a world he didn't ask for.

By nineteen, Dominic had learned three things:
1. Loyalty is just fear in disguise.
2. Family is a weapon if you hold it wrong.
3. Love gets people killed.

He hadn't spoken to his mother in years.
She left the day after the funeral. Took nothing but her silence.

He didn't blame her.
This world? It hollowed people out and called it survival.

So Dominic Voss learned to build walls where others built memories.

He built an empire legitimate on the surface, filthy underneath.
Luxury real estate. Tech. Investments.
And beneath it all: guns, smuggling, whispers in dark corners of cities where law never reached.

And then there was Elena.

She had been the only softness in his life.
A violinist with sharp wit and soft eyes  a contradiction he never deserved.

He told himself he'd protect her. Keep the blood from touching her hands.

He failed.

She died because he let his guard down because someone thought the best way to break him was to destroy the one thing he loved.

They succeeded.

Her name hadn't passed his lips in seven years.

So when he met Aria small, trembling, stubborn Aria  lying unconscious outside his building with nothing but a worn backpack and swollen ankles...

He didn't see a girl.
He saw a mistake waiting to happen.

But then she opened her eyes. And whispered, "Please."

And something cracked.

Not enough to let her in.
But enough to want to.

Dominic stood in his private gym late that night, shirtless, hands bloodied from the punching bag.

The cameras were off. His men were outside. The city below him glowed like fireflies.

He couldn't stop thinking about her.

The way she flinched when someone touched her arm too fast.
The way she smiled at small kindnesses like they were rare coins.

The way she protected the life inside her like it was the only thing keeping her anchored.

She didn't know what he was.
What he'd done.
What he was still capable of.

And if she ever found out?

She'd run.
Or worse stay.

And that... that might destroy them both.