A Game For Your Love (BWLM) (REWRITE)

i. Ice Princess

(A few months ago)

༺✧ ♛ ✧༻

Sandro Heliodor's blue-jade gaze danced with fascination and frustration, firmly fixed on the black woman in a fitting silver gown, her beautifully crafted asymmetrical black bob and rosy red-tinted lips complemented her brown skin's glow perfectly. Sandro felt like a starved wolf, finally catching a hint of blood on the wind after wandering in the wilderness too long. This was not a good sign - his uncontrollable cravings an old habit, unrelenting and stubborn. The nights that changed your trajectory in life didn't come with warning labels. Instead, they came like a quiet ink-black storm that smacked you in the face, and before you knew it, you were drowning. But tonight was different. Sandro had planned the night to perfection, every single moment rehearsed severally. He was going to come out of the turbulent waters as king, whether the stars were aligned or not.

༺✧ ♛ ✧༻

Tecu Carliorossi, studied the yearning and steely determination swirling trance-like in his friend Sandro's eyes. 

There must be something treacherous in the air of the palazzo, Tecu couldn't help but think. 7 had been eyeing Logan Vernier's girlfriend with a near-identical intensity.

He sighed and broke through Sandro's trance with a soft question, "What are we staring at?"

Sandro's gaze momentarily wavered, trying to rid himself of the enchanting spell the woman seemed to have cast on him.

"Someone almost as beautiful as you, babe" Sandro's silky response betrayed his true intentions and revealed the dark hunger simmering under his skin.

It was a side of him that he tried to conceal, always a challenge in her presence. He had known she would be here, had practiced his attack with deadly precision and yet something within him, unshakable habit or unfriendly ghost, itched for release at the sight of her. As he watched her laugh with a handsome devil, Sandro felt like he was standing at the edge of a cliff, one step away from falling deep into the abyss.

He managed to tear his gaze away from the stunning woman long enough to acknowledge Tecu's presence. 

"I see Nyla couldn't make it," he said, hoping to change the topic. He could already see the gears working in Tecu's mind, hoping to dissuade him from tonight's grand plan. 

Tecu's shoulders stiffened, a tight smile on his lips as he nodded. What was he supposed to say? That he didn't know where his wife was? That he hadn't seen her in weeks? He preferred not to dwell on it. He had hoped his little brother, the spy chief, would help track Nyla down. But instead, 7 had breathed in whatever chemical in the palazzo Sandro was exposed to and kept staring hungrily at Logan Vernier's girlfriend.

Tecu sensed what was brewing beneath the surface, something that would ultimately lead to a clash between 7 and Logan or Sandro and she-who-must-never-be-mentioned. Sandro around her  morphed into a man who wouldn't hesitate to put himself in harm's way. As for 7, Tecu had never seen his little brother like... that.

This was gearing up to be one heck of a night!

"If it's who I think it is... we're in public." Tecu sighed, trying to bring Sandro back to reality even as his friend's eyes darted back to she-who-must-never-be-mentioned. 

Sandro raised his champagne flute to Tecu, a sinister glint in his eyes as he confirmed, "You're Catholic, yes?"Eerily calm.

Tecu bit his lip in apprehension, "What about the vial you got from the Vatican?" Tecu bargained after a short pause, his tone pleading, desperate for delay.