Cuddle-bear_7
(: When the Devil Learned to Breathe
Summary - Dark Slow Burn BL Mafia AU
Alessandro de Luca is a name whispered like a curse in the underworld.
At thirty-one, he rules the Italian mafia with calculated cruelty-cold eyes, steady hands, and a heart long declared dead. He does not believe in mercy. He does not believe in redemption. And he certainly does not believe in love.
During a routine meeting drenched in blood and betrayal, a sound breaks through the noise of gunmetal and power-a child's scream.
It is a mistake to follow it.
Alessandro knows this.
Yet he does.
In a forgotten corridor, he finds an eighteen-year-old boy trapped in the hands of men who see flesh as currency. Too small, too soft, too innocent for the world he has been dragged into-he looks barely sixteen, eyes wide with terror, body trembling but unbroken. The boy does not beg. He simply stares at Alessandro as if seeing the devil himself... and hoping anyway.
Alessandro kills the men without hesitation.
He tells himself it means nothing. He does not save people. He does not keep strays. He does not let weakness linger in his territory.
And yet, he takes the boy with him.
What begins as protection turns into possession. What should have been a temporary arrangement becomes a quiet, dangerous dependency. The boy's presence is like a slow poison-soft laughter in empty halls, timid smiles that cut deeper than knives, and silent trust that Alessandro never asked for and does not deserve.
The mafia world is unforgiving.
Innocence is a liability.
And love-if this is love-is the most dangerous weakness of all.
As enemies close in and blood stains the empire Alessandro built, the question is no longer whether the boy will survive the underworld...
But whether Alessandro de Luca will survive having a heart that beats again.
A dark, emotional slow burn of power, protection, moral decay, and forbidden tenderness-where a ruthless mafia king learns that saving one life may cost him everything.