Love,Written In Ruins-Chapter 70: Stubborn Little Paloma
The 60th floor of the De La Vega Tower was a tomb of glass and cold steel, suspended high above the crawling, rhythmic pulse of Los Angeles. Inside, the air was filtered, chilled, and oppressive in its silence, broken only by the deliberate, rhythmic scritch of a fountain pen across thick, cream-colored parchment.
Luciano Solis De La Vega sat in his high-backed leather chair, his suit jacket discarded over a sofa. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing forearms that served as a map of his life: a jagged topography of old scars and new, coiled tension. He wasn’t looking at the sprawling city.
He was looking at his phone. More specifically, he was staring at a notification that refused to arrive: a transaction alert for the Black Card. Not knowing his Paloma was, at that very moment, teaching someone a lesson he would have thoroughly approved of.
His thumb tapped once against the armrest.
Then again.
Impatience was not an emotion Luciano entertained often. He was a man who moved markets with a word, who bent outcomes before they even formed. Yet here he was... waiting.
Waiting for her to use it.
Waiting for Eloise to take something from him without resistance.
His jaw ticked.
"She hasn’t used it?" he murmured, more to himself than anyone else.
On the desk before him lay untouched documents — contracts worth millions, acquisitions that would make lesser men lose sleep. But none of it held his focus.
The woman he was trying, in his own ruthless way, to spoil...
Hadn’t spent a single cent.
Luciano leaned back slowly, the leather chair creaking beneath his weight. His gaze darkened, drifting again to the silent phone screen.
"Stubborn little Paloma..." he muttered under his breath, though there was no irritation in it — only something heavier. Something bordering on fascination.
The heavy oak door opened without a knock. Only one man was allowed that luxury.
Ian stepped into the room, his expression as flat and unreadable as a desert horizon. He carried a tablet in one hand and a leather folder in the other. He didn’t speak immediately; he waited for Luciano to acknowledge him, a process that took a full thirty seconds of heavy, brooding silence.
"Report," Luciano commanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated in the glass walls.
"The situation at 5th and Main has... stabilized," Ian said, choosing his words with surgical precision. "Though I suspect the local residents will be talking about the ’Men in Black’ for several months."
Luciano swivelled his chair around, his dark eyes snapping to his assistant. "Marcos called and texted me. He sounded... confused. He said he spent three hours moving fifty-pound bags of high-gluten flour and that Leo is currently ’tactically sweeping’ a linoleum floor with a broom. Explain to me, Ian, why my elite security detail is performing janitorial duties in a failing coffee shop."
Ian walked to the desk and laid down the tablet. It displayed a grainy, high-definition still from a hidden street camera. It was Eloise. She was laughing, her face glowing with a genuine light Luciano hadn’t yet been able to provoke, as she shook hands with a man who looked like he had just escaped a shipwreck.
"Miss Eloise has entered into a business partnership," Ian explained. "She has declined to use the funds you provided. Instead, she has negotiated a fifty-fifty profit-sharing agreement with the owner of The Blue Awning. She will be providing artisanal pastries; he provides the caffeine."
Luciano’s eyes narrowed until they were slivers of dark, polished obsidian. "She won’t spend my money? I gave her a card with no limit that could buy the very building she’s standing in, and she’s worried about ’profit-sharing’ on muffins?"
"She wants to earn her own living, Luciano," Ian said, using his friend’s name—a rarity that signaled the gravity of the moment. "She is in your shadow, yes. But she doesn’t want to be an extension of it. She wants something real. She has a very long memory of what happens to women who depend entirely on the whims of powerful men."
Luciano leaned back, steepling his fingers under his chin. "And the man? Ethan? Marcos said he nearly had to put a bullet in the boy because he had a mental breakdown."
Ian paused, a flicker of irony crossing his face. "Yes. Ethan was... agitated. He believed Miss Eloise had been sent by Marcia."
Luciano’s hand stilled. "Marcia? As in Marcia Davis?"
"The very same. It appears our new business partner is the ex-boyfriend of your ’intended.’ Marcia discarded him a few days ago, allegedly telling him he was a loser who couldn’t provide the lifestyle she deserved. He was under the impression that Marcia had sent Eloise to mock his failure."
The silence that followed was so thick it felt like it could be cut with a blade. Luciano’s expression shifted from irritation to a dark, predatory amusement.
"So," Luciano murmured, a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips. "My woman has unwittingly—or perhaps instinctively—picked up the one man who can embarrass the Davises by simply existing. She’s turning Marcia’s ’failure’ into her own success."
"It is a poetic turn of events," Ian agreed. "Though I doubt the Davises will see the irony. If this shop becomes successful under Eloise’s guidance, it will be a public humiliation for Marcia’s judgment."
"Marcia’s judgment?" Luciano’s smirk deepened. "Ah, but Ian, aren’t you forgetting something? It’s not a judgment. It’s a protection."
Ian froze, his mind racing through the intelligence reports. After a second, he looked struck by the realization. "That means..."
"Exactly," Luciano said, his voice dropping into a cold, clinical tone. "The so-called Marrow Prince has made his move. Ethan’s life is in danger. Marcia didn’t leave him because she wanted a billionaire; she broke up with him to save him from a shallow grave."
Ian went silent, processing the shift in the board. "Then Marcia will be coming to see you soon."
"Of course she will," Luciano said, standing up. "The closer she is to me, the more Marrow Prince thinks he has gotten me. But let’s not talk about that ghost. Have more security detail around Eloise’s new workplace. Though Marrow Prince doesn’t know she is my fiancée yet, it doesn’t hurt to build a fortress around her flour bags."
Ian nodded. "Consider it done."
Luciano walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the glittering lights of the city. He felt a strange, unfamiliar itch in his chest. For the first time in his life, his wealth was a blunt instrument in a world that required a fine silk thread. He couldn’t buy her a better mood.
"Ian," Luciano said, his back still turned. "How does a man impress a woman who doesn’t want his money?"
Ian paused, weighing the gravity of the question. This wasn’t business; this was the first time he had seen Luciano struggle with the human heart.
"You can’t buy her, sir. Not with the usual currency. She doesn’t want diamonds or dresses because she knows they come with strings. She wants independence. Respect. So... support what she’s building. Quietly. A new espresso machine for the café. Legal help to formalize the partnership. Something that says you see her—not as a possession, but as a peer."
Luciano turned around, his expression darkening, the predator resurfacing. "I don’t want to be her peer, Ian. I am her protector. If I wanted to impress her—really impress her—and fix the rot in her life, what is the language she has to understands?"
Ian’s eyes sharpened. He knew the man standing before him was a dealer in blood and logistics. He knew that Luciano’s version of a "gift" was usually wrapped in a body.
Ian stepped closer, his voice dropping to a confidential whisper. "If you really want to impress her... give her a part of someone who’s wronged her."
Luciano’s head snapped up.
Ian didn’t flinch. "A finger. An ear. From Eric, perhaps—the cheater who broke her friend’s heart. Wrapped in silk. Delivered quietly. She’d know it’s from you. She’d understand the message: no one hurts what belongs to you without an irreversible consequence."
Luciano’s smirk returned, wider this time, showing the flash of the shark beneath the tailored suit. It was a dark, terrifying expression of absolute clarity.
"Ah, Ian," Luciano said, picking up a file on the Davis family and tossing it into the shredder. "You know me entirely too well."
Ian inclined his head, a ghost of a smile on his own face. "I’ve worked for you long enough to know that your love is just another form of war." 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮
Luciano laughed—a low, genuine sound that didn’t reach the shadows of the room.
Ian turned to leave, pausing at the heavy door. "Sir? You have a meeting with the port authority in ten minutes."
"Well, then," Luciano said, straightening his cuffs and regaining his lethal composure. "Let’s get moving. We don’t want to be late for the business of the city."
