“Delete My Number,” She Said—Then Six Men Stepped Aside for the Crime Lord She’d Been Secretly Writing To
Chapter 1
“Delete my number.”
Clara Bennett folded the letter in half and pushed it across the table, her fingers trembling despite the firmness in her voice.
The man sitting opposite her did not reach for it.
Instead, he looked at her as though she had just said something impossible.
“You are certain?”
“I am.”
Rain tapped against the tall windows of the small coffee room at the Black Swan Inn. A fire struggled in the hearth, filling the room with the scent of damp wood and smoke.
For three months, Clara had been writing letters to a stranger.
She had never seen his face.
She did not know his true name.
He signed every letter with a single initial:
M.
At first, she had written because she was lonely.
Then because she was curious.
Eventually, she had written because those letters had become the only place where she could speak honestly.
M had never asked for her beauty.
Never asked about her family fortune.
Never asked what her father owned.
He asked what she feared.
What she dreamed of.
What she would change if nobody could judge her.
And somehow, those questions had made Clara fall in love with a man she had never met.
Until that morning.
She had received one final letter.
Meet me at the Black Swan. Come alone.
She had arrived expecting perhaps a shy merchant or an educated gentleman.
Instead, she found a quiet man in a dark coat.
He had barely spoken.
Then Clara noticed the scar along his jaw.
She remembered something.
One of M’s letters had mentioned the same scar.
Her heart had dropped.
“You’re him.”
He had said nothing.
So Clara had done the only thing she thought could save her.
“Delete my number.”
There were no telephones in their world.
No numbers to erase.
But the phrase had become a joke between them.
A modern phrase Clara had once heard from a traveling performer.
The man almost smiled.
Then the inn doors opened.
Six men entered.
They wore dark coats and carried themselves with the silent confidence of men accustomed to being obeyed.
They stopped when they saw him.
One stepped forward.
“Sir.”
The stranger rose.
The six men immediately moved aside.
Clara stared.
Nobody spoke.
The entire room seemed to understand who he was.
The man looked at Clara.
“My name is Matteo Belladonna.”
Her heart sank.
Everyone in the province knew that name.
Matteo Belladonna was the most feared crime lord along the river.
And Clara had spent three months telling him things she had never told anyone.
Including one secret that could destroy her family.
Matteo picked up her letter.
“You asked me to forget you.”
Clara swallowed.
“Yes.”
He looked toward the six men.
Then back at her.
“I will.”
He paused.
“But first, you should know why I came.”
Clara’s stomach tightened.
Matteo leaned closer.
“Your father has ordered your death.”
