Elena

The courtroom is chaos.

Flashes. Reporters. Voices overlapping like a swarm of locusts.

The Volkov case has been leaking to the media for weeks, and today the press is rabid — hungry for a headline, for blood, for anything they can twist into a scandal.

I walk out first with the files pressed to my chest, deliberately calm.

A lawyer’s best armor is composure.

Then I hear it:

“Miss Moretti! Are you sleeping with Luca Volkov to get the case?”

I freeze — heat bursting across my face, humiliation clawing at my throat.

Before I can speak, the crowd shifts — like gravity itself changes.

Luca is behind me.

Not walking. Advancing.

And the air becomes something dangerous.

His hand doesn’t touch me — but it hovers at my back like a shield, invisible but absolute.

The reporters start again, louder, crueler:

“Elena, blink if he’s coercing you—”

“Did you seduce him to get hired—”

“Was breaking the law worth sleeping with a Volkov—”

And that’s when Luca stops pretending to be civilized.

“Say her name again,” he warns one reporter — quiet, lethal.

Nobody moves.

He takes one step forward, blocking their view of me completely.

Another step — enough to make the entire line of cameras retreat.

“This woman is here because she is the most qualified legal mind for this case,” he says, voice ice and fire. “Show her the respect she has earned.”

No one dares breathe.

A journalist tries again, voice shaky: “Mr. Volkov, people are questioning the nature of your relationship with Miss Moretti—”

Luca laughs — single, dangerous.

And then he destroys the question with one sentence:

“The nature of my relationship with Miss Moretti is none of your concern, except for this — anyone who speaks her name with disrespect answers to me.”

My heart stops.

Because he didn’t deny that we have a relationship.

He just marked me as someone he protects.

Not professionally.

Primally.

We start walking again — well, I walk. He stalks beside me.

And then—someone grabs my arm.

It happens fast, but Luca is faster.

He slams the man against the marble column before I can blink, forearm against the guy’s throat, voice a razor:

“Touch. Her. Again.”

Security swarms instantly, pulling Luca away, calming the reporters. The man is escorted out coughing and terrified.

And then it’s just us.

Except it isn’t — dozens of reporters are still there, watching.

Luca doesn’t care.

He steps close — too close — eyes dark, voice low enough only I can hear:

“No one touches you. No one speaks about you. No one gets near you.”

I whisper back — breathless with anger, with fear, with something hotter:

“You don’t get to be protective when you’re the one pushing me away.”

Something in him fractures — I see it in his eyes.

And then Matteo appears from behind security, fury blazing.

He steps between me and Luca.

Shoulder to shoulder with hostility.

“Elena, are you okay?” he asks, lifting my chin to inspect me.

Before I can answer, Luca’s voice snaps like lightning:

“Don’t touch her.”

Matteo smirks. “Why? Because she’s yours?”

Luca’s jaw clenches. Gray eyes flash.

He doesn’t answer.

Because admitting yes would destroy him.

Matteo chuckles — a deliberate provocation. “Relax, Volkov. You’re not the only man who cares about her.”

Luca’s control almost shatters.

“Get your hand off her,” he grits out.

My pulse trips over itself.

Not because of the possessiveness — but because it wasn’t calculated or strategic.

It was instinct.

Luca steps closer, voice deadly quiet:

“She’s under my protection.”

Matteo steps even closer, nose to nose:

“No, Volkov. She’s under mine.”

The tension becomes a loaded gun.

I break it.

“Both of you stop,” I whisper, voice shaking.

They freeze — not for each other, but for me.

I take Matteo’s hand off my arm gently.

Then I turn to Luca — and his breath audibly catches.

For a moment, the world falls quiet.

“You don’t have to protect me,” I whisper.

He looks at me like the words hurt.

“I do,” he says. “I always will.”

Reporters are still filming. Security still watching. Matteo still seething.

And Luca still can’t hide it:

He protects me like something he can’t afford to lose. Even if he refuses to keep me.

I walk away. Matteo follows.

Luca doesn’t move — frozen, fists clenched, watching my every step.

And if anyone looked closely, they would see it:

The most dangerous man in the room

is terrified of the woman he loves.