Sienna Russo hadn’t smelled this land in twenty years — but the second she stepped out of the rental car, it hit her.

Hot stone. Wild rosemary. Dust. And olives.

The grove stretched across the hillside like a living thing, overgrown and stubborn. Her grandfather’s land. Now hers, apparently — thanks to a handwritten will delivered via a lawyer who looked deeply uncomfortable explaining Italian inheritance laws in a Manhattan cafe.

Sienna didn’t care about the legal details. She cared that it was hers. A chance to escape New York, the wreckage of her ex, and the restaurant that had drained her dry.

She closed her eyes and breathed it in. Silence. Sun. Space.

And then — an engine.

She turned as a black SUV crunched into view from a dirt path beside the grove. Not a local car. New, expensive, and out of place.

Her brows furrowed. Maybe a neighbor? Someone curious about the return of the “American granddaughter”? The lawyer had warned her that small towns talked.

The vehicle stopped. The driver’s door opened.

The man who stepped out looked like he’d been carved out of shade and steel. Tailored black suit, unbuttoned at the collar. No smile. Sunglasses that hid everything but the angle of his jaw — sharp and unamused.

Definitely not a neighbor.

He said nothing as he approached. Just looked at her like she was a very specific kind of problem.

Sienna crossed her arms. “Can I help you?”

A pause.

Then, voice low and dry: “You’re standing on land that doesn’t belong to you.”

She blinked. “Pretty sure it does. Unless I hallucinated an inheritance and a ten-hour flight.”

The man didn’t laugh. Didn’t even flinch.

She tried again. “Look, if this is about boundaries or water access or whatever, I’m happy to talk. But I just got off the plane. I haven’t even been inside yet.”

He tilted his head. “You came alone?”

She hesitated. “Is that a problem?”

Another pause. His gaze lingered on her suitcase, then the crumbling house. “This isn’t a place for Americans playing farmer,” he said.

Sienna let out a dry laugh. “Relax, I’m not here to grow a vineyard and start a blog. I’m here to figure out what the hell my grandfather left me. That’s it.”

He stepped closer — not threatening, but the kind of presence that made you pay attention.

Finally, he pulled off his sunglasses.

His eyes were dark. Quiet. Dangerous.

Sienna blinked, looked him up and down, then smirked. “What’s with all the props? You planning on auditioning for The Godfather 5 or just trying to look mysterious?”

Luca’s lips twitched, almost a smile — but his eyes stayed unreadable.

“My name is Luca Moretti,” he said.

The name meant nothing to her.

She folded her arms. “Sienna Russo. Nice to meet you, Luca. And thanks for the drama. It really adds to the vibe.”

Luca stared for a moment, clearly thrown off by her humor — or maybe by how little she seemed to care.

“Your grandfather owed people,” he said, finally. “People who don’t forget.”

Sienna arched an eyebrow. “Well, I didn’t exactly inherit a ledger and a list of enemies along with the olive trees. You’ll have to be more specific.”

He looked past her toward the house — a sun-bleached stone structure with half a roof and more lizards than windows. “You planning to stay?”

“Depends. Is that a threat or just nosy small-town curiosity?”

Something flickered in his expression — not quite guilt, not quite amusement.

“I’m saying it’s not safe,” he said.

“Safe from what? Tetanus?”

His jaw ticked, just once. “You think this is a joke?”

“I think a stranger in a suit showed up five minutes after I arrived and started issuing cryptic warnings like we’re in a Netflix thriller. So yeah, forgive me if I’m not trembling.”

Luca took another step forward, the heat shimmering between them. Sienna refused to back up.

“This land,” he said, his voice lower now, “was part of something. Your grandfather kept it — but not everyone agreed with that choice.”

Sienna narrowed her eyes. “And you’re what? The welcoming committee for the local mafia?”

He didn’t answer.

She let out a breath, sharp and impatient. “Look, if you have a problem with me being here, I suggest you take it up with the Italian legal system. Because I’m not leaving.”

His eyes flicked to the suitcase again, then to her sandals, dusty now from the gravel. “You don’t look like someone prepared for a fight.”

“Try me.”

That finally earned a real reaction. Not a smile exactly, but a flash of something — respect? Intrigue? She couldn’t tell.

Luca turned, walking back to the SUV.

“Wait,” she called out. “Is this it? You show up, play the brooding villain, and then just drive off?”

He opened the car door but didn’t get in. “You’ll see more of me.”

“Terrific,” she muttered. “Can’t wait.”

He paused again, one hand on the door. “Check the cellar,” he said, without turning around.

Then he got in, started the engine, and disappeared down the dirt road in a cloud of dust.

Sienna stood there, heart kicking in her chest, unsure if it was nerves or adrenaline or just jet lag catching up to her.

She turned to look at the house.

Check the cellar.

“Of course there’s a cellar,” she said under her breath. “Of course.”

And because she was too stubborn to be scared — or too tired to care — she picked up her suitcase and headed for the door.

AUTHOR AREA!! 🫒

SO.... I'm currently bored. That's why I've decided to write another one...and yeah that's all

The front door groaned like it resented being disturbed.

Sienna shoved it open with her shoulder, dragging her suitcase across the threshold and into the dim interior. Dust floated in the beams of late-afternoon light slanting through gaps in the shutters. The air smelled faintly of old stone, wood rot, and the ghost of garlic that must have seeped into the walls decades ago.

“Home sweet home,” she muttered.

The entryway was sparse: a battered table with one leg shorter than the others, a chair missing its back, and walls lined with framed photographs so faded she could barely make out the faces. Her grandfather’s house felt less abandoned than paused, like he’d stepped out for a cigarette and never returned.

She left the suitcase by the door and wandered in, her fingers brushing against the frames. Family dinners. Harvests. A black-and-white portrait of her grandfather in his twenties, serious-eyed, standing in front of the same house. She tried to reconcile this man — strong, rooted — with the old man she remembered visiting in New York when she was little. The one who’d cooked her pasta drowning in olive oil and called her piccolina.

And now he’d left her this.

Sienna exhaled and headed toward the kitchen, already bracing herself for whatever horrors an untouched rural Italian kitchen might contain.

The horror did not disappoint.

Rusting appliances. Counters stacked with chipped ceramic bowls. A refrigerator older than she was, humming faintly like it might explode if provoked. She opened it out of morbid curiosity and immediately slammed it shut.

“Okay. Definitely not eating here until I bleach everything.”

She grabbed a bottle of water from her bag and leaned against the counter, replaying the encounter outside.

Luca Moretti.

Sharp suit, sharper jawline, and the attitude of someone used to people listening when he spoke. The way he’d said this land doesn’t belong to you still scraped under her skin.

And check the cellar.

Sienna rubbed her temple. She hadn’t seen a cellar door on her quick walk-through outside. Which meant it was probably inside. Which also meant that if she had a single ounce of self-preservation, she would wait until daylight before exploring creepy underground rooms in a half-ruined farmhouse.

But she wasn’t exactly famous for her patience.

She found the door at the back of the kitchen. Narrow, wooden, with a latch that stuck before giving way. The smell that drifted up when she cracked it open was cool and earthy, tinged with mildew.

Grabbing her phone for a flashlight, she started down the uneven stone steps.

The cellar was larger than she expected, low-ceilinged and lined with shelves. Most were filled with dusty bottles — wine? Oil? Some unlabeled, some marked in her grandfather’s handwriting. Cobwebs laced the corners.

She moved deeper, her light catching on something at the far wall.

A trunk. Heavy. Iron-bound.

Of course.

Sienna crouched, brushing dirt from the lid. The lock was old, rusted, but still intact. She tugged at it uselessly.

“Figures,” she muttered. “Mysterious warnings always come with inconvenient props.”

Her light flickered over something scratched into the wood of the trunk. Letters. Faint, but legible.

M. R.

Her stomach tightened. Russo. But who was M?

Before she could lean closer, a noise creaked above her. The floorboards.

Someone in the house.

Sienna froze, breath caught, phone light trembling against the stone walls.

.

.

.........

The sound came again. A slow, deliberate creak of weight pressing against old wood.

Sienna’s pulse slammed in her ears. For a moment, she couldn’t tell if it was footsteps above her or the frantic beat inside her own chest. Every horror movie she’d ever half-watched came rushing back, each one whispering the same advice: don’t go into the basement. And yet, here she was.

She pressed her palm to the cold stone wall, grounding herself, forcing her breathing to stay quiet.

The footsteps crossed the kitchen — steady, unhurried. Whoever it was wasn’t trying to sneak. They wanted her to know they were there.

The latch rattled.

Her throat tightened. If the door swung open, she’d be caught instantly.

But then it didn’t. Instead, a faint thump echoed through the wood, like something had been set down on the counter. The footsteps shifted again, this time heading toward the front of the house.

The hinges groaned. The front door opening.

Then silence.

Sienna stayed frozen in the dark, counting. Thirty. Sixty. Ninety. Finally, when her lungs ached from shallow breathing, she flicked her phone light back on.

The cellar walls looked unchanged, the trunk still waiting in its shadowed corner. But the sense of being watched clung to her like cobwebs. She crept up the stairs, forcing herself not to wince at the creaks beneath her feet, and eased the cellar door open.

The kitchen was empty.

Almost.

On the table by the window sat a glass bottle of olive oil. Dark green. Heavy. Unlabeled.

Her stomach twisted. That hadn’t been there before.

With careful fingers, she lifted it. The glass was cool, the cork sealed. It looked ordinary, but the fact that someone had placed it here — silently, deliberately — made it anything but.

Beneath it, half-pinned by the weight of the bottle, was a scrap of folded paper.

She unfolded it with shaking hands.

One word, scrawled in sharp handwriting:

Leave.

Sienna stood there, staring at the note until the letters blurred. A wave of irritation rose to smother her fear. Leave? After a transatlantic flight, after jet lag and dust and cryptic men in black suits? Absolutely not.

She dropped the paper onto the counter and reached for her suitcase in the entryway. From inside, she dug out her Swiss Army knife and the tiny canister of pepper spray she carried everywhere in New York. Hardly heavy artillery, but enough to make her feel less exposed.

Her eyes flicked back to the cellar door.

The trunk was still down there. Locked. Waiting.

Maybe that was what Luca meant. Maybe someone else wanted it, badly enough to sneak into the house while she was standing twenty feet below.

The thought made her skin prickle, but it also lit something stubborn inside her.

If there was something hidden in this house, something worth breaking in for, she needed to find it before anyone else did.

She tightened her grip on the knife and stared at the note again.

“Leave,” she muttered under her breath. “Yeah, not happening.”

But as the last of the daylight faded outside, leaving the house wrapped in dusk, a cold thought threaded its way into her resolve.

If they wanted her gone this badly on the first night… what would they do if she stayed?