Episode 3 :- The devil's dinner table

Crimson Vows – Episode 3: The Devil’s Dinner Table

The table was set for war.

Candlelight flickered across white bone china, the crystal glasses sparkling like sins waiting to spill. The grand dining room in the Moretti estate was quiet—too quiet, save for the ticking of the vintage clock and the quiet hum of jazz in the background.

Ariella sat at the far end, spine straight, red lipstick perfect, wearing a black velvet dress that hugged her like a secret. Across from her, Luca Moretti leaned back in his chair, tie loose, eyes dark with suspicion and something more dangerous—desire he hadn’t decided to trust yet.

Between them sat plates of untouched osso buco and carefully poured red wine.

“How did you get that photo?” Ariella asked finally, voice even, but her hands were curled into fists in her lap.

Luca swirled his wine. “That’s the question you choose to ask, after breaking into my private office?”

She didn’t blink. “It was taken in Moscow. I was seven.”

“I know,” he said. “You had blood on your shoes.”

Ariella’s breath caught. She remembered that night. The smell of gunpowder. Her mother screaming. Her father’s men dragging her to safety while the house burned.

“You were watching me even then?” she asked, her voice low.

“I was there.”

Silence dropped like a knife between them.

“You killed him,” she said slowly. “My uncle.”

Luca didn’t deny it.

“He was carving a Bratva empire in my city. I don’t like thieves.”

Her grip on the glass tightened. “You burned our safehouse.”

“He made the mistake of hiding behind children,” Luca said. “That doesn’t make him innocent.”

Ariella looked away, jaw tight. “You don’t get to talk about innocence. You lost yours long before I ever met you.”

“No,” Luca said softly. “I never had it.”

---

The tension between them built like a fuse. And still—they ate together.

As if sharing a table meant they weren’t already at war.

“You didn’t answer me,” she said after a while. “Why keep that photo? Why keep me close if you knew who I was?”

He looked at her, gaze unreadable. “Because you were a ghost I couldn’t kill. And now you’re a woman I can’t let go.”

Ariella’s breath stilled.

“I brought you here,” he said, rising from the table, “because I want to show you something.”

He held out his hand. She hesitated—then took it.

---

He led her down the marble hallway, past armed guards who didn’t make eye contact, and into a small room at the back of the estate. It was dimly lit, sterile. A single glass panel on the far wall revealed a concrete cell on the other side.

Inside the cell sat a man—bloodied, tied to a chair, barely conscious.

Ariella’s stomach turned. “Who is he?”

“A traitor,” Luca said. “One of yours.”

She looked at him sharply.

“He planted a bug in my club,” Luca continued. “Fed intel to the Bratva. When I traced the wire, I found it led to your network.”

She tried to keep her expression calm. “So you think I’m working with him?”

“I think,” Luca said, stepping close enough for her to feel the heat of his body, “that you’re walking a very thin line between my bed and my grave. I haven’t decided which one you belong in.”

Her heart pounded.

“I didn’t plant the bug,” she said quietly.

“But you knew about it,” he replied.

He was right.

She had.

---

He turned away, pressing a code into the wall panel. The lights in the cell flickered on, revealing just how badly the man inside had been beaten. Ariella’s stomach flipped. She knew him. His name was Nikolai—a foot soldier in her father’s network. He wasn’t meant to be caught.

“I’m giving you a choice,” Luca said. “End him. Prove where you stand.”

Her blood ran cold.

“You want me to kill him?”

“No. I need you to. Or I’ll know exactly which side you’re still on.”

Ariella stared at the glass. At the broken man who once served her father. A man who’d protected her as a child.

This was the test.

Her heart screamed no.

But her mission whispered yes.

She turned to Luca. “Give me the gun.”

His gaze didn’t change, but she saw the flash of something behind it—admiration? Relief? Madness?

He handed her a small pistol.

No safety. One shot.