005: The Only Option

ALESSANDRO’S POV

“Looks like the ground is crumbling faster than you expected,” I said quietly, my voice echoing across the deserted space. “Now tell me, Adriana. Are you ready to reconsider my offer?”

I watched her spin around in the middle of the empty club floor like a broken doll caught in a storm. Rainwater soaked every inch of her clothes, making the thin fabric cling to her curves in a way that should have stirred desire but only sharpened the blade of my anger. Her dark hair hung in heavy, dripping strands around her face.

Those hazel eyes, flecked with gold that once bewitched me, now shone with fresh tears and pure disbelief. Her chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow bursts. She looked nothing like the woman who had once promised me forever. She looked ruined. She looked fragile in a way that should have softened me, instead the sight sent a dark, vicious satisfaction curling through my veins. Five years of carefully nurtured rage demanded this moment. I would not let it slip away.

“Why?” she whispered. Her voice cracked on the single word. “Why are you doing this to me?”

I took my time answering. I let the silence stretch between us until it became a living thing, heavy and suffocating. In the hours after she fled from the VIP room like a frightened animal, I had unleashed my men on her trail. They worked fast. Less than two hours later, I held every pathetic detail of her current life in the palm of my hand. The rundown apartment with peeling walls and leaking ceiling. The overdue rent notices stacked like accusations. The way she had escaped Roman with nothing but the clothes on her back and terror in her heart.

I owned this city. Uncovering her secrets required almost no effort at all. One threatening call to her landlord, and her belongings sat piled on the curb like garbage. One quiet conversation with Marco, and her job vanished as if it had never existed. Simple, clean, and effective.

I wanted her desperate. I wanted her stripped of every illusion that she could survive without me. Five years of pain demanded nothing less.

“Why wouldn’t I?” I finally replied. I stepped closer, my shoes echoing sharply on the wet floor. “You destroyed me, Adriana. You made sure I felt every second of that betrayal like a knife twisting in my gut. Now it is my turn to watch you bleed.”

Her lower lip trembled violently as fresh tears slipped down her cheeks, mixing with the rainwater. “You threatened my landlord. You got me fired. You threw me into the street like garbage. All of this just to force me into your bed?”

A bitter smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. “You are smarter than I remembered. Or maybe desperation has finally sharpened that mind of yours.”

She drew in a shaky breath and wiped her face with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of mascara across her cheek. “Do you enjoy seeing me cry? Does it really make you happy to watch me break like this?”

I looked straight into her eyes without hesitation. The words left my mouth like venom. “Yes. It does.”

They tasted sweet on my tongue, but something ugly and unwanted twisted deep in my chest at the same time. I crushed the feeling immediately. She deserved every tear, every tremble, and every fragment of fear that now clouded those hazel eyes. I had spent five long years replaying the night she destroyed me. I would not weaken now.

She shook her head slowly, as if the movement pained her. “Five years, Alessandro. And you still cannot let it go?”

“How can I let it go?” I growled.

The rage I had kept chained for so long surged forward. I closed the distance between us in two powerful strides until her back slammed against the wall. My hand came down hard beside her head, the loud crack of palm against plaster making her flinch.

“The night before you married him, you were in my bed, remember?” I continued, my voice crueler. “You moaned my name like a prayer. You told me you loved me, Adriana. You swore that our two years together meant everything. Then the very next morning you walked down that aisle to marry Roman De Santis as if I were nothing. You broke me first. So this… this is only the beginning of what you owe me.”

Her breathing came fast and shallow now. Tears streamed freely down her face, unchecked. She stared up at me with those wide hazel eyes full of hurt and bone-deep exhaustion. For one dangerous second, I remembered how those same eyes used to soften with love when they looked at me. How her laughter used to fill my nights. How her touch once felt like home. I shoved the memories away. They were lies, all of it.

Just then her phone began ringing loudly. She glanced at the screen, her face paling further, and quickly rejected the call. It rang again immediately. She rejected it once more. The phone kept vibrating in her hand, insistent and menacing. Again. And again.

Jealousy ignited like wildfire in my veins. It had to be another man calling her. The thought pushed me past the edge of control. I snatched the phone from her grasp before she could react and answered it, switching the call to speaker.

“You stupid bitch!” Roman’s voice exploded through the speaker, raw with venom and fury. “Do you really think you can hide from me forever? I will find you. And when I do, I will kill you and that pathetic little—”

Adriana lunged forward desperately and ripped the phone from my hand. She ended the call with a frantic tap. Her entire body shook as she clutched the device to her chest. Every trace of color had drained from her face, leaving her looking ghostly under the club lights.

I stared at her, my own chest tight with a chaotic storm of emotions I refused to name. Roman is hunting her. He’s even threatening to kill her. That unfinished sentence about a “pathetic little” something. The pieces refused to fit neatly together, but one truth emerged sharper than anything else. She was not safe out there. Not from her monster of a husband, not from the streets, not from anything.

I lowered my voice, forcing it into a calm, controlled tone that masked the fire still burning inside me. “You have no job. You have no home. And your husband wants you dead. Tell me, Adriana. Who exactly do you think is going to protect you now?”

“I’d rather sleep under a bridge,” she growled despite the tears falling down her cheeks like silent tears.

I let out a dark chuckle. “Then sleep under a bridge.”

She leaned heavily against the wall as if her legs could no longer support her weight. Her shoulders shook with suppressed sobs while the full horror of her situation crashed over her. The fight in her eyes flickered and died, replaced by raw, naked desperation.

“You’re a monster, Alessandro,” she muttered.

“You created me, Adriana,” I replied, letting a cold smirk play on the corners of my lips.

There was silence. Her fingers tightened around the phone until her knuckles turned white. She looked away from me, staring at nothing. I could practically see the war raging behind those tear-filled eyes. She was weighing every terrible choice in front of her and realizing none of them were good.

“Times’ ticking. What would it be? You on the street while Roman searches for you. Or you accept my offer,” I pressured.

She finally lifted her gaze to mine. Her voice emerged small, broken, and utterly defeated. “I… accept.”

The words struck me harder than any blow could have. After all her resistance, after every sharp accusation and every tear, she had finally said yes. I studied her face for a long moment, searching for any flicker of deception or hidden plan. I found none. Only pure exhaustion and the hollow look of someone with no options left.

“Smart choice.” My voice came out dark and final, laced with the satisfaction of victory. I stepped closer and brushed a wet strand of hair away from her cheek with my thumb. Her skin felt cold beneath my touch. “From this moment forward, you belong to me.”