CHAPTER 2

.

.

.

ELYSIA 

A low, aching throb pulsed between my legs, deep and foreign, like someone had split me open and left the wound burning.

I sighed into the pillow. It felt so … soft, expensive, smells like smoke and male skin and the sound turned into a whimper before I could stop it. My thighs felt sticky. My breasts stung where rough hands had marked them. Every muscle protested when I tried to shift.

Then my eyes snapped open. I realized it too late. This wasn’t my bed. This wasn’t my room.

Black silk sheets. A ceiling so high it swallowed sound. Floor-to-ceiling windows showing the city still drunk at dawn, all pink and bruised. The air smelled like sex and danger, and the sheets beside me were cold.

Panic hit like ice water.

I sat up too fast. The room spun. My head screamed. Between my thighs the ache sharpened into proof- wet, sore, used. I looked down and saw bruises blooming on my hips in the shape of fingerprints. My dress was shredded on the floor like a crime scene. My panties… nowhere.

Oh God.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. Flashes slammed into me, merciless: Strobe lights. Tequila burning my throat. A hard chest under my palms. Dark eyes that looked like the end of everything.

My own voice, broken and desperate: “Kiss me. Make it stop hurting.”

I slept with a stranger. I begged a stranger. I gave him my virginity on a nightclub mattress like it meant nothing. I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep the sob inside. My legs shook when I swung them over the edge of the bed. The carpet was plush, black, swallowing my bare feet. No sign of him. No wallet, no watch, no note. Just the heavy gold lighter on the nightstand with a tiny engraved AV I didn’t want to think about.

I had to get out. Now.

I snatched my ruined dress, held it together with trembling fingers, and found my clutch under the bed. Phone still had a 9 % battery. Shoes- God, where were my shoes? . I didn’t care. I tiptoed to the door, turned the handle like it might explode, and slipped into a private hallway that smelled like leather and gun oil.

An elevator waited, all mirrored walls and gold accents. My reflection looked like a crime victim: mascara tracks, lips swollen, neck covered in hickeys and bite marks. I wanted to die.

The elevator opened straight into a private garage. A single black Maserati sat under a spotlight like a predator sleeping. I ran past it barefoot, heart hammering, until I found a side exit that spat me onto a quiet street behind the club.

Cold morning air slapped me awake. I waved down the first taxi I saw, dove into the back seat, and croaked my home address through chattering teeth.

The driver raised an eyebrow at my state but said nothing. Thank God for city cabbies.

I dialed Lisa with shaking fingers. My bestfriend. Two rings. “Lyse? It’s seven in the morning, babe, where are you—” 

“I’m coming to you,” I rasped. “Ten minutes. Please be home.”

“Elysia, you sound like death. What happened?”

“Just… open the door. I’ll tell you when I get there.” I hung up before I started crying. What have I done? 

The ride was torture. Every bump sent a fresh reminder of what—who—had been inside me hours ago. I pressed my forehead to the cool window and watched the city wake up like nothing had changed. Everything had.

Lisa’s apartment door flew open before I could knock. She took one look at me. I was barefoot, clutching my torn dress, neck a map of violence—and yanked me inside. “Jesus Christ.” She slammed the door, locked it, dragged me to the couch. “Talk. Now.”

I collapsed. The tears finally came, hot and ugly. “I caught Matteo with Valentina,” I started, voice cracking. “I walked in on them yesterday. I lost it and went to Obsidian alone. Got wasted. Like… black-out wasted.” I swallowed.

 “I saw this guy in VIP and I—I thought he was Matteo for a second. I was so drunk, Lis. I climbed into his lap and I kissed him and I begged him to—” My voice broke completely. “I begged him to fuck me. And he did. Hard. I woke up in some penthouse and I just ran.”

Lisa’s eyes were saucers. “You don’t remember his name?”

“I don’t remember saying yes,” I whispered. “I just remember wanting the pain to stop and his mouth tasted like smoke and then—” I gestured helplessly at my destroyed body. “I wasn’t a virgin when I woke up.”

Lisa pulled me into her arms and let me sob into her hoodie until there was nothing left.

Eventually she pushed me back, wiped my face with her sleeve like we were fifteen again.

“Okay,” she said firmly. “First—shower. Second—Plan B, I’ve got some. Third—we are reporting that sick ex bastard if you want. No judgment either way. This is your call. Was the guy handsome? The one who fucked you rough- .”

I laughed, and it sounded insane. “I don’t even know his name, Lis.” She opened her mouth, closed it. Then: “Was he… was he rough?” I looked away. “He was brutal. And I think I liked it. That’s the worst part.” Silence stretched between us.

I hated feeling that for a stranger but I couldn't lie. 

Finally Lisa exhaled. “Matteo is dead to us. Valentina too. Fuck both of them. You are not going to waste one more tear on people who hurt you. You hear me?” “Fuck him,” I said, voice raw but steady for the first time. “I’m not crying over that cheating bastard again. I’m done.”

Lisa squeezed my hand. “Good girl. Now go shower. I’ll make coffee strong enough to wake the dead.” I was halfway to the bathroom when my phone rang. Unknown number- but the preview showed Valentina’s name. We were never on good terms and never had each other’s contact. How did she get my number? My stomach dropped like a stone.

I didn’t want to answer. Every instinct screamed to let it ring. But it was my sister and she would not call me unless it was something important?  I swiped accept and put it on speaker so Lisa could hear.

Before I could even say hello, Valentina’s voice exploded through the phone, high and terrified.

“Elysia! Oh my God, come home right now! Please—”

“slow down—”

“They have guns! Men in masks—Dad’s gone and they’re holding us—Mamma’s crying—they said the debt falls to the family and if you don’t come home right now they’ll—”

A muffled scream. My mother’s voice in the background, pleading.

Then a deeper voice, calm and horribly familiar, came on the line. Low, accented, dripping with ice.

“Elysia Moretti,” it purred, and every hair on my body stood up. I knew that voice. I’d moaned into that voice last night while it wrecked me apart. “You have one hour. Come home alone. Or your pretty sister loses a finger for every minute you’re late.”

The call ended. The phone slipped from my hand and hit the carpet.

Lisa stared at me, face drained of color. “Lyse… who was that?” My legs gave out. I sank to the floor, staring at the bruises on my thighs shaped exactly like his grip. The man who took my virginity in a nightclub penthouse.

The man whose voice just promised to cut pieces off my family if I didn’t obey. I finally remembered the lighter on the nightstand. The tiny engraved AV.

Adrian Valente.

The Mafia King of the entire southern coast.

And I had climbed into his lap, kissed him, spread my legs, and begged him to ruin me… twelve hours before he came to collect a debt my father apparently owed him.

I was going to die.

Or worse.