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12. Mindfuck

Penulis: Erika Lana Bell
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-02 02:42:55

His breath grazes the nape of my neck like a brand.

I can feel the air shifting around me, the sound of his gloves tightening at the wrists, the weighted pause in the room—like the walls themselves are holding their breath, waiting to watch me fall apart. My pulse thrashes in my throat. Every inch of my skin feels like it’s crawling. I can barely hear past the rush of blood in my ears.

He moves behind me, slowly. Deliberately.

“I’m going to teach you what punishment feels like,” he murmurs, low and rough, like gravel scraping across bare nerves. “Not with pain. Not with bruises. That’d be too easy for someone like you. No. You don’t learn that way.”

I bite down hard, fists clenching in the cuffs behind me as I brace myself against the padded bench. My thighs are trembling, rage and dread twisting together into something molten.

“You learn through denial,” he continues, circling behind me like a predator. “Through control. Through the parts of you that beg while your mouth says otherwi
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  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   134. Italy

    Cali’s pov.I’m still standing when he tells me no.Not gently. Not regretfully. Just—no. Firm, clipped, final. The word slams into me like a wall of glass, sharp and cold, and I feel every jagged piece slice clean through the thin thread of patience I’ve been holding onto since he first said “Burke runs the ring.”No?No?“You’re not going,” Hale says again, like that’s the end of it. Like my rage and fear don’t matter. Like I’m some child being told to stay put while the adults handle the dangerous parts.I don’t yell. I don’t cry. I just stare at him with ice in my chest and heat burning my throat.“I’m not asking for permission,” I say tightly.His jaw clenches. “Yes, you are.”I take a step forward. “You think you get to lock me out of this? Again? After everything?”“Your sister needs you here.”“She needs us both alive.”“You think you’ll protect her better by running into a war zone halfway across the world?”I shake my head, fury swelling behind my ribs. “You think I’m reckle

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   133. The Ring

    Cali’s pov. He hasn’t looked me in the eye in hours.Not while we were eating dinner. Not while I tucked Belle in after her latest round of medication. Not even when he brushed his lips across my temple and whispered goodnight like everything was fine.It’s not.I see it in the way his jaw tightens whenever his phone buzzes. In the way his fingers curl when he thinks I’m not watching. In the way he slips out of bed after midnight, barefoot and silent, like he’s carrying something too dangerous to share.And I’m done pretending not to notice.I wait until I hear the floorboard creak in the hall. Then I slip from the sheets, wrap Hale’s robe around me, and pad toward the sound.His office door is cracked open. Light spills into the corridor in a thin line. I pause before I reach it, every instinct telling me to turn around. Give him space. Trust that he’ll tell me when he’s ready.But space never got me answers.And trust only got me sold.So I creep closer.I recognize his voice first

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   132. Suspicious

    Cali’s pov.Something’s off.Hale hasn’t said anything. Hasn’t done anything, not really. But I know him now. I know the silence he wears like armor when he’s bracing for war. The way he avoids looking me dead in the eye when he’s lying by omission. The restless way his thumb taps against his thigh when he’s pretending he’s not itching to move, to act, to burn something down.He’s hiding something. I can feel it in my bones.It started days ago, subtly. A few curt responses. The occasional side-glance at his phone during dinner. A sudden uptick in hushed conversations over secure comm lines and men arriving at the mansion with stern expressions and files tucked under their arms. I caught him sending one of his lieutenants out with a burner phone and a set of unmarked plates for a car I’ve never seen before. And when I ask him directly, he just brushes me off.“I’m handling something,” he says. “It doesn’t concern you.”But that’s not how things have been between us. Not since we cross

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   131. Buried Under His Reach

    Hale’s pov. The hallway feels colder than usual. Quiet, too quiet. A type of silence I’ve learned not to trust.Belle’s door is shut. That’s a good sign. Means she’s resting. But I don’t go to check—because I already did, twice, and Cali caught me hovering like some overprotective warden. I let her have this time with her sister. God knows they’ve earned it.Still, the unease hasn’t left me.Something’s not sitting right. And it isn’t just Belle’s condition.It’s the way she’s been watching windows. Flinching at footsteps. Staying far from corners of the house with too many shadows. That’s fear, yes—but not the usual kind. It’s as if she knows something she hasn’t said. Or worse, brought something in she didn’t mean to.I head into my office and shut the door behind me. The faint scent of clove oil lingers from the diffuser near the bookshelf—Cali insisted on setting one up in here. “To stop you from smelling like gunpowder and death,” she said.The truth is, both are still baked int

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   130. Diagnosis

    I pace the hallway like a madwoman, one hand fisted in the hem of my shirt, the other curling into my palm so tightly my nails dig half-moons into the flesh.Belle’s collapsed.Just dropped—like her body gave up mid-step. No warning. No cry for help. One second she was standing beside me in the hallway, trying to laugh at something stupid I said about the scrambled eggs being suspiciously runny, and the next, she folded like a ragdoll into my arms.I screamed for Hale before I even knew what was happening.Now I wait.The doctor—one of Hale’s trusted contacts, a private physician who works off record and on retainer—has been in there for over an hour. Hale sent the staff away. Belle’s room is closed off. I can’t even hear her breathing through the door.I hate this.I hate this so goddamn much.My sister just got out of hell. And now it’s like her body is betraying her in the aftermath.I don’t even realize I’ve gone still until I hear the low murmur of voices behind the door. It crea

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   129. Sick

    Cali’s pov. Belle’s been pale all morning. Not the kind of pale that comes from too little sleep or too much anxiety—but ghost-white. Her lips are almost blue. She hasn’t eaten more than two bites of the fruit I plated for her, and when I ask if she’s cold, she just shrugs and huddles deeper into the fleece I draped around her shoulders.“She just needs time,” I murmur to myself.It’s what I keep telling Hale. What I keep telling myself. She’s been through hell. Anyone would be shaken. The bruises haven’t even fully faded from her skin.But this… this doesn’t feel like just trauma.I glance at her again. Her lashes flutter where she sits on the velvet couch, head propped against a pillow that looks too big for her frame. She’s barely registering the conversation happening around her.My throat tightens.I should ask.But I don’t.Not yet.Because the last thing she needs is me pushing her when she’s finally in a safe place.“Belle?” I try softly, brushing my hand against hers.Her fi

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