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36. Privacy Is An Illusion

Penulis: Erika Lana Bell
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-15 14:32:47
The door closes behind me with a muted thud, and the sound barely registers over the ringing in my ears. I twist the lock, needing to hear it click, needing something—anything—that belongs to me, even if it’s just the illusion of privacy.

My legs feel tight beneath me, like I’ve been holding myself upright for too long. I tug off my shirt, hard, until the fabric gives, then kick off my boots. The jeans slips down my legs next—in a rush I can’t stand to feel. I step out of them like they’re contaminated, like they’re carrying all the weight and the cluster-fucks of the evening inside of them.

The necklace goes next. The earrings. I rip them off one by one, ignoring the sting at my earlobes, letting the pieces scatter across the floor. They land with dull, empty clicks. I don’t bother looking. I don’t want to see anything that ties me to what just happened.

My feet move on their own, dragging me toward the bathroom like I’m walking through sludge. I can feel it building inside me—that fa
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  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   39. Inevitable Pain

    Hale’s pov.The door’s locked.Of course she fucking locked it.I try the handle once again, and it still doesn’t budge. I shift the covered silver tray in my hand and glance at the sealed line between wood and frame like it’s testing me.The tray isn’t heavy, but I’ve been holding it long enough that the weight presses into my palm. Steak. Roasted vegetables. Garlic bread she probably won’t touch. I had them make it fresh.She hasn’t eaten since early afternoon. Not properly, at least. And that shower earlier probably drained what little strength she had left.I shouldn’t be surprised she locked the door. After what happened when she walked out of the bathroom—my comment to intentionally provoke her—because fuck it, I love it when she’s riled up—then the slap, the look she gave me before I walked out—I knew this would be her next move. She’s predictable in that way. Hurt, retreat, pretend she’s fine, then lash out when her silence isn’t enough.I wait another breath.My eyes drift to

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   38. A Shocking Revelation

    The folder slips from my lap and hits the floor, the sound barely audible beneath the roaring in my ears, but it punches straight through my spine like an electric jolt. The photo slides free, landing face up, and I’m still for too long.My chest rises, but no breath comes. My lungs feel like they’re suspended—just locked in place while I stare at what I shouldn’t be seeing.Blood. Limbs. Lifeless eyes. Shredded clothing. Debris littering the ground around the bodies like their home had been ripped apart with no warning. A woman collapsed at the edge of the frame, her arm stretched outward, her nails torn. An older couple nearby, slumped in the dirt, faces slack with terror and pain. Two children crumpled together—one with hair fanned out, skin marked with ash and grime and what looks like gunpowder burn.And in the center of it all, a man, face down, arms wrapped around a boy no older than what I guessed to be six or seven. Maybe eight—it’s hard to tell. The boy’s small hand is clenc

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   37. A Piece Of Property

    Hale doesn’t say a word.I grab the edge of the towel tighter and bare my teeth. “What the hell do you want?”His eyes linger on my face, then down to my clenching thighs. For hell sake, did he just hear me? “You took your time.”Yes, he fucking did. The nerve of him.I step back, but only a little. Enough to let him know I’m not letting him walk into this space like he owns it, even if we both know he does.“You think you can just show up wherever you want?”“I do,” he says evenly. “Because I can.”I clench my jaw until it hurts. “You already got what you wanted. You put your brand on me like I’m one of your goddamn containers. You paraded me in front of your enemies like I’m some trophy you won at auction.” Fucked me senseless, but I’m not about to say that out loud. “What else could you possibly want now?”He pushes off the wall and moves toward me. Slow. Intentional. His eyes don’t leave mine. “To remind you who you belong to.”My chest tightens. “I don’t belong to anyone.”He sto

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   36. Privacy Is An Illusion

    The door closes behind me with a muted thud, and the sound barely registers over the ringing in my ears. I twist the lock, needing to hear it click, needing something—anything—that belongs to me, even if it’s just the illusion of privacy.My legs feel tight beneath me, like I’ve been holding myself upright for too long. I tug off my shirt, hard, until the fabric gives, then kick off my boots. The jeans slips down my legs next—in a rush I can’t stand to feel. I step out of them like they’re contaminated, like they’re carrying all the weight and the cluster-fucks of the evening inside of them.The necklace goes next. The earrings. I rip them off one by one, ignoring the sting at my earlobes, letting the pieces scatter across the floor. They land with dull, empty clicks. I don’t bother looking. I don’t want to see anything that ties me to what just happened.My feet move on their own, dragging me toward the bathroom like I’m walking through sludge. I can feel it building inside me—that fa

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   35. His Brand On My Body

    Hale’s jacket is yanked off my head with a brutal kind of finality. For a second, I have to blink against the sudden flood of artificial light that slams into my vision—then I feel all the air deflating from my lungs.I don’t need to see the padded bed to know where we are. My chest already knows. My spine already knows. The familiar chill crawls down the back of my neck and burrows deep into my bones before I even raise my head.No.No, no, no, no—We’re back.Back in that fucking room.Back in the dungeon with the sterile walls and shackles and restraints built into the damn furniture like it’s designed to swallow sanity whole.The second I see the bed—the one with the leather cuffs stretched taut on either side—I twist on instinct, shoving at Hale’s chest with every ounce of strength I have left, aiming for the door behind him even though I know, deep down, I’ll never reach it.My boot barely scrapes the floor before he grabs me.I thrash. I kick. I fight with every ounce of streng

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   34. Flair

    “What?” I manage, but it’s barely more than a whisper.“He made me an offer,” Hale states, his voice is so maddeningly steady it makes me want to claw the air just to feel something break. A damn human reaction—even if it’s pure temper.His eyes flick toward the table across the room—the one we sat at earlier, now curling with black smoke as two members of the staff frantically toss damp towels over the remains. Someone burned the table, apparently, and it doesn’t take much for me to figure out who that someone was. “I took care of it,” he adds, like that explains anything.My head turns, slow and stiff, like it’s moving through tar. “So you turned him down?”He shrugs, one shoulder rising and falling like the whole thing bored him, like the details are beneath him. “It was a shitty offer.”My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. I have no idea what to say to that, or how to process what it means that he rejected a deal that would’ve handed me back to the devil who destroyed me.And k

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   33. Flames

    Cali’s pov.The bar is dim and cold, not from lack of heating but from the kind of sterile, soulless chill that clings to places built for transactions and silence, the kind of chill that seeps into your bones when there’s too much unsaid between the walls and not enough light to burn it away. I sit hunched on a red leather stool that’s seen better days, the shine on it dull and creased, like my spine, like my thoughts—like my resolve. The burger in front of me, stacked high and absurd with garnish and grease, is a disaster I haven’t even touched, save for the single bite I took ten minutes ago just to convince the hovering bartender I wasn’t going to start sobbing into the ketchup bottle.I press my forefinger into the sesame seed bun, watching the juices pool out from the edge where the meat is beginning to gray at the edges, losing heat and appeal in equal measure. My fingers curl and uncurl around the edges of the chipped ceramic plate, just for the sake of doing something with my

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   32. No Deal

    Hale’s pov.The second Killian Vale suggests we talk in private, I know exactly the kind of man I’m dealing with. The type who thinks they can buy anything they see. And if they can’t buy it—they steal it, or take it by force.I already know exactly what he wants, just by the way he’s been leering at my wife.“Whatever you’ve got to say,” I tell him, flat and unbothered, “you can say in front of everyone.”He doesn’t like that. His jaw tightens, smile still in place, but his eyes give him away. He expected control. A closed door where he could spin whatever power fantasy he’s been rehearsing since he crawled out of whatever grave he faked. He expected me to play along.Then I feel her again.Her hand has curled tightly around my arm, just above the elbow, fingers clutching the fabric of my jacket like it’s the only solid thing in the room. She’s shaking. Her breathing is too slow, like she’s manually forcing every inhale to match a rhythm that doesn’t exist anymore.Killian’s presence

  • Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King   31. Risen From The Dead

    Cali’s pov.The second Killian Vale—my supposedly dead fiance—walks in, the air is sucked out of the room.It’s like the devil returned to claim what he thinks still belongs to him, as if no time has passed, as if his death—news I learn now was nothing but a well-played lie.My lungs seize.I want nothing more than to run from this room. To escape the horrors crawling out of the crevices of my memories involving this monster.But my legs don’t work right, and my throat has closed off so tight I can barely remember how to breathe through it.I forget the conversation I was half-listening to. I forget the half-drunk glass of wine sweating on the table in front of me. I forget—for a fraction of a minute—the damned situation I was in with Hale Holt.I forget everything.Except him.He’s taller than I remember. Broader across the shoulders. His hair’s shorter, his jaw sharper, and there’s a new scar dragging across his collarbone that wasn’t there the last time I saw him, but it’s the way

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