CHAPTER SIX

DELIA

I woke up choking on panic.

My eyes saw a ceiling I didn’t know. It was high, white and had gold edges.

A chandelier was shining above me that is made for the damned. My heart started beating in my ears as I sat up quickly on….a velvet couch?

What the hell?

The living room looked like something rich criminals bragged about in movies marble floors, gold statues, two glass tables, a bar full of expensive drinks. The kind of place you saw once… before they dumped your body in the ocean.

And then I noticed them.

Men. Four of them.

All dressed in black. All staring at me.

My throat felt dry and tight.

One leaned against the far wall, dark hair slicked back, arms crossed, a tattoo crawling up his neck like a serpent. Another sat lazily on an armchair, cleaning dirt from his nails with a pocketknife like he wasn’t in a room with a terrified woman.

But the one in front the one sitting on the glass table directly opposite me had a cold smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

He looked like trouble dipped in expensive cologne.

“Finalmente,” he murmured. “Sleeping Beauty wakes.”

My throat went dry.

The man grinned wider, placing a hand dramatically over his heart.

“Sebastian Callista,” he introduced himself. “Underboss of the Callista Syndicate. Second to Don Leandro.”

My blood froze.

Leandro.

The man with turquoise eyes. The man from the hotel. The killer who shot someone like he was swatting a fly.

Sebastian turned his head, looking me up and down.

“You know… you look even more beautiful awake. But you look adorable when you sleep.” He smiled bigger as I paled.

“Relax, dolcezza. If we wanted you dead, you wouldn’t have woken up.”

My breath stuttered. “W-Where am I?”

“Safe,” he replied. “For now.”

Safe? With mafia men? Sure. Why not.

Before I could speak again, a loud scoff echoed across the room.

A woman stepped forward.

Tall. Beautiful and curvy with shiny black hair flowing down her back. It was like she had walked straight out of a fashion magazine and into the Mafia’s headquarters by mistake.

She looked at me like I was a disease.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she snapped. “Is this her?”

Sebastian didn’t even turn. “Priyanka, calm down.”

“No, Seb.” She pointed at me, looking really disgusted.

“You’re telling me this is the woman Leandro carried into the Golden Hills Hotel? This one?”

She eyed me pointedly. “This… plus-size charity case?”

I felt those words like slaps. Hard ones.

Sebastian’s jaw tightened. Fast.

“Enough,” he growled.

But Priyanka wasn’t done.

“I mean, really? Leandro doesn’t even look at women who aren’t a size zero. He’d never touch someone like her.”

She looked me up and down like I was garbage on their shiny floor.

I felt my face burning with embarrassment and fear, fear mostly.

Sebastian lunged at her, making me jump. He grabbed Priyanka's jaw, squeezing hard till she cried out.

“I said—enough.”

She glared but stayed quiet. Barely.

Then Sebastian turned back to me, voice calmer but still sharp like a blade.

“Dolcezza… do you know who Don Leandro is?”

I gulped hard. “I don’t….. I met him last night. I didn’t know he was-”

“A Mafia king?” he finished with a smirk.

“Danger incarnate?

The man who burned down a five-star hotel?”

My breath stopped.

So he did burn it down.

Sebastian leaned closer.

“Leandro doesn’t let just any woman put her hands on him. And you…” He glanced at my lips, then looked back into my eyes.

“You were on his arm.”

“I grabbed him,” I whispered. “Because I needed to get inside the hotel. I….I didn’t even know he was important.”

He studied my face slowly, like trying to read every lie I never said.

Priyanka rolled her eyes dramatically. “Sì, certo. Like he would let a stranger cling to him unless he wanted her there.”

“I don’t know him!” I repeated, louder this time.

“Please…..I swear I barely spoke to him.”

The room fell silent.

The men froze.

Sebastian's smile disappeared.

And suddenly the warmth drained from the air.

“Dolcezza…” he said softly. “If you lie to us again, I will know. And I promise you….the consequence won’t be pleasant.”

I felt sick.

“I’m not lying.”

He sat back, his face expressionless.

Priyanka crossed her arms. “She’s useless. We should dump her.”

Dump her.

Like a body.

A chill ran down my spine.

Sebastian tapped the table lightly with two fingers. “No. Not yet.”

He stood up and took slow steps toward me, stopping so close I could smell the expensive cologne radiating off him.

“Here’s the problem, Delia.”

He said my name like he had owned it long before I ever existed.

“Don Leandro doesn’t pay attention to women. He doesn’t even tolerate them in his space. And yet… you…” He raised a brow. “You, he let into a hotel. You he shielded.”

“I don’t know why,” I whispered.

Sebastian’s eyes furrowed.

His men shifted, hands inching toward hidden holsters.

I felt the air tighten.

And for a terrifying moment, I thought that was it that they were done playing with me.

So I did what any terrified person would do.

I lied.

“Fine….” I breathed. “We… we met. Twice. Maybe he thought I was someone else.”

Priyanka scoffed loudly. “Or maybe he’s bored. Who knows.”

Sebastian smirked.

“That’s more believable.” He crouched to my eye level. “Good girl. Now we are getting somewhere.”

My heart was racing.

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

His smile sharpened.

“I need eyes on Leandro. I need someone close to him.” He flipped a strand of hair from my shoulder.

“I need you to spy for me.”

My breath left my lungs.

“Spy? On your boss?”

“On the Don,” he corrected.

“And if you lie, hold back, disappear, or even think of running…”

He leaned in, so close his breath brushed my ear.

“I will kill you. And your friends.”

My blood froze.

Carrie. Shawn.

He knew.

“How….how do you-”

“Dolcezza,” he whispered, “we are Mafia. We know everything.”

My hands started trembling uncontrollably.

“I’ll do it,” I breathed. I didn’t have a choice.

Sebastian laughed softly, patting my cheek like I was a pet.

“Knew you were smart.”

Two men dragged me toward the door, practically tossing me outside. I stumbled onto the pavement like garbage dumped behind a restaurant.

I hugged myself, shivering in the evening air.

How the hell was I supposed to get close to a Mafia Don who killed people with no hesitation?

How was I supposed to spy on a man whose eyes alone could stop my heart?

I stood by the side of the road, stranded, helpless, shaking.

And that was when a sleek black car rolled toward me slowly, deliberately.

It stopped right in front of me.

The tinted window rolled down.

And my heart froze to death in my chest.

Because sitting inside…