MasukFranca ran back to their room as tears poured down her cheeks.
Raven called out her name and hurried after her, but before she could reach the door, Franca slammed it shut and locked it from the inside.
"Franca, please open the door," Raven begged softly, knocking.
Franca refused to answer.
Just then, Matteo walked down the hallway and noticed Raven standing alone. He approached quietly.
"When you’re less busy," he said, "the family has something important to discuss with you. After your chores tomorrow morning."
Raven gave him a nod and whispered, "Ok sir."
Marcus had arrived at the club. After downing a glass of strong liquor and watching the strippers swirl on the pole with practiced seduction, he headed upstairs to his private suite. Two women were already waiting on the bed, posed seductively just as he liked—lingerie slipping off their curves, their eyes gleaming with heat.
They crawled to him, one tugging at his belt while the other kissed his chest. Their hands explored, mouths teased, but Marcus felt... nothing.
His mind had betrayed him.
Instead of moaning in pleasure, all he could think of was Raven—how her body curved in just the right places, the way her eyes widened when surprised, her full breasts, her soft hips. Her smile. The way she had looked at him when she caught him masturbating... it haunted him. Stirred something deeper.
He suddenly felt numb to the touch of the two women beside him. Irritated, he stood up, grabbed his wallet, and tossed a few notes on the table.
"Give that to your madam," he muttered.
Without another word, he left the club and drove home in silence.
The next morning came too quickly. After her chores, Raven was summoned by the Gonzales family. She stood quietly as they spoke, her heart sinking.
"You’ll be visiting your parents this weekend. We have picked you as a wife and a perfect match for Marcus," Matteo informed her with a firm tone. "Weekend is already close."
"But...."
Matteo instantly shot a glare at her. "But what? Raven!"
Raven shook her head awkwardly and lowered her gaze. "Nothing," she whispered softly, her heart aching.
She was as powerless as a lifeless lamb and could do nothing. Objecting to the most dangerous mafia family in the country might cost her family their lives.
But her boyfriend? Raven clutch the hem of her dress thinking how hurt he was going to be.
Later that night, Marcus couldn’t sleep. He fumbled against his bed. His desire had built into something he could no longer control. Instead of returning to his own suite, he stayed in one of the guest rooms downstairs. Then he sent for Raven.
He claimed he needed a massage, for his back was sore.
Raven hesitated, but obeyed. She entered the dimly lit room, her steps quiet. Marcus lay on the bed, shirtless.
She began to massage him gently, her fingers gliding over his back. But then, he turned, grabbed her waist, and pulled her down onto the bed.
She gasped, but not out of fear. It was... need.
She should have resisted. She should have screamed.
But she didn’t.
His lips found hers, deep and urgent. Their kiss was hungry, slow, and electric. Raven moaned softly as he began to undress her, his fingers exploring places untouched. She was soaked already.
When he reached down, his fingers paused.
"You’re tight," he whispered, looking into her eyes. "Are you... a virgin?"
She nodded.
"But I thought you had a boyfriend," he asked.
"We never did anything serious," she said shyly.
Marcus smirked, surprised and turned on. "Wow."
He leaned back, slowly pulling his already huge cock free, thick and really hard. "Come here," he said. "Suck it for me. Maybe I’ll save your virginity for our wedding night... but right now, I need your mouth."
Raven’s eyes widened slightly, but she moved forward. His size was intimidating, yet she wanted him more than she could explain. She wrapped her lips around him, her mouth warm. She bent on her knees, her breath trembling with anticipation. Her eyes were locked on Marcus’s as her delicate fingers wrapped around his hard, throbbing cock. It twitched in her grasp, hot and heavy, the tip already glistening with pre-cum. She looked up at him, lips parted, waiting, begging, for a command.
He didn’t need to say a word.
She leaned in and let her tongue glide slowly along his shaft, tracing the thick vein that pulsed beneath his skin. Marcus groaned low in his throat, one hand sinking into her hair, fingers tightening as she began to kiss and suck along the length of him. Her lips were soft, wet, and eager. And when she finally took him into her mouth, Marcus cursed under his breath.
"Fuck, Raven... just like that..."
Her tongue swirled around the head before she took him deeper, inch by inch, until her throat stretched to take more of him. She gagged slightly but didn’t stop—she loved the way he filled her, the way he tasted, the way his cock twitched every time she moaned around it. Her fingers slid between her thighs, stroking her soaked pussy while she worked his shaft with her mouth like she was starving for it.
"Shit... your mouth feels too fucking good," he growled, hips rolling slowly, forcing himself deeper into her throat.
Tears welled up in her eyes from the pressure, but her expression was pure bliss. She kept going—spit dripping down her chin, her breasts heaving beneath the tight fabric of her dress. She looked sinful, desperate, perfect.
Marcus pulled her off for a moment, her lips smacking wetly as she gasped for air. A strand of saliva clung from her tongue to the tip of his cock.
"Open your mouth," he ordered.
She obeyed.
He tapped his cock on her tongue, slow, heavy slaps that made her moan and close her eyes. Then she swallowed him again, greedier this time, sucking with messy, wet enthusiasm. Her fingers were already coated with her own slick arousal as she rubbed tight circles around her clit, moaning louder each time he hit the back of her throat.
Her legs trembled. Her pussy clenched hard around nothing, aching for more—for him to take her, ruin her completely.
And then it hit. Her orgasm slammed into her like a violent wave. Her thighs shook, her mouth never left his cock as she came, hard and helpless, soaking herself as her cries were muffled by his thickness.
Marcus didn’t stop her.
He just held her face there, watching her fall apart while his cock was buried deep inside her mouth.
When she finally collapsed back on her heels, panting, face flushed and glistening with spit, she looked up at him with glassy eyes and whispered, "I want more..."
Marcus groaned deeply, caressing her hair. "That’s it, baby. Call me Daddy. Take all of me."
Her pace quickened, Marcus’s hand sliding between her thighs.
"I think I’m cumming," she whispered.
He growled, gripping her ass, before lifting her slightly and sucking her breasts, firm and full in his mouth.
Moments later, she came with a soft cry.
Breathless and dizzy, Raven slipped into the bathroom and quickly washed herself. When she returned, Marcus was already asleep.
She dressed in silence, careful not to wake him, and tiptoed out of the room.
But as she stepped into the hallway, she froze.
At the end of the corridor stood Franca—watching, arms crossed, eyes filled with something that made Raven’s heart drop…
The night broke against the city like a wave against glass, very quiet, yet fractured, almost elegant in its ruin.Matteo had always liked cities at night. The way the light fell across wet streets, the hum of traffic beneath everything, the sound of people living, lying, trying. It was easier to disappear in noise than in silence. And lately, that’s all he wanted, to vanish.But Raven had made that impossible.They’d been in the new safehouse for three weeks, maybe four; the days blended together. Raven and Elias had adjusted faster than he did, or maybe they just pretended better. The walls were thin, the air smelled of old cigarettes and fresh paint, and the TV never worked right. It was a place built for ghosts.And now Raven had gone and stirred one up.He had told her not to take that meeting,he had told her three times. “We’re supposed to be invisible,” he’d said. “You don’t meet anyone. Not contacts, not dealers, not old friends.”But she had gone anyway.By the time he got th
The city never really slept, it just changed its rhythm. By day, it was all noise and traffic, a symphony of horns and impatience. But at night, it exhaled. The streets quieted to a pulse, the kind you could feel through the soles of your boots if you stood still long enough. Matteo liked that pulse. It reminded him he was alive, even when everything else in him felt mechanical.He hadn’t spoken to Raven in two days, not really. They exchanged updates on safehouse maintenance, casino movements, surveillance patterns but nothing beneath that surface. She was ice, deliberate. Elias was distracted by Liora, wrapped up in something reckless and new. Matteo didn’t mind; the boy had earned a moment of foolishness. What unsettled him was the silence Raven left behind.She had built walls higher than anyone he’d ever met, and somehow, he’d grown accustomed to the cracks the moments when she let him glimpse what was underneath. But lately, even the cracks had sealed.That night, he found her
Liora’s POV.The night was a cheap suit creased, cigarette-burned, and stinking of sweat and lies. I’d worn it a hundred times before, in a hundred different cities with the same story, different backdrop. Men who thought the table loved them, women who thought the house would let them walk away smiling, and the shadows that fed on both.That was the casino for you. An animal with too many teeth and not enough patience. And me? I was the parasite riding its back, knowing when to bleed it and when to stay quiet.I saw Elias long before he saw me. That boy moved like he was trying not to move, which is the same as putting a flare on your back in a place like this. You can’t half-breathe in a pit full of wolves. Either you look like you belong, or you look like food.And Elias he was too clean, too wired. His eyes darted, his hands twitched, but there was something underneath it. A storm held tight in a bottle, waiting for someone stupid enough to uncork it.That someone, apparently, was
Matteo stands to one side and watches us both, the fulcrum between two poles pulling in opposite directions. He doesn’t move for a long time, and doesn't pick a side. He’s not made of the same compulsion as Raven and not the same longing as me. He is measured, which in this business is sometimes the most dangerous posture of all.“You could have been hurt,” Raven says finally, the syllables mechanical, precise. Her hands don’t touch me. They want to; she has always wanted to shape me into something safer.“You were,” she adds, quieter, as if that makes me smaller and the world correct.I tell her about the fight, about the scar-man’s hands, about Liora stepping in. She doesn’t ask about details. She only says, “Stay away from her.”Which is not a request, It’s a wall.I might have walked away then. I might have listened to the woman who built me from scraps and said, yes, you are my tether, and this is the price of the life I owe you. But Liora appears to me in a crooked memory when I
Rules.The man mentions rules like he invented the law. My blood moves faster then. “Maybe I’m here to make them,” I say, louder because my mouth needs to be heard and because the bar is full of men who like to be seen as kings.The scar-man stands. You don’t get his kind to sit. He’s all animal when he moves toward the table; his shoulders take up space like a threat. I stand too because I’m a fool. That’s the word I get later from my own mouth when I have time to be honest.Liora watches everything like she’s two steps ahead, not surprised and not pleased. That’s what scares me more than the scar-man. She doesn’t look alarmed; she looks amused, like she’s watching a play she’s already read.“Walk away, Julian,” she says, and it’s not a suggestion. Her voice has a steel edge I’ve heard a few times, and it shifts the room’s current.The scar-man ignores her. Ignoring her is like ignoring the sun. He reaches for his coat and the motion is swift and mean.One of his friends, a man with
The lights of the casino blur into a smear when I blink, a neon bruise that never quite heals. Tonight they hurt more than usual. Maybe because I know where the glow ends now in Liora’s apartment, in the curl of her cigarette smoke, in the way she presses her mouth against mine and makes me feel like I matter. Maybe because I can feel the pulls of two different orbits and they’re not compatible: one is fire and freedom, the other is steady checks and the cold calculus Raven and Matteo embody.I tell myself it's a choice. I tell myself I’m choosing a life I actually want.But choices are easy when you get to decide them between drinks and kisses. The hard part is waking up to the consequences.Tonight, though, starts simple enough. Liora texts me a name and a time, a place I haven’t been to before, one of those smoky after-hours rooms on the edge of the riverbank where the air tastes of rust and past mistakes. She says it’s a “show,” and I know what that code means: small stacks of chi







