Chapter 8: Striking A Bargain

Gia’s POV

“Aunty Camilla?” I said, blinking fast as if the sight of her might disappear. “What… are you doing here? How?”

I didn’t wait for her to answer. I rushed forward and threw my arms around her. For a second, she held me. Just a second, then she pulled back.

Her arms dropped from around me like I was something she didn’t want to hold onto for too long.

She looked at me carefully, her voice steady. “Dante’s men brought me here.”

I frowned. “What? Why would they bring you…?”

She stepped closer, placing a hand gently on my arm, like she was trying to calm a wild animal.

“Gia… listen to me. Calm down. Everything is going to be fine.”

“No,” I snapped, stepping back. “No, it’s not going to be fine!”

My chest was tight. I couldn’t breathe. My hands were trembling.

“I need to get out of here,” I begged. “Back at Vincenzo’s club, you promised if we got our twenty percent from the auction, we’d disappear. Start over.”

Her eyes dropped to the floor, and for the first time, I saw guilt flash in her eyes.

“Oh child,” she murmured, her voice cracking. “How I wish… but we can’t.”

I shook my head violently. “Why not? Dante said Dad might be alive. If that’s true, then we should be out there looking for him! He could be hurt. He could need us.”

Her face softened, not with hope but pity.

“Gia,” she said slowly, “you’re too naïve.”

My heart sank.

“You saw those names Dante showed you, the men Lorenzo owes. They’re monsters,” she continued. “If by some miracle your father’s still breathing, he’s hiding. Because even he knows those men don’t leave debts unpaid.”

I stared at her, blinking in disbelief. “So that’s it? You want me to just… give in? Don’t you care about me?”

She tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, the way she used to when I was little and scared after a nightmare.

“My sweet Gia,” she murmured. “Of course I care. But we don’t have a choice. Dante is offering you something no one else will. Protection. Security. A home. He’ll settle all your father’s debts. You’ll want for nothing.”

My mouth dropped open. She truly had grown heartless overnight.

“You’ll get used to it,” she added, her tone slipping into something almost rehearsed. “He’s handsome. Strong. Better than half the men who could’ve won you.”

“You’re not hearing yourself,” I choked out.

“This is the world we live in, Gia,” her voice was even harsher. “Either you accept Dante’s offer… or he’ll cast us out in the street, where your father’s enemies are waiting. You think they’ll offer you contracts? Negotiations?”

She stepped even closer, her tone clearly a warning.

“They’ll drag you into a basement. Tie you up. And take turns, one after the other. And when they’re done, they’ll sell you off again, maybe in pieces this time.”

My breath caught.

That was exactly what Dante said, word for word.

The same vile, brutal scenario he used to scare me.

Did he tell her to say this? Or was this just the dark reality of the mafia world?

“You can’t afford to fight him,” she went on. “You’ve always had that fire, that defiant spirit. Always believed we women had a choice. That we could rewrite the rules. But this isn’t the world you dreamed of, Gia. This is the mafia. And in this world… women don’t get choices. We get assigned.”

She reached for my hand and began massaging my palm in a slightly cynical manner.

“I’ve spent years trying to tame that wildness in you,” she murmured. “Always hoping you’d learn your place before it got you hurt. But maybe now… maybe Dante will do what I couldn’t.”

She lifted my chin gently, forcing my eyes to meet hers.

“You can make this easier for yourself. Be his. Please him. Give him what he wants, and in time… it won’t feel like punishment, you might even begin to enjoy it. Men like Dante, they take what they desire, but they’re not always cruel about it.”

I staggered back in disbelief at the words my aunt was spewing. Her eyes were calm, as if she believed every word she’d just said.

She had become a woman with no conscience.

How could she think I’d ever enjoy being touched by a monster?

As though on cue, the door pushed open.

Camilla flinched and stepped back.

He crossed the room like a storm wrapped in human skin, and I hated how my body still reacted to his presence. He carried a certain aura of power and heat that both confused and awakened something in me at the same time.

“That’s convincing enough,” he said coolly. “I’m sure she understands now.”

Camilla turned back to me. She leaned in, kissed my forehead gently.

“Remember everything I said,” she murmured. “Use what you have. Get what you can. Survive.”

And just like that, she was gone.

It all made sense now. That was why Dante brought her in.

She wasn’t trying to save me. She was here not just to prepare me, but to break me, before he even had the chance.

Dante grabbed my hand, ignoring every protest I made, and walked me back to the table, where the document was laid out.

“Are you ready to sign now?”

I stared at the pages. My vision blurred, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure if it was the ink or my tears smearing the print.

This was it.

I was about to sign away my freedom.

My body.

My will.

Everything.

But my fingers froze over the pen. A little part inside me screamed for leverage. A possible chance that offered me a way out someday.

If I had to sell my soul, I needed to at least choose one condition.

My eyes met his. “If I’m going to sign this… I want something in return.”

Dante’s face hardened, his patience wearing thin. “I’m paying off your father’s debt. I’m offering you not just protection but provision of the finest things life has to offer. And you want more?”

“There’s something else,” I continued, my voice firmer this time. “Something that mattered to me before all of this. I’d like to finish it.”

He exhaled sharply, frustrated. “Let me hear this thing that’s worth more than everything I’ve already offered you.”

I dropped the pen and stood straight. “I want to go back to college.”

His expression shifted.

“I already started my degree in Business Management. This is my final year. I want to finish it.”

The coldness returned to his face immediately. “No.”

“Why?”

“That’s not happening,” he said, flat and final. “I’m not letting you go back to college, for obvious reasons.”

“But…”

“If you sign this,” he cut in sternly, “you’re giving up your freedom. That includes where you go, who you see, what you do.”

My voice cracked. “What could I possibly do at school that threatens you?”

He leaned in, eyes like steel. “Spending hours away from my supervision. Without my men. No eyes on you. You could run. Disappear. And we both know you’d try.”

“But your men would find me,” I said, trying to steady my voice. “Isn’t that what you told me before? That there’s no escaping you?”

I don’t know where the courage came from, but I reached for his hand.

His eyes moved down, surprised. So was I.

“I need this degree,” I whispered. “It’s been my dream since I was little, to one day prove my father wrong. To take over his company. To make something of myself.”

Tears welled up again, but this time, I let them fall. Then I said the words I didn’t know I had in me.

“Imagine if I was your daughter. Imagine if everything was stripped away from her in one night. Wouldn’t you still want her to have that one thing that was hers?”

For a moment, he didn’t move.

Then a wave of emotions flashed across his features, like the word daughter opened something in him he didn’t want anyone to see.

His voice was lower when he finally spoke. “I’ll have the lawyers add it to the contract… but under my strict conditions. Is that understood?”

I nodded quickly. “Yes. Thank you.”

My gaze dropped, and I realized my hand was still over his.

Before I could pull away, he caught my wrist, and in one swift move, pulled me toward him until my body collided with his chest.

“We’ll finalize the contract in the coming days,” he said, low and commanding.

Then, without warning, he lifted me into his arms, slinging me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.

I gasped. “What are you…?”

“It’s time I claimed what I own.”

And just like that… the illusion of mercy I had vanished.