CHAPTER 6: The Mastermind

(Damian’s POV)

To the rest of the world, I was merely the ruthless CEO of Vance Global Holdings. An untouchable billionaire who controlled Chicago's largest investment funds and skyscrapers. But the truth behind my empire was far darker. My family belonged to an elite criminal organization, a syndicate that operated in the shadows of high society. I possessed the money, the connections, and the sheer power required to get absolutely anything I wanted in this life—including making people vanish from the map without leaving a single trace.

I stood in my private dressing room, adjusting the tie of my tailored black suit. It was my wedding day. To any outsider, this would be considered a cursed marriage, a forced arrangement built on a blood debt. But to me, it was the final execution of a plan I had been orchestrating in secret for years.

When I was eighteen, my father, Arthur Vance, discovered that Vittorio Rossi had been stealing from our companies. Rossi had pulled off a colossal financial fraud, embezzling an amount that would have utterly ruined any other family. But he crossed the wrong people. Instead of handing Rossi over to the police and recovering the money through the courts, my father chose to exercise the power of our syndicate. He imposed a pact of submission: the Rossi family would settle the debt by surrendering their bloodline. The contract was signed, decreeing that the Vance heir would marry the eldest Rossi daughter as soon as both reached the age of majority.

The chosen bride was supposed to be Genna. For years, I accepted that fate. I ordered my men to watch the Rossi residence daily to monitor every single step of my future wife. But destiny loves to mock our plans.

While watching Genna, my eyes inevitably wandered to the second sister. Helen.

I remembered perfectly the first time I saw her up close. I had gone to the Rossi estate to finalize the bureaucratic details of the upcoming marriage. Genna was there, behaving like the submissive, artificial doll she had been trained to be. But Helen... Helen was different. She was younger, she was beautiful, she possessed a radiant smile that seemed to defy the darkness of that house, and she had an energy that mesmerized me the exact instant I saw her.

As the years bled into one another and she outgrew childhood to become a girl of rich, voluptuous curves and a rebellious gaze, that initial curiosity twisted into a dark obsession. I became completely obsessed with Helen Rossi. It was madness, and I knew it. But when you have billions in your bank account, the world doesn't call it madness. They call it power. And I had the power to have her.

I felt absolutely nothing for Genna. Knowing that the contract bound me to the eldest sister, I used my influence to delay the wedding for four long years. I needed to wait until Helen turned eighteen and reached the legal age of majority before I made my move.

When the final deadline arrived, I tried to talk to my father. I told him I didn't want Genna—that my target was the younger sister. But old Arthur was unyielding. He stated that the deal had already been struck with the eldest, and the original project had to be executed down to the letter. He wouldn't alter the contract for the sake of my whim.

So, I changed the rules of the game myself.

I didn't want to kill Genna. We had met a few times, and in a way, she was a decent girl, just an innocent victim of her father's greed. Two nights before the wedding, I ordered my men to bring her to my office in secret. I looked into her eyes and made a direct proposition: ten million dollars deposited into an offshore account for her to vanish from the map the following morning and never return to Chicago. Genna, who despised her family’s reclusion and feared me deeply, accepted the fortune instantly. She packed her bags and fled, exactly as I had designed.

With the original bride removed from the board, Vittorio Rossi fell into absolute panic on the morning of the wedding. He knew that if he didn’t present a bride at the altar, the Vance syndicate would destroy him. His only way out was to drag his second daughter to the sacrifice.

Helen. My beautiful, voluptuous, untouched Helen.

When I stood at the altar and turned around to lift her veil, a dark satisfaction flooded my chest. She was there. The plan had worked flawlessly. However, the moment the lace flipped back, I noticed a small, fresh, bloody cut on her lower lip, and her entire body trembled as I gripped her arm. She was terrified, radiating a contained fury that was almost palpable. I didn't know what had happened behind the scenes in that dressing room, but the split lip and the mixture of fear and hatred in her eyes left me intrigued.

At the altar, Helen’s green eyes—bright like dry autumn leaves—glared back at me with a defiance that no woman had ever dared direct my way. She wasn't a meek doll like Genna. She had gone to a normal school; she had teeth and a rebellious mouth.

The brief kiss I gave her before the priest was merely a warning of what was to come. And when I pulled her close and whispered into her ear that I would fuck her every dynamic way possible tonight, I watched the shock paralyze her body. I wanted that fear. I needed that submission.

Now, she was locked in the red room of my penthouse, wearing nothing but the shreds of her white lingerie after I tore that damned dress off her. I had mapped every single inch of her bare skin with my hands, claiming her breasts, her ass, and her core as my exclusive property. Discovering that she was completely virgin and untouched lit a fire in my chest that nearly made me lose my mind. I wanted to take her right then and there, but I needed to test her limits first.

Unlike Genna, Helen had received no etiquette or host training. She didn't know how to behave; she wouldn't do things to please me by instinct. I would have to train her my own way, step by step, using the pain and pleasure of BDSM to break her pride until she accepted that her sole function was to be my submissive woman.

I gave her a three-day truce. Three days for that voluptuous body to process my touch and understand who rules over her. When that deadline expires, I will return to that red room and claim what is rightfully mine, in every way I desire. She has nowhere to run. She is my property now. Completely mine, and exclusively all mine.