THE DEBT

CHAPTER 1: 

The man who bought me was wearing a black suit that cost more than my father's life.

I knew it the second I saw his shoes. Italian leather, polished so clean I could see the reflection of our broken kitchen light. No one in our neighborhood in Rome wore shoes like that. No one except the kind of man my father used to whisper about when he thought I was asleep.

The Mafia.

"Two million dollars, Marco. Where is it?"

I froze behind the thin curtain that separated our kitchen from the living room. My hands were still in the soapy water from washing the plates from my waitress shift at Mama Rosa's Diner. I worked twelve hours today. My feet were bleeding inside my cheap sneakers. I had thirty euros in my apron pocket. That was all the money we had left in the world.

And my father owed two million.

My father, Marco Rossi, was on his knees on our cracked tile floor. He was 55 years old but he looked 70 tonight. Chubby, balding, his white t-shirt stained with sweat and cheap wine. He was crying. Again. I had seen him cry like this so many times before - when he lost his job as a driver for a rich family fifteen years ago, when my mother left us, when he lost our house to gambling.

But this time was different. Because the man standing in front of him was not a landlord or a loan shark.

He died.

"I - I can explain, Don Vitale," my father stammered, his hands clasped together like he was praying. "The horses, I was so close - the last race - I swear I was going to double it and pay you - "

The man didn't answer. He just looked down at my father like he was looking at an insect.

He was tall. So tall he had to bend slightly to fit under our low ceiling. Six foot two, maybe more. His black suit was tailored perfectly to his muscular body. His black hair was slicked back, not a strand out of place. His face was handsome in a terrifying way - sharp jaw, high cheekbones, a small scar cutting through his left eyebrow that made him look even more dangerous. And his eyes - grey. Cold, light grey, like a winter storm over Sicily.

I knew that face. Everyone in Rome knew that face from the newspapers, even if they pretended not to. Damien Vitale. 28 years old. CEO of Vitale Holdings on paper - luxury hotels, wine, real estate. But everyone knew what Vitale Holdings really was. The Vitale Famiglia. The most powerful Mafia family in Italy for three generations. They owned half of Rome and all of Sicily.

And my idiot father owed him two million dollars.

"Please," my father sobbed. "I just need one more week. One more week, Don Vitale, please - "

Damien Vitale sighed, like he was bored. He pulled a gun from inside his suit jacket. Slowly. Casually. Like he was pulling out a pen.

I stopped breathing.

He pointed it at my father's head.

My body moved before my brain could tell it not to.

"STOP!"

I ripped the curtain aside and ran into the living room, soapy water dripping from my hands onto the floor. The plates I was holding clattered and broke.

Both of them turned to look at me.

My father's eyes widened in pure horror. "ELENA! NO! GO BACK! GO BACK TO THE KITCHEN!"

But Damien Vitale's eyes - those cold grey eyes - locked onto me and didn't leave.

He lowered the gun slightly, but didn't put it away.

I was 22 years old. I was 5'4, with long wavy dark brown hair that was still wet from the rain because I couldn't afford the bus fare and walked home from work. I was wearing my old waitress uniform - a cheap faded blue dress that was too tight now, with a small tear on the shoulder. No makeup. No shoes, just old slippers. I knew I looked like nothing. Like a poor, tired girl from the slums of Rome.

But the way he looked at me made me feel naked.

"Who is this?" he asked, his voice deep, calm, with a slight Sicilian accent.

"My - my daughter," my father stammered, crawling slightly to be between me and the gun. "Elena. Elena Rossi. She - she is nobody, Don Vitale, she has nothing to do with this - "

"How old are you, Elena?" Damien asked me directly, ignoring my father completely.

I swallowed. My throat was dry. "Twenty-two."

He took a step closer to me. Then another. He was so close now I could smell his cologne - something expensive, dark, like sandalwood and smoke and danger. He was so close I could see the tiny lines around his eyes, the way his scar disappeared into his eyebrow.

"You work at Mama Rosa's Diner," he said. It wasn't a question. "You work twelve hours. You walk home because you have no money for the bus. Your mother, Sofia Rossi, left when you were seven. You have lived with your gambler father since then."

How did he know all that? My hands started to shake.

"Your father," he continued, his eyes still on me, "owes me two million dollars he lost in my casino in Rome. He has been lying to you. He told you he was working as a taxi driver. But he was gambling every night for three years."

I looked at my father. "Dad? Is that true?"

My father didn't answer. He just cried harder.

Damien smiled, but it wasn't a real smile. "You have thirty euros in your apron. You were going to use it to buy medicine for your father's cough and bread for tomorrow. Am I wrong?"

I touched my apron instinctively. How did he know?

"Who are you?" I whispered.

"I am the man your father owes his life to," he said. He finally put the gun away, but his eyes never left me. "And you are going to pay his debt."

My father suddenly grabbed Damien's leg. "Don Vitale! Please! Take me! Kill me! But not her! She is innocent! She doesn't know anything!"

Damien kicked him off without even looking, like he was kicking a dog. My father fell back.

"Innocent," Damien repeated the word, looking at me again. His gaze dropped to my chest, to my legs, back to my face. "Is she innocent, Marco?"

I felt sick. I understood what he was implying.

"Yes!" my father shouted. "Yes! She is a virgin! She has never had a boyfriend! She is a good girl! Catholic! She goes to church every Sunday! Please!"

"DAD! STOP IT!" I screamed, tears finally falling. "HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT!"

My own father was offering me like a piece of meat.

Damien took another step. He was right in front of me now. He lifted his hand and I flinched, thinking he would slap me. But he just tucked a wet strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers were cold. I shivered.

"Don't touch me," I said, my voice shaking with anger and fear.

"Or what?" he asked softly.

I did it without thinking. I raised my hand and slapped him as hard as I could across his face.

The sound was loud in our small apartment.

Silence.

My father made a choking sound. "ELENA! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! WE ARE DEAD! WE ARE DEAD!"

I was shaking so hard I could barely stand. I had just slapped the most dangerous man in Italy. The Don of the Vitale Familia.

Damien slowly turned his face back to look at me. He touched his cheek where I had slapped him. His grey eyes were darker now. Not angry. Something else. Something that scared me more than anger.

Possession.

"No one has slapped me since I was ten years old," he said quietly. "My mother was the last one."

He stepped closer until my back hit the wall. He placed both his hands on the wall on either side of my head, trapping me. His body was so big, so warm, so overwhelming.

"You have fire, Elena Rossi," he whispered, his lips close to my ear. "I like fire. My house is very cold. It needs fire."

"Get away from me," I whispered, but my voice betrayed me. It was shaking.

He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a folded stack of papers and threw them on our broken table.

"Marriage contract," he said. "One year. You come with me to Sicily tonight. You live in my mansion. You will be my wife in front of the world. You will follow my rules. You will not leave without permission. You will not talk to other men. You will sleep in my room."

"What?" I stared at him. "You want me to marry you?"

"I want your father's debt paid," he corrected. "You are the payment. After one year, the debt is cleared. Your father lives. If you refuse - "

He looked at my father on the floor.

" - I will shoot him right now. In front of you. And I will still take you with me. But as a mistress, not a wife. A wife has protection. A mistress has nothing."

My father crawled to my feet and grabbed my dress. "Elena, please! Sign it! Sign it for Papa! I beg you! I will be a better father! I promise! Just sign it!"

I looked down at my father, the man who raised me alone after my mother left, who used to carry me on his shoulders when I was little, who now was selling me to save himself.

And I looked at Damien Vitale, the monster who held our lives in his beautiful, cruel hands.

I had thirty euros in my apron. I had no mother. I had no one.

If I said no, my father would die in front of me.

If I said yes, I would die in a different way.

Tears ran down my face as I walked to the table with trembling legs. I picked up the cheap pen that was lying there.

The contract was in English and Italian. I didn't read it. What was the point?

I signed my name at the bottom: Elena Rossi.

The moment the ink dried, Damien was behind me. He grabbed my wrist - not rough, but firm, like he owned it - and pulled me against his chest. His other hand went to my waist.

"Good girl," he whispered in my ear, and I felt his lips brush my skin.

He pulled out his phone and made a call. "Bring the car. And burn his gambling debts. He is my father-in-law now."

Father-in-law.

I almost laughed from hysteria. I was now the wife of a Mafia Don.

Damien let go of me and looked at my cheap waitress dress and wet hair with disgust.

"You cannot enter my house looking like that," he said. He took off his black suit jacket - the jacket that cost more than our apartment - and draped it over my shoulders. It was heavy, warm, and smelled like him. It swallowed me.

"Let's go, Mrs. Vitale."

He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. I looked back at my father, who was still on the floor, crying, but alive.

Outside, the rain had stopped. A black Rolls-Royce Phantom was waiting, with two big men in black suits standing beside it. The whole street had come out to watch - our neighbors peeking from windows, whispering. Everyone knew the Vitale cars.

The man opened the door for us.

Damien pushed me inside gently, then slid in next to me. The car smelled like leather and money.