LOGINHey, Even when I’m struggling and feel like I’m sinking, some of you stay. That means more than I can say. Please… take today’s update however it comes. ❤️
Gianna━⊰ ❦ ⊱━The wall was freezing against my bare back, but my skin was screaming."If you’re still standing here in the next few seconds…" Raphael’s voice wasn't just a sound. It was a vibration that started in the floor and crawled up my legs, settling right in the pit of my stomach. "…I’m not stopping anything that happens after that."My brain was screaming at my legs to run, to find my room and lock the door until the sun came up but I stayed. My heels were glued to the floor. My breath came out in short little puffs that felt too hot for the cold air.I could feel the space between us shrinking, the molecules of air vibrating with a pressure I couldn't name. My top felt too tight, the silk dragging against my skin with every shallow breath I took, making my chest ache.I looked up, and the hallway light caught the edge of his glasses. And through the glass, he was looking at my mouth. It was so silent that i could hear his watch ticking. I could hear the slow hum of his br
Raphael ━━ ⛓ ━━ Vincenzo sat in the high-backed chair, the light from the fireplace casting long shadows across his face. To my left, Luca was mindlessly stripping down his Glock, the clicking of metal parts. Across from him, Dante was leaning back, his eyes fixed on a stack of legal briefs, his brain already finding the holes in the state laws we were about to break. Adriano had the map of the tri-state area stretched out over the table. His finger traced the border of Indiana, moving toward the heart of the next territory we were going to bleed dry. "We take the docks first," Vincenzo stated, "Then we squeeze the unions, and their warehouses. We start at the bottom. We choke their supply until they beg us to take over." I leaned back on the couch, my laptop resting on my thighs. My fingers danced over the keys, setting up the encrypted servers we’d need to ghost their local police frequencies. To my brothers, I was the one who built the invisible fences that kept us safe. I
Gianna ━⊰ ❦ ⊱━ The heavy doors to his office clicked shut with a sound that felt like a trap springing into place. I followed him. The files and my laptop were hugged so tight against my ribs that the corner dug into my skin. He wasn't sitting behind his desk. He went to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the city lights. The fabric of his dress shirt stretched tight across his broad shoulders as he moved, the white cotton crisp against his skin. I walked toward him, my reflection falling onto the glass windows right next to him. My brain was a messy soup of flickering numbers, dancing letters. I was feeling dizzy, as if the world was tilting slightly to the left, but I had one goal. I wanted him to see. I put my laptop onto his desk. My hands were shaking, the red marks on my knuckles from the ruler standing out like angry warnings. I pulled out the printed sheets and flipped open my laptop, the screen glowing bright enough to make my tired eyes ache. "It’s done,
Gianna ━⊰ ❦ ⊱━ SLAP! The sound echoed off the walls of the private suite. My palm was actually on fire. It was throbbing with heat that traveled all the way up to my elbow. I’d been at it for twenty minutes straight, and my arm was getting a better workout than I ever got at the campus gym. I paused for a second, wiping a stray hair from my forehead. I looked down at him. This was it. This was the big, scary private session I was worried about. This was what twenty thousand dollars bought in the world of men who have too much power and not enough brain cells. He didn't want to touch me. He didn't want to talk. He just wanted his backside to be the color of a ripe cherry. "More," he whimpered. His voice was muffled because his face was pressed face-down into the expensive silk pillows of the lounge bed, "Please, Mommy... harder. I’ve been so bad." It was the most hilarious thing I had ever done in my entire life. I raised my hand again, my fingers stinging, but I didn't sto
Gianna ━⊰ ❦ ⊱━ "Actually, Gianna," he voiced, making me go still. I stopped just as my hand reached the heavy brass handle of the door. The click of his keyboard ceased, replaced by the sound of a drawer sliding open and I turned immediately. He didn't look up from his monitor as he reached into a crate beside his desk and pulled out a stack of thick, bound ledgers. "Since you have the capacity for high-volume data entry, I need these processed," he said, his eyes scanning a line of code on his screen. "These are the legacy acquisition files from when I started the firm. They’re all physical handwritten inventories, shipping manifests, and non-indexed hardware specs." He set the stack on the corner of the desk. "The OCR software can’t read the handwriting, and the encryption keys used back then are obsolete," he continued, finally shifting his gaze to me, "I need them manually transcribed and mapped into the new SQL server. Every line item needs a verified digital sig
Gianna ━⊰ ❦ ⊱━ I sat in the same seat as always, notebook open, pen resting between my fingers. The lecture had already started, but the words on the screen blurred together before I could even catch them. My eyes moved across the lines, trying to hold onto something but they slipped away too fast. And instead of the text, all I could see was him. Standing there that morning. My jaw tightened as the image forced its way back in, his hand around that girl’s waist. The tiny denim skirt, the way she looked at him like he was something to worship. And him... he didn’t even look at her properly, he just used her and dismissed her. I pressed my lips together as disgust crawled under my skin. The same man who had cornered me in the garden the night before. The same one who had leaned in close enough that I could feel his breath, like he was about to— I gripped my pen tighter. No. I wasn’t thinking about that. I wasn’t. My chest rose sharply as I forced my eyes back to the b
Gianna ━⊰ ❦ ⊱━ I stayed frozen on the floor, my eyes glued to the pattern of the rug. I couldn't look up, I literally couldn't force my neck to move. The heat in my face was so intense I felt like I was actually burning alive. I just wanted to disappear, to turn into dust and blow away under the g
Gianna ━⊰ ❦ ⊱━ I paced back and forth across the rug in my new room. I was already dressed for my classes, a pair of tight blue jeans, a soft white crop top but I couldn't bring myself to open the door. My stomach felt like it was full of angry snakes. Every time I thought about going downstairs
Gianna ━⊰ ❦ ⊱━ I stood in front of the full-length mirror, my hands shaking so much I had to tuck them under my arms. I was dressed in a white button-down shirt and black slacks. I spent ten minutes pulling my hair back, brushing it until every stray strand was flattened into a sleek, tight bun
Raphael ━━ ⛓ ━━ I leaned against the cold marble wall, my glass heavy in my hand. My brothers were all around me, a solid wall of dark suits, expensive cologne, and mean faces. We stood in the shadows of the hall, watching the reception like it was a funeral. Across the room, our father was a







