Chapter 1

Seraphina's POV

I never imagined that my boyfriend betraying me, sleeping with the woman I despised most, drugging me, and nearly turning me into the plaything of the city's most powerful mafia boss would be my twentieth birthday gift.

But the morning had started so differently.

-

"Hold still," Wren ordered, spinning me around to zip up the back of my dress.

The fabric cinched tight. Too tight. I felt my breasts threatening to spill over the neckline, and the hemline—God, the hemline barely covered anything.

"No." I twisted to look in the mirror, horrified. "Wren. I look like I'm selling something."

The corset bodice squeezed my waist impossibly small, making my full hips and heavy breasts look even more exaggerated. The deep V cut so low that half my tits were on display, the inner curves pressed together to form a deep line of cleavage.

I grabbed my cardigan desperately.

Wren crossed her arms, her gaze sweeping over my curves with approval. "You've been the good girl for too long, Sera. You're twenty now. Don't you think we deserve a little excitement?" She grinned wickedly. "I guarantee Sterling is going to blow his load the second he sees you. "

"Wren!"

"I'm dead serious." She forced me to face the mirror. "Tonight, you're going to let that man spread you open and fuck you until you forget your own name. And when you can't walk tomorrow because he's wrecked that tight little pussy? Call me. I'll handle your professors."

My face burned. "You're disgusting."

"And you're finally going to get that cherry popped." She grinned wickedly. "Happy fucking birthday."

Sterling. My boyfriend of two years. Golden boy. Student council president. The kind of beautiful that made girls wet just looking at him.

And somehow, he wanted me.

I was nobody. The Ashfords' charity case. But our families needed each other, so they'd sold me into this arrangement.

The Ashfords had enrolled me in Thornwood's business and finance program—not because they believed in my future, but because a degree looked good on a prospective bride's resume. A decorative accomplishment, like piano lessons or flower arranging.

What they didn't expect was that I'd actually be good at it.

Top of my class in corporate law. Dean's list every semester.

"You could work for any Fortune 500 company," Professor Chen had told me last week. "Have you considered applying for executive assistant positions? Your organizational skills, your language abilities—"

I'd smiled politely and said nothing.

The Ashfords hadn't invested in my education so I could have a career. They'd invested so I could be a worthy addition to someone else's family. A business degree made me marriageable. Actually using it would be unseemly.

I'd expected resentment. Instead, he'd surprised me.

"You wore a sage green dress to the freshman welcome party," he'd said on our first official date, his eyes warm with amusement. "You stood in the corner by the punch bowl, looking like you wanted to disappear into the wallpaper."

"You remember that?" I'd stunned.

"I remember everything about you, Sera."

That was when I started to believe this could be real.

Two years of patient restraint. Even when I felt his cock hard and straining against me, he always stopped.

Almost always.

His body had pinned me to the mattress, his hips grinding against mine. His hand shoved between my thighs, fingers pressing against my soaked panties.

"Jesus, you're dripping." He'd groaned, rubbing his fingers over the wet fabric. "I can feel your pussy throbbing. You want my cock so bad, don't you?"

I'd frozen. Clamped my legs shut. Apologized.He'd smiled, kissed my forehead, and told me it was okay. That he could wait.

My upbringing wouldn't let me give in. The Ashfords had raised me to be proper, modest, presentable—a reflection of their charitable image. Good girls didn't have sex before marriage. Good girls didn't make mistakes.

But I was twenty now.

And tonight, I didn't want to be good anymore.I didn't want to make him wait anymore.

-

Wren drove fast, radio blasting. I sat with my thighs pressed together, imagining Sterling's hands ripping this dress off me, his mouth on my breasts, his cock pushing inside—

"Hey." Wren smirked. "You're squirming. Thinking dirty thoughts?"

"Shut up."

She laughed and cranked the volume.

"—Lorenzo Vitale announced three more Manhattan acquisitions this week, expanding his legitimate empire while federal investigators—"

"God." Wren practically moaned. "Lorenzo Vitale. That man makes me want to commit crimes just so he'd punish me."

"He's a monster."

"He's a god." Her voice dropped. "You know what they say? He never gives an order twice. Once. That's all you get. Obey, or he'll make you wish you'd never been born."

The radio crackled. Then his voice filled the car.

Deep. Commanding. The kind of voice that didn't ask—it demanded.

"I don't explain. I don't negotiate. Anyone who questions me learns very quickly why that was a mistake."

Wren pressed her thighs together. "I would let that man ruin me in ways I can't even imagine."

"He's old enough to be your father!"

"He's gorgeous. And powerful. And dangerous." She wiggled her eyebrows. "You know he owns Crimson Thorn, right?"

"That bar downtown?"

"It's not just a bar, sweetheart." Wren's voice dropped conspiratorially. "It's a private club. Very exclusive. Very... adult."

"Adult?"

"BDSM, Sera. Bondage. Submission. Ties them up, edges them for hours, makes them scream and cry and cum until they're completely his."She laughed at my expression. "God, you really are an innocent little bunny, aren't you?"

Heat flooded between my legs. I turned toward the window, ashamed of my body's response.

I'd never met Lorenzo Vitale. Never wanted to. The man was dangerous—everyone knew that. You didn't cross paths with the head of the Vitale family unless you had a death wish.

But I'd seen him once.

Twelve years ago. Standing at the gates of Santa Maria Orphanage in Sicily.

A black car had pulled up that day, sleek and expensive and terrifying. A man stepped out. Tall. Dark. His presence swallowed the air.

He'd come for a girl.

Vivienne.

My best friend. My only friend in that cold, lonely place. She'd held my hand through the worst nights, whispered stories to help me sleep, made me believe I wasn't completely alone.

I remembered the day she'd noticed my bracelet.

"It's so beautiful, Sera." Her eyes had shone. "Can I wear it? Just for one day? I've never had anything pretty."

I'd unclasped it myself. Fastened it around her thin wrist. She was my friend. My only friend. What was a bracelet compared to that?

The next morning, she'd come to me crying. "I lost it. I'm so sorry, Sera. I looked everywhere—"

I'd comforted her instead of being angry. Told her it was okay. It was just a bracelet.

But it wasn't. It was the only proof I'd ever had that my father had loved me once.

Two days later, Lorenzo Vitale came.

When he took her, I'd stood at the gate and waved goodbye, genuinely happy for her. She deserved a family. She deserved to be loved.

Now she was Vivienne Vitale. The princess of New York's underworld. The queen of Thornwood University.

And she hated me.

I never understood why. After years of thinly veiled insults and social sabotage, I'd stopped trying to figure it out. The girl who'd been my childhood friend had become a stranger, who determined to make my life miserable.

Just then, my phone buzzed.

A notification from an app I barely used—Confide. The kind of app people used when they didn't want messages traced.

Unknown sender.

This message will disappear after viewing.

I shouldn't have opened it. But my fingers moved on their own.

"Fuck yes—ride my cock just like that—"

A woman's pornographic moan. The wet, obscene slap of flesh pounding against flesh.

"God, your pussy is so fucking tight—so much better than that frigid bitch would ever be—"

"She's probably never even touched herself—that repressed little virgin—I bet her cunt is dry as a desert—"

"Forget her—fuck—I'm gonna cum so deep inside you—"

His grunts turned to groans turned to a roar of release. Her screams of pleasure. The filthy wet sounds of him emptying himself inside her.

Then silence.

When I recognized whose voice it was, the phone slipped from my hand.

Wren was saying something. But I couldn't hear anything.