All Chapters of BOUGHT,TAMED AND TAKEN : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

They dressed me like a prize.Red satin hugged my curves, tight enough to suffocate. A diamond collar clasped around my throat, glittering under the low lights like a leash. The auction house smelled of cigars, sweat, and money.I wasn’t supposed to be here.But when your father gambles away everything—including you—what you’re “supposed to be” doesn’t matter.I stood behind the curtain, heart pounding in my chest like war drums. Girls went ahead of me one by one, swallowed by red velvet drapes, returning either sobbing or not at all. My number—#29—was stitched in gold thread across my hip like a cruel joke.My turn.The curtain opened, and the crowd roared.I stepped onto the stage, heels clicking like gunshots. Faces blurred. Suits, cigars, masks. Men with fat wallets and cold eyes.“All the way from Milan,” the announcer purred, “a rare delicacy. Untouched. Unbroken.”Liar.I was neither.“Starting bid—ten thousand.”Hands lifted. Numbers flew.“Fifteen.”“Twenty.”“Thirty-five.”I

The bedroom was too quiet.I didn’t sleep.Not because I wasn’t tired—God, I was exhausted—but because the silence let my thoughts scream.And they all screamed one name.Luciano.How did he go from the boy who saved baby birds to the man who bought women at underground auctions?I tried to convince myself he was a stranger.But the way he looked at me? The way he still looked at me?That was not the gaze of a stranger.That was history—complicated, cracked, bleeding history.The memory hit me like a punch.Four years ago.I was seventeen. Living in a falling-apart house with a mother too sick to walk and a father who blamed me for every broken dream he ever had.Luciano had been a storm even then.He was nineteen, sharp-jawed, silver-eyed, with a crooked smirk and the kind of quiet power that made everyone shut up when he entered a room.But with me… he was different.He softened.“Close your eyes,” he whispered that day, guiding me through the rusted gate behind his grandmother’s ho

I didn’t see him the next morning.The silence in the penthouse stretched like cold steel, and every tick of the clock made my chest tighter. For a moment, I wondered if he’d gotten bored already. If this twisted little game had ended before it even began.But when I stepped into the kitchen, a note waited for me on the marble counter.Neat. Cold. Typed.“You’ll find clothes in the guest room closet. Be dressed by 8 PM. We have dinner guests.I crumpled the note in my hand.No “please.” No “thank you.” Just another order wrapped in silk and steel.I walked into the guest room. Sure enough, a black box sat on the edge of the bed, wrapped in silver ribbon.Inside, a gown — midnight blue, slinky, and clearly custom-made.He’d never asked my size.Somehow, he just knew.When I walked into the dining room at 8 PM sharp, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I wasn’t expecting him to look like that.Luciano stood near the window, a glass of scotch in hand. His black dress shirt was unbuttoned a

The dream clung to Aria like a second skin.She sat up in bed with a sharp inhale, her fingers ghosting over her lips. They still tingled—phantom warmth, phantom breath. Luciano’s voice still echoed in her head.“I’ll lock you in me.”She didn’t know what that meant. Not really. But her body had responded to it with a traitorous kind of heat.The sun filtered through the gauzy curtains, but the De Luca estate remained heavy with shadows. Even the daylight didn’t feel free.She slipped out of bed, ignoring the ache in her chest, and walked barefoot to the bathroom. The tiles were cold, the mirror foggy with memory.Was she going crazy?No. She was just… unraveling. Or maybe, being rewoven into something else. Something less soft. Less breakable.Downstairs, the house was too quiet. Always too quiet, like it was holding its breath for the next command from its king.She found the kitchen empty except for one of the guards—Dante, she thought his name was—nursing a coffee and pretending n

The De Luca estate was never quiet for long.By mid-morning, the halls buzzed with movement—men in suits, hushed conversations in Italian, the hum of danger so familiar it became background noise.Aria stayed out of the way.She’d learned early: silence was safer than curiosity.But today felt different. The air was heavier. Tighter.Even Clara, who usually smuggled her breakfast in with soft smiles and whispered jokes, didn’t say much. She only placed the tray down on Aria’s dresser and said, “Wear something black tonight.”“Why?”Clara didn’t answer. Just left with a look that said: don’t ask questions you’re not ready to survive.—By dusk, the estate looked transformed.Candles lit every hallway. Men and women filed in through the east entrance in sleek suits and backless gowns. No one smiled. Everything about the atmosphere whispered one word:Power.Aria stood by the window in a fitted black dress she hadn’t picked, her arms crossed, her stomach in knots. She hated how beautiful