Alle Kapitel von Switched at the Mafia Auction: Kapitel 271 – Kapitel 279

~ Avelyn ~I didn’t know how long I sat there after the door shut.Time didn’t move in that room. It stretched, twisted, folded in on itself until seconds felt like hours and hours felt like nothing at all. My cheek still throbbed from the slap, the cold from the ice long gone, replaced by a dull, persistent ache that pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat.But I barely felt it.All I could hear… was her. A faint sound at first. So soft I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. Then again it transitioned to a whimper.My breath caught in my throat.Ciara.I pushed myself up too fast, the world tilting for a second before steadying. My legs trembled, but I didn’t care. I moved toward the door, pressing my ear against the cold metal, my fingers curling into it like I could rip it open with sheer will.“Ciara…” My voice came out broken, barely above a whisper. I heard another sound, closer this time.Not crying, not fully just that restless, uneven sound babies make when they’re unsettled,

~ Avelyn ~The door didn’t open the way it had before. No warning. No slow click that gave me time to prepare. It burst open. Light flooded in, burning my eyes, and before I could adjust, hands were on me, rough, unhesitating, dragging me up from the bed like I weighed nothing.“Move.”My legs stumbled beneath me, still weak, still unsteady, but they didn’t care. They didn’t slow down. They didn’t give me time to catch my balance. I barely managed to stay upright as they pushed me forward, my bare feet scraping against the cold floor.The air outside felt different. Colder, wider and real. My heart started racing immediately. This wasn’t another interrogation. This wasn’t the same controlled silence. Something had changed.“Where are you taking me?” I asked, my voice strained, breathless from trying to keep up. No one answered. Of course they didn’t.I swallowed hard, forcing myself to focus, to take in everything I could as they dragged me down a narrow corridor that opened into some

~ Avelyn ~At first, I thought I imagined it.The sound didn’t belong here. It didn’t fit with the guns, the tension, the men standing too still like they were waiting for something violent to happen. It was too small. Too soft. Too… fragile.But it came again.Sharp. Unsteady. A cry.My heart didn’t stop. It dropped. So fast it felt like it tore through my chest on the way down.My head lifted before I could stop it, my body reacting faster than thought, faster than fear, faster than logic.And then I saw her.Everything inside me broke.“Ciara—”The name slipped out of me, raw and breathless, my body lurching forward on instinct alone. The hand at my neck tightened instantly, the gun pressing harder against my temple, forcing me back down before I could move again.But I didn’t feel it.I didn’t feel anything except her.She was in someone else’s arms. Too small. Too exposed. Her face scrunched, her tiny hands curling and uncurling as she cried, the sound uneven, fragile, wrong in a

— Xander —The chaos was behind us. Gunfire, shouting, blood—it all fell away the second I cleared her from the line of fire. I didn’t stop until there was space, until nothing remained between us and the men closing ranks behind. Then I stopped. Not because it was safe. Because I needed to see her.My grip on her arm was firm, controlled, as I scanned her face, shoulders, hands checking, assessing, searching. “Are you hurt?” My voice was low, measured, but not without weight. She shook her head too quickly. “I’m fine.” A lie. Or maybe not. I couldn’t tell. Her chest rose unevenly, her hands trembling, her body still taut from the seconds she’d spent kneeling with a gun to her head.And it wasn’t just that. It was the way she looked at me, eyes meeting mine briefly, then slipping away. Avoiding. Not relief, not anger but something tighter, restrained. My jaw tightened. I stepped closer, hand rising to brush under her chin, tilt her face back toward the light. She stiffened instantl

~ Avelyn ~The first thing I noticed was the quiet. The kind of quiet that doesn’t belong anywhere near me. Not the silence of sleep, not the calm after a storm, something heavier. Thicker was waiting.I blinked. Slowly. My vision swam, sharp light cutting through my lids like it had been waiting for me. The bed felt too big. Too empty. My arms reached instinctively across the sheets. Nothing. No one.Panic fluttered like a trapped bird. My pulse jumped, loud in my ears. The memory hit me before I could catch it, the chaos, the shots, the screaming. Ciara. The child.I sat up abruptly, pulling the sheets around me like armor. My body still trembled, small jolts of adrenaline making my fingers shake. And then I realized the space beside me. The bed was undisturbed. The weight I’d expected… wasn’t there.Xander hadn’t come in.My stomach twisted. My chest tightened. A shiver ran up my spine, involuntary, like my body had remembered every second of fear it had been forced to endure. I sw