All Chapters of THE DEVIL'S CLAIM : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

LILIANA'S POV When I wake up, the first thing I notice is that I’m not dead. The second thing I notice is that I wish I were. My eyes snap open, heart pounding. For a second, I don’t recognize the ceiling above me was vaulted, carved wood, lit by a golden chandelier. The sheets beneath me are silk, smooth and cool, nothing like the hotel sheets at the bridal suite I should’ve been in last night. And then it all comes back. The gunshots. The blood. Ethan screaming. Dante Moretti’s hand gripping my arm. The chloroform. I jolt upright, breath ragged. My dress is torn at the seams, one strap hanging by a thread, my veil gone. My bouquet… gone. My fucking wedding, gone. Instead, I’m in a gilded cage. The room is bigger than my entire apartment in the city—velvet drapes, marble floors, mirrors with golden frames. Everything screams wealth, power, danger. And the door is locked. Of course it is. I stumble out of bed, my legs weak. My bare feet sink into the plush carpet as I rush to

LILIANA'S POV I lie there long after the door slams, the echo still vibrating in my bones. The sheets smell like him. Expensive cologne and smoke, faint leather and gunpowder, as if even the fabric knows it belongs to a man like Dante Moretti. I hate it. I hate that the scent clings to me now, burrowed into my skin like a bruise I can’t scrub away. My wrists ache where he pinned them, red marks blooming like flowers on pale flesh. His weight still lingers on me, phantom heat, the press of his knee between my thighs. I hate that my body remembered it even when I’m trying to forget. “Fuck,” I whisper to the ceiling, voice trembling. I want to scream. I want to rip the silk sheets apart, claw at the walls until my fingers bleed. But I can’t, not here, not in his cage where he’d only laugh at me. He’d like it too much. He already does. I curl onto my side, pulling my knees to my chest. My dress is torn, ruined, the last remnant of a wedding that never was. A wedding that was nothing

Liliana’s POV The first thing I feel when I wake up is rage. Not fear, not despair but rage. It scorches through my chest like acid when my eyes flick open to the silk canopy above Dante’s bed. The dress from yesterday still clings to me, ripped lace and smeared makeup crusted into the fabric. I reek of smoke, sweat, and humiliation. My stomach twists, both from hunger and disgust. For a second, I almost think it’s all been a nightmare. The raid, the gunshots, Ethan bleeding, being dragged into Dante’s car like I was a sack of grain instead of a bride. But then I move, and the ache in my wrists from his grip, the raw skin on my arms from fighting, the way my throat feels bruised from screaming and yeah, none of it was a dream. I’m still here. Still his prisoner. The bastard’s words echo in my head. Tomorrow, I’ll start your lessons. I roll onto my side, pressing my knees to my chest. A scream builds in my throat but dies before it can leave. Screaming won’t do shit. It’ll

LILIANA'S POV The photos won't leave my mind. Even after he put them away calmly, like he hadn't just ripped the ground from under me I still see them burned behind my eyelids. My father smiling with his arm around my mother. My brother stumbling drunk, but alive. Alive. For now. That's the part that guts me. Dante controls their lives now with a flick of his wrist, a snap of his fingers. They don't even know it. They don't know that with one wrong word from me, they'll bleed because of him. The weight of that truth sits on my chest like a stone. I sit on the bed, clutching the sheets, staring at the door. He left without another word. No commands, no taunts. Just the echo of his promise in my ear: The only thing worse than being mine is being no one's. I hate him. God, I hate him so much my stomach twists. But hate feels useless when fear coils tighter around my ribs. And underneath both of those things is something even worse. Heat. That electric pulse in my body whenever