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TEA WITH THE ARCHITECT~GISELLE'S POV~"You're staring, Giselle. It's a very unattractive habit."My mother's voice was like a splash of ice water, cutting through the warm, floral-scented mood of the sunroom. I blinked, forcing my eyes to look heavy and tired, playing the part of the drugged-out daughter again. I was sitting across from her, the delicate china cup in my hand feeling like it was made of eggshells.The West Wing was so different from the rest of the house. There was no dust here. No peeling wallpaper. It was a masterpiece of white tiles and gold leaf, a perfect little sanctuary for a woman who had let the world believe she was a pile of ash in a church parking lot."I'm just... tired, Mama," I whispered, keeping my head low.Isabella Castellano took a slow sip of her tea. She looked perfect. Every hair was in place, her silk robe was spotless, and her pearls glowed in the sunlight. She looked like a queen, but when she set her cup down, I saw it.A tiny, quick shake

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THE LAST BREATH OF THE BIRDGISELLE'S POVThe hallway felt like it was getting narrower with every step I took, the shadows from the flickering wall sconces stretching out like long, grasping fingers. Marcus was still holding my arm, his grip way too tight to be comforting, as he led me away from my mother's golden sanctuary and back toward the darkness. I could feel the adrenaline buzzing under my skin, a quick, electric difference to the heavy, drugged-out act I was still trying to maintain."You're being so good tonight, Gigi," Marcus murmured, his voice sounding oily and self-satisfied. He reached into his suit jacket to adjust something, and for a split second, I saw the corner of the black burner phone peeking out from his inner pocket. "Mother is very impressed with your progress. She thinks you've finally realized that the Romanos were nothing but a temporary distraction from your real purpose."I leaned my head against his shoulder, letting my eyes flutter as if I could b

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THE STING OF THE NEEDLE~GISELLE'S POV~The world didn't go dark after Marcus pushed that glass syringe into my arm, but it definitely went deep. It was like my soul was trying to stay upright while my body decided it wanted to become a permanent, limp part of the floorboards. I could feel the cold, viscous effect of the sedative crawling through my veins, a shitty, fire that turned my muscles into lead and my thoughts into a slow-motion car crash.I wanted to scream, to bite his hand, to do anything other than lie there like a thrown-away doll, but my vocal cords felt like they had been dipped in cement. Marcus didn't say a word as he pulled me up from the bathroom floor, my heels dragging against the wood in a pathetic thud that felt like a countdown to the end of my life. He was humming—some upbeat, overachiever tune that made my stomach do a slow, sick roll—as if we were just headed down to dinner instead of a basement laboratory developed to harvest my child."You're being so

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THE ARCHITECT'S APOLOGY~GISELLE'S POV~The TV screen went black, but the image of Elena's smug, overachiever face stayed burned into my retinas like a shitty neon sign. The quiet that came after was worse than the lies; it felt heavy and cold, making the heart monitor beeps sound like a sad song.I lay there on that stiff surgical bed, my limbs still feeling like they were made of lead and my mind racing through a dozen different ways to kill Marcus if I ever found the strength to lift a finger."Don't look so devastated, darling. It's pathetic," Isabella said, her voice sounding like a razor blade wrapped in silk as she strolled toward the bed. She didn't have a single hair out of place, her cream robe flowing behind her like she was a saint instead of the woman who'd turned her own husband into a fireball. "Alessandro is a Romano. They don't love; they colonize. He didn't want a partner, Giselle. He wanted a piece of the Castellano legacy that he could keep in a cage to soothe h

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THE CRACKING MASK~GISELLE'S POV~The pen felt cold and empty in my hand.I stared down at the stack of documents Isabella had dropped onto my lap, the thick, cream-colored paper looking like a veil against the dark wool of the blanket. The ink was a deep, mocking black, just waiting for me to sign away the empire Alessandro had built for me—the same empire he had used to buy my life and bury his own sins. My heart was pounding hard in my chest, and even though the sedative made my arms and legs feel heavy, the fire in my stomach was finally breaking through the haze."It's a very generous offer, Giselle, so stop looking at me like I'm asking you to drink poison,"Isabella said, her voice sharp and unpleasant.She was leaning on the surgical tray, her pearls shining under the bright lights, looking like she was tired of me being there."You sign these, and you spend the rest of your life in a villa in the Swiss Alps with a new name and enough money to make sure you never have to thin

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THE REAPER'S ECHO~ALESSANDRO'S POV~The rain at Airstrip 7 didn't just fall; it felt like it was trying topersonally beat me back into the mud where Vanni had dumped my sorry, broken corpse an hour ago. I was standing on the edge of the tarmac, my left hand white-knuckling the grip of my Beretta while my right arm hung like a useless, throbbing club of pink gauze against my side.And every time the wind whipped the scent of jet fuel into my face, my shitty, confetti-sized ribs reminded me that I was one deep breath away from a collapsed lung.Marcus was at the top of those plane stairs, grinning like an overachiever who had just won the lottery. But it wasn't the remote detonator in his hand that was making my vision flicker with gray static—it was the tablet Rocco had just shoved in front of my face."You need to see this, Boss," Rocco shouted over the whining scream of the Gulfstream's engines, his voice sounding tight and hollow. "It's all over the national feeds. It's Elena."

All Chapters of Sold to the Enemy: The Don Obsession : Chapter 71 - Chapter 76

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