All Chapters of The Don's Daughter: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

VITTORIA'S POVThey escorted me from the dining room with efficiency, not urgency.Dante walked a half step ahead, two guards flanking me on either side. I could have taken all three of them. The angles were there. The timing was there. Muscle memory twitched beneath my skin, ready.I didn’t move.Something stopped me. Not fear. Not restraint.Curiosity.The unknown had always been more dangerous to me than confinement, and Nikolai De Luca was an unknown I wasn’t finished studying. The way he had looked at me across the table lingered in my thoughts. Not like an object. Not like a tool. Like a woman. Not ownership. Awareness.It unsettled me.I would not marry him. That much was certain. But he was different. Calculated, yes... but not careless. Nothing like any man I had encountered before.As we walked, I memorised everything.Every corner we turned. The distance between guards. The echo of footsteps on stone. The paintings lining the walls; old, expensive, chosen with intent rather

NIKOLAI’S POVShe continued to move around me.Slowly. Deliberately. Her fingers dragged along my skin as if she were memorising me, mapping muscles and scars and heat. I didn’t stop her. I let her touch me. Let her feel the truth of me beneath skin and bone.I wanted her to know me.To trust me.She came back around to my front, her gaze lowered, attention focused. Her fingers circled the old knife scar low on my abdomen, tracing it with quiet curiosity. Then she looked up at me, emerald eyes sharp and unreadable.“How long ago?” she asked.I kept my face neutral. “Five years.”She nodded once and continued studying my chest as if cataloguing data. Calm. Focused. Curious.I watched her intently.If I had to guess, she was testing me. First my clothes. Now this. Seeing how far she could go before I reacted. Measuring my restraint.That thought made my blood boil.My jaw clenched without me meaning it to.Her eyes snapped up instantly.And there it was.A flicker of amusement.Was it i

VITTORIA’S POVMorning came quietly.No footsteps. No presence beside me. No weight shifting the mattress.Nikolai hadn’t come back to bed.I didn’t mind.I lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, cataloguing the absence the same way I catalogued everything else. I’d been here five days now. Five days since the forest. Five days since captivity had become something more complicated than bars and steel.Last night had been my first night out of that glorified prison cell.Interesting.I rose from the bed without hesitation and dressed immediately. Black denim jeans—stretchy, flexible. Black boots. A long-sleeved black top. Basic. Casual. Efficient.I only wore dark clothes.They hid stains well.If you knew, you knew.In the bathroom, I kept things simple. Brushed my hair. Cleaned my face. Brushed my teeth. Washed my hands. No indulgence. No hesitation. The mirrors reflected a woman exactly as she always was—contained, composed, unchanged.Then I went to the bedroom door.He di

VITTORIA’S POVI stood in Nikolai’s study, leaning over his desk, my palms flat against the polished surface. He sat back in his chair, long legs stretched out, ice-blue eyes fixed on mine. There was amusement there at first; controlled and distant, until my words landed.“Because it is the only way you can guarantee that I will marry you, Otherwise, you will spend the rest of our lives questioning my actions and my motives.”The shift was immediate.The air thickened, pressure building like a storm rolling in too fast to outrun. His eyes darkened, not with anger, not with surprise. Recognition. He leaned forward, closing the space between us until our faces were centimeters apart, breath mingling.He didn’t blink.“If I agree to your conditions,” he said quietly, “then you will belong to me.”I leaned closer, close enough to feel the warmth of him, close enough to let the moment stretch and sharpen.“And you will belong to me.”We held each other’s gaze, breathing the same air, neith

VITTORIA'S POVDinner ended.No raised voices. No theatrics. Just quiet understanding.When we left the dining room, Nikolai didn’t peel off toward his study like I expected. Instead, he walked beside me, stride unhurried, presence heavy.Back to our bedroom.This almost still felt strange.Almost.The moment we entered, I crossed the room and dropped onto the couch, bending to unlace my boots. My body was tired in that satisfying way that came after exertion.Nikolai moved past me to his dresser, fingers deft as he removed his watch and set it down with precision.I stood and walked into the wardrobe. It was expansive, organised with the same cold logic that governed the rest of the estate. I grabbed clean clothes, already thinking about the shower.Water = Reset.When I stepped back out, Nikolai had taken the couch. His suit jacket lay beside him, shirt undone at the collar, phone in hand. Without looking up, he said, “You can have the first shower.”It wasn’t an offer.I nodded and