All Chapters of Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Vivian I hadn't slept in forty-eight hours. I sat in my car in the parking lot of my building with both hands still on the wheel and the engine off, watching the sky over Las Vegas turn from grey to pink to the kind of gold that usually meant I was coming home from a shift, not that I'd never gone to one. I hadn't been to the club. I hadn't been anywhere that mattered. I had just been driving — east side, then north, then back toward the Strip, then away from it again — trying to find a version of the last twenty-four hours that didn't end with Elara's face when I told her the truth. *You sold her out. For a few hundred dollars and the feeling that someone needed you.* I had told myself for six months that it was nothing. That David was harmless, just a guy who loved her and didn't know how to say it right. That I was helping. Keeping the peace. Making sure she didn't do something rash that she'd regret later. That had been a lie from the beginning, and some part of me had alwa

Alexander The hospital bed was cold. I lay in the dark with the monitor counting my pulse, my chest wrapped in fresh bandages, an IV line taped to the back of my hand. The surgeon had come back after I refused to stay overnight the first time and made it very clear, in the specific tone doctors use when they've stopped being polite, that another episode like the one that brought me back here could be fatal. I had told him I understood. I hadn't really been listening. Elara was somewhere I couldn't see her. Marcus had moved her to a location I trusted more than almost anywhere else in this city, and I was lying in a bed unable to walk, unable to drive, unable to do anything except wait for information through a phone screen. ‘She's not gone. She's hidden. There's a difference.’ The difference felt smaller than it should have. My phone buzzed. Marcus. ‘She's at the safe house. She isn’t happy about it. But she's secure.’ I typed back. ‘Did she ask about me?’ The pause was l

David The motel room smelled like old smoke and the kind of regret that doesn't go away no matter how many times you open a window. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my hands. The same hands that had held the gun two days ago. The same hands that had pulled the trigger and put a bullet in my father's chest. I had aimed for his heart. I had missed. I couldn't even get that right. My phone kept buzzing on the nightstand. I had stopped looking at it hours ago. Vincent wanted to know where I was. Marcus had sent messages I didn't need to read twice to understand. Vivian had called me a coward, which was fair, and a monster, which was also fair. I agreed with all of them. Then there was a knock at the door. My hand went under the pillow, to the gun I'd hidden there. "Who is it?" "Open the door, David." My stomach dropped. Elara. I opened the door. She stood in the hallway by herself, in jeans and a hoodie, her hair pulled back. Her face was pale, and her eyes were r

Alexander The car smelled like blood and rubbing alcohol. I lay across the back seat with my chest wrapped tight under fresh bandages, my hand pressed against the wound, trying to slow what wouldn't stop seeping through the gauze. Marcus's driver kept his eyes locked on the road ahead, weaving through traffic with a tight, controlled urgency. Marcus himself sat half-turned toward me, his phone against his ear, his voice low and clipped as he gave orders to people I couldn't see. "How much longer?" I asked. "Ten minutes." "I don't have ten minutes." "You don't have a choice." He ended the call and turned fully to face me. His expression was the kind I had only seen on him a handful of times in twenty years — grim, controlled, and afraid underneath the control. "Vincent has them. Elara, David, and Vivian. He took all three from the motel about twenty minutes ago." I closed my eyes. He took them. While I was lying in a hospital bed, sedated, useless, unable to lift my own head.

Alexander The room was dark. I knelt on the floor with my hands tied behind my back. My chest was soaked — not from the bullet wound this time, but from the beating Vincent's men had given me the moment I walked through the gate. ‘No weapons. No backup.’ ‘Just me, on my knees, bleeding twice over.’ I had expected something worse. Not torture, not yet, but more than a few cracked ribs and a split lip. Vincent wanted something from me. He just hadn't told me what it was yet, and the not-knowing was its own kind of pressure, designed to wear me down before he ever opened his mouth. The door opened. Vincent walked in alone, a glass of wine in his hand, as if he'd just stepped away from a dinner party for a moment. "Alexander. Still with us, I see." "Disappointed?" "Impressed, actually. Most men would have passed out by now." He sat in the chair across from me, crossing his legs, taking a slow sip from his glass. "But you've always been different. Stronger. More stubborn than anyo