All Chapters of CLAIMED BY MY MAFIA BODYGUARD: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

SERENA’S POV The meeting ended on a clear high note as Mr. Fitzgerald, my editor leaned back with a satisfied nod and confirmed the remaining notes would polish the manuscript into something stronger. We had settled every open question and the path forward felt solid. I gathered the printed pages and slipped them into my bag while the residual energy of talking about the characters still hummed in the air. He glanced toward the wide front windows where Stefano waited outside near the car. “Is that your boyfriend watching you so intently?” he asked, voice light and curious rather than prying. “You’re lucky to have such a man as your boyfriend.” I followed his gaze. Stefano stood there, looking towards a group of young boys, he had been looking our way earlier in that surveillance look he always has. Mr. Fitzgerald’s question landed heavier than it should have. “No,” I said, the single word coming out low and edged with something I refused to name. “He’s not my boyfriend.” Mr. Fi

SERENA’S POVI lay on my back in the dark with the sheets twisted around my legs as the words I had overheard earlier burned through every quiet second. “…I already have enough on my plate as it is, having a love interest will only add to that weight. So you have nothing to worry about, Don Renzo. Your sister is certainly not my type.”Stefano had made it clear that I wasn’t his type. His words sat heavy and clear in my mind as if he had spoken it directly into my ear. Why did it hurt so much hearing him say those words? We had already drawn the line. What happened between us belonged to one reckless night and nothing more. He worked for my family. I was the daughter of the man who signed his checks. Crossing that boundary again would only invite disaster yet the rejection still cut deeper than it should have. I tossed onto my side and pressed my face into the pillow. Maybe I had been nothing more than a convenient fling. I had been the one who crooked a finger and invited him to

SERENA’S POV I noticed the exact moment Stefano’s expression shifted in the restaurant after he glanced at his phone. The controlled calm he usually wore tightened around the edges and something colder moved behind his eyes before he locked the device away. The change was clear enough that questions began to rise immediately, but I kept every one of them locked behind my teeth. Last night he had told Renzo I was not his type and the memory of those words still scraped raw whenever I looked at him too long. Asking him anything personal now would only invite another round of distance I was not prepared to hear again. I still felt the guilt and anger from this morning’s argument with my family. The things I had said to Father could not be taken back and part of me regretted the volume and the heat even though the larger part of me knew I had every right to say those words to him and Renzo. They wanted to control the shape of my days and the walls of my life and I refused to live tha

SERENA’S POV“… I love you and I cannot wait to see you.”Those words still echoed inside the car long after the call had ended and every soft syllable twisted into something sharper with each passing mile. I sat rigid in the back seat as my imagination supplied the missing pieces with cruel efficiency. The warmth in his voice, the easy affection, the way his entire posture had softened showed that he was speaking to someone important. Was it his girlfriend? Or maybe his wife? Regardless of who she was, she certainly holds a special place in his heart for her because she could effortlessly pull the cold bodyguard mask away and leave the man underneath gentle. The realization landed like a blow I had not braced for. Whatever fragile spark I had started to believe existed between us collapsed under the weight of that overheard tenderness. He already belonged to someone else. How dare he deceive me? Why didn’t he tell me he was in a relationship or that he had a wife?I felt anger ris

SERENA’S POVI sat on the edge of the bed with the lights low as the events of the evening replaying in relentless circles. Father’s anger still echoed through the house even after the shattered glass had been cleared and the blood on his knuckles bandaged. I understood the source of that fury better than most people ever would. Papa had once told me when he was alive that Father carried more darkness than any one man should. He had watched bloodshed claim people he loved and the losses had carved permanent caution into every decision he made. Isabella, the biological daughter of Momma Rosa and Papa, was the woman he was in love with but she had died pregnant and brutalized, killed by Father’s enemies. The knowledge of that particular cruelty lived in the background of every protective wall Father had built. He had nearly lost Mother more than once and each near miss left him convinced that the next would finish him. Renzo’s birth had happened under forced captivity while Mother w