Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
CAMILLA
“Camilla!!! Oh!” Daniela cries into the phone, her voice cracking with a mix of relief and raw emotion. “I miss you so much.”
The second Maksim slammed the door and left the room, I scrambled for the phone on the bed, my fingers trembling as I dialed. Now, I’m on a group call with my sisters, and hearing their voices brings a wave of happiness that crashes through me, washing away the numbness I've carried for days.
“Dani, wait, are you crying?” I ask, a watery smile tugging at my lips as I clutch the device tightly against my ear.
“So dramatic,” Rosalia chimes in, her voice full of deep affection.
On the other end, the others laugh softly, the familiar, comforting sound instantly making the cold walls of Maksim's mansion feel a little less intimidating.
“I am not being dramatic!” Daniela insists, sniffing loudly as she tries to defend herself. “Dad left for Sicily with Camilla, and when he returned home without her, he wouldn't tell me a single thing. I thought the worst had happened. I thought you were gone forever.”
I take a shaky breath, sitting back down on the edge of the mattress. "As evil as our father is, I’m not sure he has it in him to literally kill any of us."
Sienna scoffs loudly from her end of the line. "It’s only a matter of time."
"Sienna!" Rosalia snaps, her tone sharp with warning. She lets out a heavy, tired sigh before directing her focus back to me. "Camilla, what happened? We’ve been begging father for answers, but he completely refuses to tell us anything. And why do you have a new number?"
I close my eyes, my hand tightening around the smartphone. "Are you all sitting down?"
"Yes," they answer in a scattered, anxious chorus.
"Is it really that serious?" Eleonora asks, her voice uncharacteristically quiet.
"Yes," I whisper, swallowing the lump in my throat. "It is."
"Go ahead," she says softly. "We're listening."
I take one more deep breath to steady myself, and then I tell them everything.
I start from the moment I arrived in Sicily with father, believing it was just another family obligation, to being dragged into that horrific underground auction house.
I describe the sheer humiliation of being paraded on that stage like a piece of meat, the terrifying shootout that followed, and the moment I met Maksim Sokolov—the man who bought my life for twenty million dollars.
I don't hold back a single detail. I tell them about our explosive arguments, the suffocating tension, the dangerous car chase we barely escaped this afternoon, and finally, the brutal reality of the lunch I had with our father, where he traded away my remaining freedom for fifteen percent of a shipping port.
It is a long, agonizing story. And through it all, my sisters stay completely, utterly silent, absorbing the nightmare my life has become.
When I finish, the line doesn't just buzz—it completely explodes.
Sienna is the loudest, her voice dropping into a pure, unadulterated fury.
I understand her rage completely, especially seeing as she was the one who married Alessandro just to keep me safe from our father’s wicked, twisted plots.
Even though it ultimately turned out well for her, the trauma of being leveraged like a pawn still runs deep.
"Father is such an evil, soulless bastard!" She growls into the phone.
"He literally threw you to the wolves! An auction, Camilla?! He dragged you to a black-market auction like a piece of livestock! I swear to God, if he were in front of me right now, no one would be able to stop me from taking his head off myself!"
Surprisingly, Rosalia doesn’t even attempt to caution her. There is no lecture about language or respect. Instead, a heavy, dark silence comes from her end before she lets out a shaky, furious breath.
"You know what, Sienna, you’re right. Father crossed a line that can never, ever be uncrossed. To trade your own flesh and blood for a percentage of a shipping port? To sit across from you at lunch and treat you like that? It makes me sick."
The collective annoyance and rage from my sisters ripple through the line, escalating with every second.
"He’s a monster," Daniela cries, her previous sadness completely morphing into white-hot anger. "We’ve always known he was cruel, but this is subhuman. How does he sleep at night? How does he look at himself in the mirror?"
"And what about this Maksim?" Eleonora cuts in, her tone deceptively calm but vibrating with an intense, protective malice.
"He bought you for twenty million and then forces a three-day wedding timeline on you. He’s just another dictator playing god with your life. They are all the same. They treat women like currency and expect us to curtsy and say thank you."
"I am sick of our family being a breeding ground for transactional marriages," Sienna rages on, her breathing ragged. "We have to do something. We can't just let you sit there and be forced into a three-day countdown to a wedding with a Bratva Pakhan!"
For some reason, hearing their raw, unfiltered annoyance completely calms me down.
The suffocating weight in my chest lifts just a fraction.
I suddenly feel good, like the invisible walls of this mansion are peeling away, reminding me that I am no longer alone in this.
As long as I have my sisters, I’ll be okay.
"There's nothing we can do," I tell them, my voice a quiet murmur. "The arrangement has already been made and Dad has already taken his own cut of the money. I can't get out of this marriage. There is nowhere to run where the Bratva or the Caruso family won't find me."
The line goes quiet for a brief moment before Rosalia breaks the silence, her voice firm and resolute. "I need to see you with my own eyes and make sure you're truly okay. Can you meet us tomorrow? Is tomorrow good for everyone?"
A chorus of immediate agreements echoes from Sienna, Daniela, and Eleonora. Then, the line falls silent as they all wait for my answer.
"Yes," I say, a spark of genuine hope flickering in my chest. "I can meet you."
Surely Maksim won’t stop me from meeting my own sisters. He bought my hand in marriage, not my complete isolation, and he was the one who went through the trouble of putting their numbers in this phone anyway.
"Where is a good place?" Rosalia asks, already sounding like she’s planning the logistics.
"Anywhere," I reply. "Just name the place. I don't care where it is, as long as I get to see you all."
"Okay," Rosalia says. "I'll coordinate a secure spot and text the address to this number."
I glance up at the clock on the wall and realize how quickly the afternoon has slipped away. "I have to go. I have a gala to attend in like an hour and I still need to get prepared. But I am so incredibly glad I spoke to you. I love you guys so much."
"We love you too, Camilla," they chime in, their voices thick with emotion. "Be careful tonight."
"I will," I whisper, and then I hang up.
I’m in a lighter mood now. Happier, and a part of me tells me Maksim made this happen. The tense confrontation we had earlier comes back to mind and I frown, remembering how harsh his words were. Did I push him too hard?
I have no doubts about what he said. A man like him did not become Pakhan by being gentle. He is a killer, a ruler of a criminal empire, and a man who commands absolute fear. But he’s been good to me.
Yes, he made massive decisions without me, and yes, he heavily infringed on my freedom, but he also defended me against my father's cruelty and went entirely out of his way to connect me with my sisters.
Is he really that bad?
I stare at the phone in my hand, completely torn. He is a predator, but right now, he is a predator who is standing between me and the rest of the world.
Shaking off the conflicting thoughts, I force myself to focus on the task at hand: the gala.
I walk over to the bed and pick up the dress Maksim had laid out for me earlier.
It is a stunning, form-fitting masterpiece that hugs every curve perfectly.
After slipping into it, I head into the attached bathroom to finish my preparation.
I am standing in front of the vanity, carefully applying my makeup, when I hear the heavy bedroom door click open.
A moment later, Maksim appears in the bathroom doorway.
He is fully dressed in a tailored black suit and a crisp tie, looking so devastatingly handsome that it almost makes me want to cry out of sheer frustration.
The sight of him takes my breath away, and I quickly turn my eyes back toward the mirror, refusing to let him see the impact he has on me.
In the reflection, I see his dark eyes tracking my every movement, his gaze intense and heavy as it lingers on my bare skin. I snap my head toward him, crossing my arms defensively, and rudely ask, “What?”
Maksim steps fully into the room, his eyes dropping to my chest. His jaw tightens. "Why are you still wearing that?" he asks, his voice dangerously low.
I look down, my fingers instantly finding my heavy, glittering family diamond necklace resting against my collarbone.
It's a piece of jewelry my father forced his girls to wear a long time ago to show where their allegiance belonged. My sisters don’t wear theirs except when it's really important. I hardly ever take mine off, not because it’s Caruso —I actually hate that part— but because I love jewelry and it sits on my neck just right.
"I hate seeing it on your throat," Maksim growls, taking a slow step toward me.
A sudden spike of defiance flares up inside me, masking the nerves fluttering in my stomach. On top of everything Maksim wants to dictate in my life, he wants to add this? My necklace?
I tilt my chin up, meeting his fierce gaze in the mirror. "If you want it gone, you'll have to remove it yourself."