Claimed Through Deception (The Severato Syndicate #1)

1. Livia

Livia

The smell of stale beer and cheap cologne is a permanent fixture in my lungs.

I wipe a damp rag across the sticky surface of table four, my wrist aching with a dull, familiar throb. The bass from the jukebox vibrates through the scuffed soles of my black boots, traveling up my shins until it rattles in my chest.

The Neon Crow isn’t the kind of bar people come to for a crafted cocktail or a quiet conversation. It’s a dive situated on the edge of the city, a place where the floor is always tacky, the lighting is an unforgiving, harsh red, and the patrons are usually trying to forget who they are.

Or, in some cases, trying to show or remind others of who they really are.

It is a well-known secret that the high and mighty use The Neon Crow as their gritty playground.

Real estate moguls, bored heirs, and men who rule the city's shadows come here to escape their sterile penthouses and rub elbows with the dirt.

As a result, half the waitstaff treats this bar like a casting call.

Girls like Chloe spend half their shifts in the cramped employee bathroom, applying blood-red lipstick and unbuttoning their blouses down to their toes, practically tripping over themselves to catch the eye of a slumming millionaire.

They want to be saved. They want a black card and a way out.

I don't.

I am just here to work. I don't care about their Rolexes, their tailored suits, or the luxury cars parked out back. I care about the cash they leave on the sleek tables.

I toss the dirty rag into the plastic tub on my hip and pick up the empty pint glasses. Two five-dollar bills sit crumpled underneath a damp coaster. I snatch them up, smoothing the edges with my thumb before shoving them deep into the front pocket of my apron.

Ten dollars.

In my head, the mental ledger instantly updates.

That’s ten more dollars toward the seaside bakery.

Ten more dollars toward white subway tiles, the smell of rising yeast, and a glass display case filled with sfogliatelle and cannoli.

Ten more dollars away from this city, away from the neon lights, and away from the miserable life I was born into.

Every single dollar is a physical brick in the wall I am building between myself and my past.

"Table seven needs another round, Liv," Sofia mutters as she brushes past me, carrying a heavy tray loaded with tequila shots.

Her dark eyeliner is smudged, a thin layer of sweat shining on her collarbone.

Sofia is my only real friend in this place.

She is the only one who knows about my savings, the only one who doesn't look at the VIP booths like they are winning lottery tickets.

"On it," I say.

I weave through the crowded floor, keeping my elbows tucked in tightly to my sides.

You learn quickly in a place like this how to make yourself small, how to slip between drunk, wandering hands without causing a scene.

Survival is an art form entirely dependent on knowing exactly when to look away and when to stare straight ahead.

Unfortunately, Marco isn’t someone you can just ignore.

He is sitting at table seven, flanked by three of his usual friends.

Marco is the son of a local real estate developer.

He wears custom-tailored suits to a dive bar just to loudly remind everyone in the room that he can buy and sell them.

He’s rich, he’s bored, and for the last month, he has decided I am his new favorite game.

I approach the table, balancing a fresh tray of drinks on my palm. "Four draft beers."

I set the wet glasses down quickly, intending to turn away, but a heavy, manicured hand wraps around my wrist. The grip is tight. Too tight. The metal of his heavy watch presses uncomfortably against my bone.

"What's the rush, Livia?" Marco slurs slightly. His breath smells of expensive scotch and artificial mint. His eyes drag down the front of my black uniform, lingering explicitly on the curve of my chest before sliding back up to my face. "Sit with us for a minute. Take a break."

My skin crawls. A hot, prickling wave of revulsion coats the back of my neck.

"I have other tables to wait on, Marco. Let go."

I tug my arm, but his fingers dig harder into my flesh, refusing to yield. His friends stop talking, watching the exchange with drunken, amused grins. They think this is a show. They think I am part of the entertainment.

I know men like Marco. They puff themselves up in front of an audience because that is how they feed their self-image. His grip tightened not because he was confident, but because his friends were watching, and his fragile ego could not survive looking weak in front of them.

"Come on," Marco lowers his voice, leaning in closer. He thinks he’s being charming. He genuinely believes the Rolex on his wrist is a skeleton key to whatever he wants. "I know how much you make in a night here. It’s pathetic. Come back to my place tonight. I’ll give you ten thousand in cash just to look pretty on my couch. "

The sheer, staggering entitlement in his eyes makes my stomach turn. It isn’t just the offer, it’s the arrogant assumption behind it. The assumption that because I serve him drinks, I am for sale. The assumption that his money automatically makes him my master.

Something cold and vicious snaps inside my chest.

I don't pull away this time. I lean down, closing the distance between us until I am mere inches from his face. The amused smirk on his lips falters slightly, replaced by a flicker of uncertainty.

"Listen to me very carefully," I hiss in his face, my voice completely devoid of warmth. "If I had a price, Marco, it wouldn't be paid with the weekly allowance your daddy deposits into your checking account."

One of his friends chokes on his beer, a loud bark of laughter escaping his throat before he can muffle it.

Marco’s face flushes a dark, ugly red. The sleazy charm evaporates instantly, replaced by a bruised ego and sharp, ugly malice.

"And," I continue, my eyes locked dead on his, completely unblinking, "if you ever put your hands on me again, I will break this empty pint glass over the edge of the table and shove the jagged end so far into your throat you’ll be choking on glass until Christmas. Let. Go."

Marco stares at me. The muscles in his jaw twitch.

For a second, I see the violent impulse flash behind his eyes—the urge to strike, to put me back in my place.

To remind me that I am poor and he is rich.

But there are too many witnesses, and his friends are already shifting uncomfortably in their seats, the joke suddenly turning sour.

Slowly, his fingers uncurl from my wrist.

I stand up straight, picking up my empty tray. I don't look back as I turn on my heel and walk away, but I feel the heat of his glare burning a hole right between my shoulder blades.

"You're going to regret that, you stuck-up bitch," Marco spits to my back.

Ignoring him, I push through the swinging wooden doors that lead to the back hallway, letting them swing shut behind me, cutting off the noise of the bar.

The moment the heavy doors close, the adrenaline drains completely out of my blood, leaving a cold, shaking vacuum in its wake.

I drop the tray onto a stack of empty crates and lean my back against the cool brick wall.

My lungs heave. I press the palms of my hands firmly against my thighs, trying to force my muscles to stop trembling.

I close my eyes, and the smell of the spilled beer on my apron suddenly shifts, warping into the sharp, metallic stench of cheap whiskey and stale cigarettes.

Boom.

The memory hits me with the force of a physical blow.

I am nine years old again. I am sitting on the frayed carpet at the top of the stairs, peering through the wooden banister.

Below me, in the cramped, yellow-lit kitchen, my mother is folded into the corner by the refrigerator.

She is covering her face with her arms, making small, pathetic, whimpering sounds that echo off the cheap linoleum.

My father stands over her. His face is flushed, his knuckles split and bleeding.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you," he slurs, his roar shaking the thin walls of the house.

My mother doesn't fight back. She never fights back.

She just cowers, absorbing the brutal blows, shrinking herself down until she is nothing but bruises and apologies.

She stayed with him because he paid the rent.

She stayed because she had no money of her own, no spine left to stand on.

She depended on a monster for survival, and the monster ate her alive piece by piece.

My chest tightens, the phantom echo of my father's heavy boots making my heart race frantically against my ribs.

I open my eyes, gasping for air in the dim light of the bar’s back hallway. The rough brick wall against my spine grounds me. I am not nine years old. I am twenty-two. I am safe.

I reach into my apron and pull out the wad of cash. Ones, fives, tens. It is dirty, crumpled money. But to me, it is the most beautiful thing in the world.

I smooth the bills out, counting them with shaking fingers.

The night the police officer knocked on our front door is permanently burned into my brain.

It was raining heavily. The officer stood on the porch, his uniform soaked, holding his hat nervously in his hands.

He told my mother that my father’s truck had wrapped around a concrete overpass at eighty miles an hour.

His blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit. Dead on impact.

My mother collapsed onto the linoleum floor, sobbing hysterically. She mourned the man who broke her ribs because he was her source of livelihood.

I stood in the hallway, ten years old, watching the rain hit the porch.

I didn't shed a single tear. I didn't feel an ounce of grief.

I felt an overwhelming, blinding rush of absolute relief.

The monster was dead. The heavy boots would never walk up the stairs again.

The air in the house suddenly felt breathable.

Right then and there, standing over my weeping mother, I made a vow to myself. A vow carved deep into my bones.

I will never depend on a man. I will never rely on someone else to put a roof over my head or food on my plate. I will never allow myself to be placed in a position where I have to cower in a corner because someone else holds the purse strings.

And more importantly, I will never let a man own my body.

My virginity isn’t a moral stance, it’s a fortress.

It is the one thing in this brutal world that belongs entirely, exclusively to me.

It is untouched, unconquered territory. Men like Marco, men like my father, they view women as property.

They view sex as a transaction of power.

I refuse to play the game. I belong to Livia Marino, and absolutely no one else.

I finish counting the bills. Forty-two dollars.

I fold the money sharply, slipping it into the hidden pocket sewn inside the waistband of my jeans. I take a deep breath, smoothing my hands over my black uniform, forcing my spine to straighten.

The trembling stops. The armor slides back into place.

I push the swinging doors open and step back out onto the chaotic floor of The Neon Crow.

The shift is in full swing. I grab a rag and head toward a recently vacated booth near the back wall.

"Marco left," Sofia says, appearing beside me as I wipe down the dark wood. She sounds massively relieved. "He threw a twenty on the table and stormed out. Whatever you said to him, it worked."

"Good," I murmur, scrubbing at a sticky ring of condensation. "I was tired of looking at his face."

Sofia laughs, but the sound cuts off abruptly.

I feel it before I see it.

The temperature in the room doesn't literally drop, but the atmosphere completely shifts.

It is a sudden, suffocating change in air pressure, the kind that happens seconds before a massive thunderstorm breaks.

The booming bass of the jukebox is suddenly swallowed by a heavy, oppressive tension that rolls through the front doors like a thick, choking fog.

The loud, rowdy laughter at the bar dies out. The clacking of the pool balls in the corner stops dead.

I slowly straighten up, the damp rag still clutched in my hand, and look toward the entrance.

Three men have walked in.

They don't belong here. That much is immediately, violently obvious.

In a room full of ripped denim, leather jackets, and cheap work boots, these men look like they stepped out of an entirely different, far more lethal world.

They are dressed in immaculate, dark, bespoke suits that probably cost more than this entire building.

Beside me, Sofia inhales sharply, her fingers shooting out to dig painfully into my arm. "'Oh my ovaries," she whispers.

A few feet away, Chloe practically drops her serving tray. She immediately straightens her posture, arching her back to thrust her chest out. Her eyes flash with hungry ambition as she smooths down her hair, stepping directly into the main aisle, intentionally putting herself in their path.

"Do you know who that is?" Sofia whispers, her voice trembling with a mix of terror and awe. "Don't look, Liv. Just look at the floor."

I frown, pulling my arm out of her grip.

I don't know who these men are. I am completely oblivious to whatever dangerous royalty just graced our tacky floors.

I don't know the names attached to those expensive suits or why the entire bar is suddenly holding its collective breath.

To Chloe, they look like a blank check. To Sofia, they look like a ghost story.

But to me? They just look like another table to clean.

Except, my eyes are instantly drawn to the man in the center.

He is massive. At least six-foot-four, built with broad, heavy shoulders that stretch the fabric of his dark suit jacket.

His hair is pitch-black, pushed back carelessly, and his jawline is a sharp, brutal angle covered in a light shadow of stubble.

He exudes pure, undiluted authority. He doesn't look around the room to see who is watching him, he already knows everyone is.

He owns the space just by breathing in it.

The crowd naturally, silently parts for them. Men step back, averting their eyes, making themselves as small as possible. It is a primal display of submission.

Chloe steps right into his path, offering a practiced, sultry smile, her blouse unbuttoned dangerously low.

The man in the center doesn't even blink. He walks past her without breaking stride, looking straight through her as if she is nothing more than a piece of cheap furniture in his way. Her smile falters, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment, but he is already looking past her.

It doesn’t matter to me because they are just another customer, so I go back to cleaning my table.