9. Livia
Livia
I am awake, lying in the dark of my assigned room on the second floor, when I hear the heavy rumble of engines in the courtyard. I slip out of bed and walk to the window, pulling the heavy velvet curtain back just a fraction of an inch.
Down below, a convoy of four black, armored SUVs is lined up near the iron gates. Armed men are moving quickly, loading heavy duffel bags into the trunks.
Niccolò walks out of the front doors.
He is wearing a black overcoat over a dark suit, his face a harsh, unreadable mask in the pale security lighting. He gets into the back of the second SUV, the heavy door slams shut, and the convoy rolls out of the gates, disappearing into the city.
A syndicate war. That is the whisper that travels through the hallways the moment his tires leave the pavement. The Irish factions are pushing back on the South Side. Don Niccolò has gone to remind them who owns the streets.
The moment he is gone, the atmosphere inside the estate violently shifts.
The suffocating tension he brings to every room evaporates, but it isn't replaced by relief. It is replaced by a cold, predatory malice. While Niccolò was here, the staff kept their hatred contained to sneers and whispers. They were terrified of him.
Without him, the leash is entirely off.
It starts small on the first day.
I am in the main kitchen, preparing a tray of coffee and pastries for the guards stationed at the back perimeter. I carefully arrange the cups, checking the sugar packets.
Gia walks past me. She doesn't just bump my shoulder. She drives her elbow hard into my ribs, her hip checking the edge of the stainless-steel counter.
The silver tray tips. The china cups shatter against the floor tiles, hot, black coffee splashing across my black boots and the hem of my white apron.
"Oops," Gia says. Her voice is dripping with mock sympathy, but her dark eyes are shining with vicious amusement. "You really need to watch your hands, Livia. You’re so incredibly clumsy."
I look down at the shattered china. The coffee is soaking through my socks, burning my skin.
"Clean it up," Marta barks, stepping into the kitchen. She doesn't look at Gia. She glares directly at me, her face pinched in disapproval. "We do not tolerate waste in this house. Get a mop. And you will skip your lunch to replace the cups."
I don't argue. I don't raise my voice. I look at Gia’s triumphant smirk, and I force my face into a completely blank slate.
I walk to the utility closet, grab the mop, and I clean it up.
I know how to play this game. I learned it when I was seven years old, watching my father throw a plate of spaghetti at the wall because the sauce was too cold.
If you cry, they win. If you yell, the punishment gets worse.
You become a ghost. You absorb the hit, you swallow the pain, and you give them absolutely nothing to feed on.
But Gia is starving, and my silence only pisses her off more.
By the third day of Niccolò’s absence, the passive-aggressive sabotage escalates into open warfare.
Marta assigns me to the basement laundry wing. It is a massive, windowless, humid room of industrial washing machines and pressing tables. The air smells heavily of bleach, hot iron steam, and damp cotton.
I am standing at the pressing table, sliding a heavy iron over the collar of one of Niccolò’s white dress shirts. The physical labor is exhausting, but the mindless repetition gives my brain somewhere to hide. I focus on the steam. I focus on the creases.
The heavy metal door to the laundry wing suddenly slams shut.
The loud, definitive click of the deadbolt sliding into place echoes over the hum of the washing machines.
I stop moving. The iron hovers over the fabric.
I set the iron down, walk across the concrete floor, and grab the brass handle of the door. I pull. It doesn't yield. I pull harder, rattling the metal in its frame. Locked from the outside.
"Marta?" I call out, knocking my knuckles against the heavy wood. "The door is stuck."
A low, cruel laugh filters through the metal grate at the bottom of the door.
"It isn't stuck, whore."
It is Gia. Her voice is muffled but entirely clear.
"Open the door, Gia," I say, keeping my voice flat. I refuse to let the panic bleed into my tone.
"Why? So you can run upstairs and try to spread your legs for one of the guards since the Don isn't here to keep you entertained?
" Gia sneers. I can hear the rustle of her uniform as she leans closer to the grate. "We all know what you are, Livia. You think because he put you on his floor, you’re special? You’re just a warm hole he bought out of a jail cell. "
I step back from the door. My chest tightens, the humid air of the laundry room suddenly feeling dangerously thin.
"You think you’re better than us because you don't talk?" Gia’s voice turns venomous, dropping the pretense of a joke. "I know where you come from. Everyone knows. A dirty little rat from the South Side. Your father was a pathetic drunk who beat your mother to a pulp, right?"
The breath is violently punched out of my lungs.
My hands begin to shake. I cross my arms tightly over my chest, digging my nails into my biceps through the fabric of the uniform.
How does she know? The police report? The background checks? It doesn't matter. She has the weapon, and she is twisting the blade.
"Is that why you like it here?" Gia taunts, her voice echoing through the basement.
"Is that why you let Don Niccolò keep you? Because you’re used to the violence?
Trash breeds trash, Livia. Your mother was a weak, pathetic punching bag, and you are exactly the same.
You found a richer monster to beat you."
"Shut up," I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut.
"What was that?" Gia mocks. "I can't hear you over the sound of you cowering in the dark. Your mother died of a failing liver, didn't she? Pathetic. You'll probably die in this house the exact same way. Alone, bruised, and completely useless."
The walls of the laundry room begin to close in. The heavy scent of bleach makes my stomach heave.
I slide down the solid wood of the door until my knees hit the cold concrete floor. I pull my legs to my chest, wrapping my arms around my shins.
I want to scream at her. I want to tell her that she doesn't know anything about my mother. I want to claw at the door until my fingers bleed.
But I don't.
I bury my face in my knees. I take a slow, jagged breath in through my nose. I hold it for four seconds. I exhale through my mouth. I do it again. And again.
I will not break. I will not give this spiteful, jealous girl the satisfaction of hearing me cry. She wants me to shatter. She wants me to bang on the door and beg to be let out.
I sit in the suffocating heat of the basement, and I build the fortress back up, brick by brick. I take every vile word she speaks through the grate, and I bury it in the darkest, coldest part of my mind.
I am Livia Marino. I survived the devil himself. I will not be broken by a maid in a black dress.
I don't know how long I sit there. Gia eventually gets bored of the silence. I hear her footsteps retreat down the hallway.
Hours pass. The heat of the pressing irons makes the air heavy and oppressive. Sweat drips down my spine, soaking the collar of my uniform. My stomach clenches with hunger, the skipped meals finally taking their toll on my body.
Finally, the deadbolt clicks.
The door swings open.
Marta stands in the doorway. Her eyes sweep over me sitting on the concrete floor, then flick to the pile of un-ironed shirts on the table.
"Get up," Marta snaps, her tone devoid of an ounce of sympathy. "I did not authorize a break. If you want to slack off, you will do it on your own time. Finish the pressing, and then scrub the floors in the east wing."
She doesn't ask why the door was locked. She knows. She sanctioned it with her silence.
I don't defend myself. I don't point fingers. I simply push myself up from the concrete, my muscles screaming in protest.
"Yes, Marta," I say flatly.
I turn back to the ironing board. I pick up the heavy iron and press it to the fabric.
I finish the laundry. I carry the heavy baskets up three flights of stairs. I scrub the east wing floors on my hands and knees until the skin on my palms is raw and blistered. The physical exhaustion is so absolute it borders on numbness.
But the numbness doesn't reach my head. It doesn't reach the heavy, pulsing ache settling deep between my thighs.
As I scrub the marble tiles, leaning over the bucket of soapy water, my mind cruelly drags me back to the study. To the night before he left.
I plunge the brush into the water, scrubbing harder, but I can't wash away the sensory memory. I feel the solid, immovable wall of his chest pressing flush against my spine. I feel the intoxicating heat radiating off his skin, swallowing me whole.
My breath hitches in the empty hallway.
He caged me against the liquor cabinet. He smelled like bergamot and danger. And when he pressed against me, I felt the thick, hard ridge of his arousal digging into my lower back through the fabric of his trousers.
The memory sends a violent shock of wetness straight to my core.
I squeeze my eyes shut, a hot flush creeping up my neck.
I hate it. I hate my own body for craving him.
When his rough thumb dragged over my racing pulse, when he leaned in so close our lips were separated by a fraction of an inch, I wasn't thinking about escaping.
I wasn't thinking about my independence.
I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted the monster to completely devour me.
The realization is a sickening, humiliating rot in my stomach.
I am everything Gia accused me of being.
I am terrified of him, yes. He ruined my life.
But the dark, twisted truth is that his dominance doesn't just scare me—it turns me on.
The way he looked at me, the way he commanded me to pour his drink while pressing his erection against my spine... it completely short-circuited my brain.