Chapter 1
Chapter One
ANTONELLA
I t was barely eight o’clock in the evening and I was ready for bed. Makeup removed. Freshly showered. Hair in a messy bun.
I lay in bed in a white silk sleep tank and matching shorts with a book cracked open. At first, I had rolled my eyes at my sleepwear options, but I’d come to realize that silk was a fantastic material to sleep in. It was thin like air but surprisingly insulating when the AC kicked on at night.
All interactions with anyone capable of breathing in this house were bullshit, except when they included Massimo, the chef, and Aurelio, the butler. They were the only people who treated me like a human being. But between those moments, there was very little to do around my new prison. Sure, it was a beautiful estate that came with a lot of amenities, like a swimming pool and access to the ocean, but I couldn’t enjoy any of it based on the pretense of why I was here in the first place. Imprisonment. Any time I indulged and took advantage of my captor’s home, it was only to disrupt his peace. To annoy Lazaro.
He had sold my belongings. Everything I had held dear was gone...because of him. All of Mamma’s mementos and keepsakes, gone. Items I had been planning on sharing with my children someday, to teach them about the grandmother they’d never have the joy of meeting.
I had never been a person who needed expensive things to make me happy. It was the sentimental things that were priceless to me. Anything that had belonged to my late mother was irreplaceable.
Lazaro was a bad man, inside and out. He was a criminal, I knew that much. And his intentions with me were nothing but malicious.
How much longer would I be here? Would I ever be free? It was my curse in life to find myself in the path of dangerous men like Lazaro.
Knock. Knock.
I didn’t answer. There was only one person who ever came up to my room, and she never waited for me to answer before barging in.
I rested the book on my chest and clasped my hands over my belly, waiting for her to begin. Angelica, the maid, and I found it was easier to skip pleasantries between us like, “Hello,” and “How are you,” because it would somehow just end up in a fight. The woman hated me, and the feeling was mutual.
Her beady eyes darted around my room, investigating as if she had caught me staging a military coup and she was sure to find an army hiding in my room. “The boys are at lunch,” I called to her, going with the conspiracy.
Her overgrown brows pinched together. “Signore Lazaro says it’s time for dinner.”
Interesting. He hadn’t asked me to join him for a meal since he had flipped out and sent me away without food. Since then, I’d either taken my meals in my room or in the kitchen while watching Massimo cook.
As a matter of fact, I had hardly seen Lazaro since then.
Any moment of peace I ever found in this house of horrors was always ruined, either by him or by the rat standing in front of me. I had been looking forward to picking some lemons for lemonade, but minutes after setting up my ladder, I had felt I was being watched. I had turned to see his stupid friends pressed up to the glass of the window, ogling me, while Lazaro had just stood there, yet again pissed off that I existed. If I annoyed him so much, then why not just let me go? Why keep me here just to endure the bad mood he’d been in since he brought me here? It made no sense to me.
Although, I had to admit teasing him was fun. I found great joy in watching his forehead crease with little wrinkles and the hard muscle of his jaw tick.
Was I scared that Lazaro would touch me? Or hurt me for acting out of line? Maybe. But there was some part that couldn’t resist testing his boundaries—seeing how much I could get away with. It was the dopamine hit I desperately needed to fill these mundane days.
I really should have my head examined, if I ever made it out of here.
“Did you hear me?” Angelica clapped her hands together. “Signore Lazaro requests your presence at dinner.”
I let out a deep sigh. This woman really was insufferable. “Requests, or demands?”
She glared at me as if I had personally offended her. “ Requires .”
My eyes rolled so far back in my head that I swore they nearly stuck there for a second. Of course, he wasn’t going to make this optional.
“You tell him that I require advanced notice for dinner. I’m currently in a very important meeting with my accountant.” I picked my book back up and licked my finger to turn the page.
“Your turn,” Angelica shouted over her shoulder.
Four soldiers rushed in with guns aimed at my forehead. The book thudded onto my belly. “What the fuck?!”
Angelica smirked. “Signore said to use any means necessary.”
Two of the men grabbed at my arms, dragging me off the bed. I yanked hard away from them. “Alright, alright! Get the fuck off me.” I stood up. “I’ll go on my own.”
“You need to change first.” Angelica twisted her nose up at my night clothes.
I pinned my hands to my hips. “You’re getting me to go downstairs. Don’t push your luck, woman.”
She pushed her glasses up her long nose. “Hmph.”
I pushed past her and padded downstairs on bare feet. If he wanted me to come to dinner so badly, then why the hell should I have to inconvenience myself further by looking presentable? According to him, I was just a prisoner, and last I checked, prisoners didn’t have to dress up for bullshit dinners with their wardens.
From the dining room entrance, I could see that Lazaro was dressed in a white button-down shirt and dark slacks. He hadn’t changed after work—or whatever criminals called what they did for money.
He cut his food with a knife and fork and took a bite.
“Ah, being rude and not waiting for your guest to start, again?” I called out as I walked to the opposite end of the table. I wasn’t his guest, I was his prisoner, but that didn’t mean he got a free pass from my attitude.
His eyes burned trails down my body. “You’re dressed indecently, again.”
Aurelio pulled out my chair, and I took my seat. “Nice to see you, too, Lazaro.”
Lazaro stared at me and his butler, his angular jaw already clenching. Aurelio quickly and nervously poured me a glass of wine before exiting the dining room.
“Relax. He’s not ogling me like your little friends. He at least has manners enough to treat me like a lady, unlike you and your moronic gang of men.”
Not at all amused by my insult, he said, “I gave you a whole closet of clothes. Put on something appropriate when you come downstairs.”
I couldn’t contain myself and snorted at the ridiculousness of the notion as I placed my napkin in my lap. “Are you serious? You should have thought about that before ordering me down here on short notice.”
He cut into his food. “You talk like you’re busy. I know you’re bored up there.”
If only my eyes had been laser beams, I could have incinerated him with my glare.
“I have a proposition for you,” he said, his coal-dark eyes on me.
“Need an investor in your criminal business or whatever it is you do? Yeah, I’m fresh out of fucks. Ask someone else.” I didn’t care what he had to offer. Unless it was to get the fuck out of here, I didn’t want to hear it.
“You can have your belongings back.”
All my belongings from my apartment. All of my mother’s mementos. But...he’d sold them. Hadn’t he?
My ears must have been clogged. “What?”
He wiped his mouth with his napkin and threw it onto the table. To his left was a manila envelope, which he picked up before striding toward me, footsteps echoing on the floor.
He dropped the envelope in my lap.
I let out an exhale.
“Open it.”
With clumsy hands, I worked at the metal prong and pulled out the contents. Photos. All of the things from my apartment were packed into boxes. All of it, heaped into overflowing piles in cardboard.
My heart seized in my chest. Mamma’s dishes. The paintings of countryside sunsets that she had made for my room. The photo albums that contained memories of us.
Tears pricked my eyes. “I-I thought you sold everything.” My fingers fumbled as I flipped through the photos. The quilt Mamma knitted for me.
Bending down, he whispered, “I can give you anything you want.” His lips grazed the outer shell of my ear. “For a price.”
Anything. I’d have done anything to get it all back.
“Tell me who you work for.”
My stomach dropped. “I already told you, I’m not working for anyone.” He blamed me for the explosion that had nearly killed him and his men, but I had had nothing to do with it. I had blacked out in the alley when the explosion happened and had woken up as Lazaro’s prisoner. He was convinced I had been the one to detonate the explosives.
Unsatisfied, Lazaro shook his head. “I suppose you don’t want your belongings badly enough; otherwise, you’d talk. If they mean nothing, I’ll just have Dante burn them.”
“No! I do. I want them. Please. Please, don’t burn them.”
He grabbed my upper arm, hard. “Then talk fast!” he shouted.
Tears filled my eyes but never fell. “I told you everything I know. Please, why won’t you believe me?”
In one sweeping motion, his forearm sent dishes flying off the table. My hands flew to my face for protection. Glass shattered in a hundred little explosions on the ground.
Suddenly, I was thrown onto the table and pinned down by his hand around my neck. My ass barely rested on the table’s edge and my legs dangled helplessly below. Screaming was futile. There was no one around to save me, nor would anyone have dared try. I was at his mercy.
His face hovered over mine, nostrils flaring and lips pulled back into a snarl exposing his teeth, like a vicious animal ready to tear me to pieces. “Aren’t you tired yet of these fucking games you’ve been playing? You thought you could get under my skin by traipsing around here like you’re in charge? I torture men for the shit you’re pulling right now.”
I tried to buck him off with my hips, but he was too strong. Too powerful. But this couldn’t be it. To have made it this far, just to give up at the very end. I would fight until my heart stopped beating and my body had grown cold.
“You’re a very difficult woman, signorina.” Lazaro rubbed himself between my legs, his hardness pressing against my core. “No matter what I do or how hard I try to break you, you still walk around here like you have bigger balls than any man. Why is that?” he asked through gritted teeth.
I struggled to suck in full breaths of air. His hold on my throat was tight, but I managed to strangle out the words. “Because I am tougher. I’m a woman.”
“Ahh, yes, I know.” His cock rocked against my pussy, delivering startling friction that set off my nerves. “I see it with my own eyes. You are all woman.”
He released my throat, and I gasped to regain my breath, heaving to expand my lungs.
“These lips.” His calloused thumb caught my parted lips and massaged them roughly, uncaring about my comfort.
His body caged me in, forming a forcefield that I couldn’t break. I was his prisoner in every sense of the word.
Goosebumps broke out over my neck as his nose skimmed my skin, traveling down to my chest. “This soft neck, so feminine and elegant.” His words vibrated through my chest, signaling my heart to pump faster.
“And these breasts.” He pinched my nipple hard through the silky fabric of my top. A strangled yelp escaped my lips, eliciting a deep, dark chuckle from him. He lifted the hem of my shirt over my bare chest, and instantly, his eyes darkened with a hunger that I knew I could never satisfy.
“Men dream of tits like these.” His large palms kneaded me, ripening them for his enjoyment. I melted when his tongue flicked my nipple and then swirled around the tip.
I was no longer panting due to the absence of air, but in anticipation—anticipation of what part of me he would touch next.
He lazily worked my other one, pinching it to a peak with his fingers, then massaging the tension away with his mouth. At some point, he was no longer forcing me down. I willingly lay before him—submitting to his whims.
No. My brain shouted for me to get up, to run away, to reach for his dinner knife and end him for all the torment he had caused me. But my body resisted. It was too weak to fight anymore.
All I could do was writhe under him, praying he’d give me more.
His tongue skated over my belly, dipping into my belly button. Fuck. My eyelids fluttered from the sensation.
He tugged the waist of my shorts down, removing them and my panties along with them. The fabric caressed my legs as they fell down.
Desperate for pressure to ease the throbbing, I squeezed my thighs together. Taking away any autonomy I’d had left, he regained control and hooked the backs of my knees around his neck. “All woman,” he growled.
His fingers swiped at my slit, playing with my slickness. “So wet and ready, like you wanted this.”
I didn’t. I swore I didn’t.
I kept saying it in my head, but it became harder to convince myself every time he touched me.
When his tongue made contact with my pussy, I nearly exploded into two. He worked my clit in tight circles, winding me up like I was his favorite toy to play with. My back arched as I wove my fingers into his hair, locking him against me.
The scruff on his chin grazed the sensitive skin of my inner thighs as he worked diligently.
One of his hands came up to play with my breast, palming it with the same rhythm that he used to lick me. His calluses grazed my nipple in the most achingly delicious way.
His tongue slid down to my entrance, delving inside to taste all of me.
“Lazaro,” I moaned, not caring if any of his staff heard me. “Please...” I wasn’t in the habit of begging any man for anything, but tonight, I found myself to be an open sack of pleas.
“Please what , signorina?” His voice hummed through my center, reaching all the way down to my toes.
I was so close to the edge . . . so close to ecstasy . . . so close to freedom.
“Please . . . make me come.”
And, like the true monster he was, he retreated—backing away from me until his warm touch was just a ghost of a memory. “No.”
I gaped at him, my body shaking from the pent-up energy that he had so skillfully cultivated with his tongue. “What?” I needed him to finish, to relieve me of the yearning that overloaded my body.
But he just stood there, his expression merciless. “You didn’t give me what I want, so you don’t get what you want.” He wiped my juices off his fingers with a napkin that had fallen to the floor before turning his back to me and strolling out of the dining room.
The fight that I had momentarily lost reignited within me, this time coursing through my body so strongly that I trembled with rage. A blood-curdling scream ripped through me. “I’m going to fucking kill you, Lazaro!”
It was a promise.