The Lies We Lived (Broken Empire #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Matteo

The nightclub's a fucking warzone of sound and sin, lights strobe like gunfire, bass pounding like a heartbeat that’s about to flatline. Smoke coils through the air, thick as secrets, laced with sweat, sex, and the sting of cheap liquor.

I couldn’t give a single shit about the bodies writhing out there on the dancefloor, they’re noise, static, nothing.

I’m not here to dance. I’m not here to feel.

I’m here to forget.

To fuck.

To bleed the poison out, one thrust at a time.

She’s got her back against the wall in the back room, legs parted like a prayer I’ll never say. Her breath catches, a gasp sliced open by the way I drive into her.

It’s hard, desperate, like this is the only goddamn thing keeping me from falling apart.

My cock buried deep, her moan catching fire in her throat, I chase oblivion in the slick heat of her, every stroke a fuck-you to the past and everything I swore I’d never become.

The desperation in her eyes tells me she’s starving, ravenous for more. She clings to me like I’m the last fix she’ll ever get.

She doesn’t know my name.

I don’t know hers.

We’re ghosts to each other, and that’s the point. Names come with strings, with expectations.

I’m not here for any of that shit. I’m here to fuck the rage out of me.

To shove the weight of my life into someone else’s skin, just long enough to breathe again. To forget. To break apart and not have to put the pieces back together.

She’s a body.

Warm.

Wet.

Willing.

That’s it. That’s all.

She moans like I’m salvation, but I’m not. I’m the storm she’s letting wreck her for a night, and when it’s done, we’ll both disappear into the smoke. As if it never happened.

Because that’s what this is. A fuck. A release.

Not a beginning. Just another end.

I slam into her, harder this time.

The brick grates against her back, but she doesn’t complain. She just moans like this means something.

I grit my teeth.

She doesn’t get it.

This isn’t about her.

Her hands claw at my back, nails scoring lines down my skin like she’s trying to brand me.

I don’t care. She could draw blood and I still wouldn’t flinch. All I feel is the friction, the heat, the tightness around my cock as I drive into her again and again, chasing that edge like it’s the only thing keeping me alive.

She whimpers something soft, breathy, too fucking much, and I want to tell her to shut the fuck up. I don’t want her moans. I don’t want her sounds.

I want silence. Stillness. Obedience.

She’s just a hole tonight. A body. Warm, slick, and in the right place at the right fucking time. This isn’t about her getting off. I’m not here to make her come.

My phone blares over the noise.

That ring tone I’d know anywhere. My father.

The man runs a mafia empire. When he calls, you answer.

No exceptions. No delays. Obedience is the currency.

But right now I couldn’t give a fuck, when I’m buried balls-deep in some girl, fucking like my sanity depends on it. Because I’m not his soldier right now. I’m not his clean-up crew or his heir or his goddamn puppet.

Right now, I’m just a man with a cock and a reason to forget. I clench my jaw and fuck harder, like I can outrun the consequences.

“Don’t stop,” she breathes against my ear, her voice all heat and hunger. Like she thinks she has a say in it. She doesn’t.

She can whisper, beg, scream and I couldn’t give a shit. I call the shots. I hold the reins.

I slam into her harder, faster.

Each thrust a punishment, a purge, a desperate attempt to empty out the venom curling in my gut.

Her body jerks with every hit, trembling around me, trying to keep up with a rhythm that has nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with pain. Her moans rise, broken, relentless.

And all they do is drive me faster. Harder.

Closer to the edge I’ve been chasing since the second I shoved my cock inside her.

My grip tightens on her hips like I’m afraid she’ll vanish mid-fuck.

It’s coming. And I welcome it.

That sharp, blinding rush that rips through me like a goddamn firestorm. My body locks, every muscle pulled tight as the release hits. Raw and violent and mine. A groan tears from my throat before I can swallow it, rough and guttural like it’s been buried in me too long.

I come hard, hips grinding as I empty inside her, lost in the pleasure that sears through me and burns out the emptiness.

And for a breath, for a heartbeat, there’s nothing but silence.

No noise.

No father.

No orders. No guilt.

When I’m done, I pull out as if she's nothing. No warning. No tenderness.

She gasps, reaching for me, fingers trembling as they grab at my arm as though she thinks I might stay. As if I ever would.

She doesn’t get it. She’s not special. Not different. She's another desperate girl hoping a good fuck might mean something more.

I tie off the condom, toss it in the trash, then tuck my cock back into my pants. Her scent still clings to me. I don’t even glance at her while I zip up.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” I mutter, voice rough, dead cold. “Don’t get fucking attached.”

She flinches as if I've slapped her.

Pain’s a better teacher than any lie I could’ve whispered in her ear.

I wipe my hands on my pants, brushing away the last trace of her like she’s filth clinging to my skin… or dirt under my nails, nothing more.

My gaze shifts to hers for just a heartbeat. Her hair is messy, her lips swollen, and her pupils wide, as she still waits for something real.

I turn away from her without a second glance.

No parting words. No look back. She’s already fading into the background, just another fuck I’ll forget by morning.

The bass of the club thrums with the intensity of a second heartbeat, dirty and relentless, pulsing through the floor as I head to the door.

The real exit - the one the public never sees. The one my father made sure I had access to the second I was old enough to fuck and old enough to work for him.

A back door carved into the bones of the building, not for safety, but strategy. An escape route in case I ever got stuck. Trapped with a gun in my face, or my cock in someone I shouldn’t have touched. Too young to give a shit. Too angry to care who it was with.

Salvatore’s already there, my father’s man, carved from silence and shadow, stationed like a ghost with a pulse.

He’s seen it all.

The late-night fucks. The club girls who thought I might call. The blood on my knuckles when things got messy and I didn’t stop swinging. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t ask questions he already knows the answers to.

He just gives me a nod, shoves the door open, and leads me out into the night as if it’s routine… because it is. It’s the same sins with a different girl.

The car’s already waiting, blacked out and humming, as though it knows exactly what kind of wreck it’s about to carry home.

The car door shuts behind me with a hollow thud, like a coffin lid sealing shut. The stench of sweat and sex still clings to me, thick in the air, but the silence in here feels worse.

The ringtone slices through the silence like a rusted blade.

Old, familiar, and still sharp enough to cut. That sound, I’d know it in my sleep.

It’s the anthem of control. A siren song wrapped in power plays and promises. It coils around my spine before I even move, dragging me back into the grip I’ve spent my whole life trying to outrun.

I reach into my pocket, my fingers wrapping around the phone as if it were something dirty.

His name flashes on the screen.

KING PRICK.

Bold, unblinking, like he’s staring through me.

The vibration hums in my palm, steady as a threat.

I stare at it, jaw ticking.

One second.

Two.

Then I swipe it and hold it to my ear.

“What is it?” I growl, the words sharp, teeth bared, irritation bubbling like acid in my chest.

His voice slips through the speaker, clean, cold, and clinical. Always calm. Always in fucking control.

It crawls under my skin and lights a fire I’ve never learned how to put out. Because this phone… It’s a collar. And I’ve been wearing it since the day I was born.

“I found her,” he says.

And everything inside me goes still.

Those three words tear through me like shrapnel, tearing open shit I’ve spent years trying to bury. I never wanted to hear those words.

Not from him. Not from anyone. I’ve prayed. I’ve actually fucking prayed that she’d stay hidden. Stay gone. Stay safe.

Because if he ever found her… It’s over.

The silence stretches, thick and strangling. My grip on the phone turns to stone, knuckles white as my throat locks.

“Get here, now,” he says, voice steel, emotionless.