Elena
The footsteps faded down the hallway, heavy boots echoing like a death toll, leaving me swallowed in silence. Then came the sound I dreaded most: the sharp click of the lock sliding into place.
I turned slowly, my stomach tightening into knots as my gaze swept over the space around me.
This wasn't just a room.
It was a kingdom.
A king's bedroom—vast and sprawling, stretching wider than my entire apartment back home. Every inch of it screamed wealth and authority, but not the warm, golden kind. No… this was black and white, stark and merciless, like the man who owned it.
The walls were a flawless ivory, broken by tall black columns carved with intricate patterns. A massive chandelier of glass and obsidian hung above me, its cold light casting fractured shadows across the polished marble floor.
The curtains were the same—towering black drapes lined with white silk, pulled tight across windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. I tugged one aside with trembling fingers, hoping for a view, a weakness, anything. But the thick glass beneath reflected only me: pale, fragile, small. A bird already trapped in the cage.
And then there was the bed.
God.
It was enormous, carved from dark mahogany, draped in black silk sheets that shimmered faintly under the light. The pillows, stark white, stood out like bones against the darkness. The whole thing seemed to mock me—luxury twisted into something terrifying. Not comfort, not softness. No. It was a stage. A reminder of power. A place where someone like Damian Moretti could own and destroy in equal measure.
I sank onto the edge of it, stiff and unwilling, as though even the sheets might coil around me, binding me tighter than the lock on the door ever could.
My heart hammered. My hands wouldn't stop trembling.
Why here? Why his room?
The question spiraled through me, dragging darker whispers with it.
This wasn't a guest room. He hadn't tucked me away in some far wing of his massive estate. He had placed me here, in the very core of his existence. Where his scent lingered in the air—spiced cologne, leather, smoke. Where every detail reflected him. Where his presence was inescapable, even in his absence.
I wrapped my arms around myself, nails biting into my skin as if pain might anchor me to reality.
Maybe this was his punishment. Maybe this was how he broke people—slowly, deliberately, drowning them in the suffocating reminder that they belonged to him.
And then my thoughts turned darker still.
What if he forced me? What if tonight was the night he decided I wasn't just a witness, but something else to claim?
My stomach twisted, nausea rising.
I had nothing—no family to call, no one who would fight for me. I was an orphan. Invisible. Forgotten. The kind of girl who could disappear, and the world wouldn't notice.
Even my pathetic diner job was gone. I knew it. My boss had been itching to replace me, and by now my absence had sealed it. That was my only source of income, the one thin thread keeping me above the water. Cut. Just like that.
The thought gutted me.
And now… I was here.
In his room.
A virgin.
The word rang inside my head like a death knell. I had kept that part of myself not because I was saving it for someone special—life had never been kind enough for such dreams—but because survival had left no room for closeness. For trust. For love.
But now?
If Damian Moretti wanted it, I wouldn't be able to stop him.
Tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them away. My imagination betrayed me, feeding on my terror: his tall frame standing in the doorway, his cold gaze stripping away every defense. His hands pinning me into the black silk, his voice low and merciless against my ear. The idea made my chest tighten until I couldn't breathe.
Stop it. Please stop.
But the thoughts kept coming, curling like smoke through my mind.
I pulled my knees to my chest, curling small on the edge of the bed, whispering into the empty air, "Don't let him come tonight. Please."
But the truth settled deep in my bones.
He would.
And what terrified me most wasn't just the possibility of him hurting me.
It was the darker thought that crept unbidden through my panic—that if he touched me, if he looked at me with that dark, consuming gaze… part of me might not resist hard enough.
And that made me cry harder than anything else.