The hum of the car engine was the only sound between them.
Rain still fell outside, streaking the tinted windows in thin silver lines. The city lights blurred through the storm — gold bleeding into red, red into darkness.
Elena sat stiffly, her wrists aching where the guards had gripped her. Her pulse refused to calm. Every heartbeat echoed one thought — this can't be real.
Across from her, Lorenzo De Luca sat with effortless control, one hand resting on his knee, the other holding a cigarette between his fingers. The faint scent of smoke mixed with leather, sharp and intoxicating. He hadn't spoken since they left the mansion. He didn't need to. His silence said everything — power, danger, command.
She finally found her voice.
"Where are you taking me?"
His gaze flicked to her, unreadable. "Home."
Her breath caught. "That's not my home."
"It is now."
The words were soft, but they cut through her like glass.
She turned to the window again, rain blurring her reflection. Home. Her family had traded her away like she was nothing — and this stranger, this Mafia boss, spoke as if he owned her.
"You didn't even ask if I wanted this," she muttered bitterly.
He exhaled smoke slowly, eyes still on her. "I don't ask permission, Elena."
Her name on his lips sent a shiver down her spine — not from warmth, but from power. He said it like he'd already claimed it.
When the car stopped, she realized they were no longer in the city. The gates ahead loomed tall and black, lined with guards. Beyond them stretched a mansion — older, grander, colder than the one she'd been ripped from. Iron and marble. Shadows and silence. A place that looked like it belonged to no one but the devil himself.
Lorenzo stepped out first, his coat whipping in the wind.
A guard opened her door, but she didn't move.
Then his voice came, low and dangerous. "Don't make me drag you."
Her stomach twisted, but she forced her trembling legs to move.
The moment her feet hit the stone path, the rain stopped — as if even the sky feared to touch this ground.
Inside, the mansion was all gold and darkness. Chandeliers hung like cages of light, and every step she took echoed too loudly. She could feel eyes on her — men in suits, silent, respectful, deadly.
Lorenzo led her up the stairs. "You'll stay in this wing. You'll eat, sleep, and breathe under my roof. You don't leave without my permission."
"I'm not your prisoner," she said through gritted teeth.
He stopped at the top of the stairs, turning slowly. For a heartbeat, his eyes met hers — deep brown, flecked with something darker. Pain, maybe. Or the ghost of something he'd buried long ago.
"Then don't act like one."
He opened a door and motioned for her to step in. It wasn't a cell — it was a room. Warm. Soft light, pale curtains, a bed too big for one person. But to her, it felt like a gilded cage.
When he didn't move, she faced him again. "Why me? There are hundreds of women who would throw themselves at your feet for this."
He didn't smile. "I don't want them."
"Then what do you want?"
His voice was quiet, but it sent a chill down her spine.
"Your father owed me blood. I took what he valued most."
Elena's throat tightened. "You think that's me?"
Lorenzo's eyes flickered, something unreadable crossing his face.
"No," he said after a long pause. "But it will hurt him more to know you belong to me."
She didn't understand what he meant — not yet.
But as he turned and left her alone in that beautiful, silent room, Elena felt it — the weight of chains she couldn't see. The air itself seemed to whisper warnings, the shadows stretching long as night fell beyond the glass.
And in the darkness, she made herself a promise.
They may have sold me to the devil… but I will never be his possession.
Still, when she lay down that night, sleep refused to come.
Because no matter how hard she tried to hate him, one thought wouldn't leave her mind —
those eyes.
Haunted. Lonely.
And for one impossible second, they had looked at her not like property…
but like a mirror.