The council hall still echoed in Maya's mind long after she left it. Faces carved with judgment. Whispers that sounded like knives. Yet through every question, every attack, she hadn't shattered.
She stood.
She lasted.
She survived.
But survival wasn't enough.
She wanted freedom.
The guards outside her door rotated like machines silent, expressionless, always watching. She paced her room, blood hot with the desire to move, to breathe, to exist without someone dictating the rhythm of her steps.
Dominic had caged her.
She would break the lock.
That evening, as the night deepened and the mansion quieted, Maya approached the tall, window framed shadows. She removed her shoes, hands trembling with adrenaline. The drop beneath looked deadly.
But staying was another kind of death slow, suffocating, silent.
She pushed the window.
Open.
Cool air rushed in, tasting like rebellion.
Maya climbed.
Halfway out, a voice broke the silence.
"Going somewhere?"
She froze heartbeat slamming into bone. Dominic stood in the doorway, coat undone, tie loose, as if he'd come here straight from a late meeting. He didn't raise his voice. Didn't rush.
He just watched.
A predator patient enough not to chase.
Maya swallowed. "I needed air."
"You have air inside." He stepped closer. "You wanted escape."
She didn't deny it.
He moved like shadow, slow and certain, until he stood an arm's length behind her. The night breeze stirred her hair, and the moon carved him in sharp silver and darkness.
"Jump," Dominic said softly.
Her breath caught.
She turned her head slightly, stunned.
"What?"
"If you believe freedom is worth the fall jump."
His voice was calm. Deadly honest.
"But know you won't survive the ground below."
Her fingers tightened on the windowsill.
"You'd let me die?"
His eyes didn't waver. "No. I would watch you choose what you fear more the cage, or the consequences of leaving it."
Every part of her shook frustration, fury, helpless longing.
She stepped back inside.
Not because she surrendered.
But because she refused to die for him.
Not yet.
He didn't speak as he closed the window.
He didn't shout.
He didn't offer comfort or cruelty.
He only said:
"You want freedom?
Earn it."
Then he left her alone with the storm in her blood.
The next morning, the household buzzed with preparations a business gathering of allied families. Men with power. Women with sharp eyes. Deals worth blood, loyalty, and death.
Dominic stood in the grand hall issuing orders quiet, controlled, untouchable. Maya watched from the staircase, chin high, fury simmering beneath her skin.
If she couldn't run,
she would fight.
She descended the stairs slowly, deliberately, knowing every guard, servant, and guest could see her.
Dominic's eyes lifted to meet hers.
She spoke before he did.
"I want to attend."
A ripple passed through the room. Guards stiffened. Advisors exchanged looks. Maya had been confined speaking up was already rebellion.
Dominic's voice was cold enough to kill fire.
"You don't have permission."
She took three bold steps down.
"Then I'm going without it."
And she walked right past guards stunned enough to hesitate. The room gasped, tense like a drawn bowstring.
Dominic's shadow moved.
Fast.
Strong fingers wrapped around her wrist not bruising, just unbreakable. The room held its breath.
He didn't drag her back.
He turned her gently, deliberately, forcing her to face him.
"You're defiant, reckless, impulsive," he murmured, voice low enough only she could hear. "But you forget one thing."
His gaze pinned her in place sharp as a blade at her throat.
"I own you, you are mine"
Maya ripped her hand from his the hall erupting in whispers.
"No," she said loudly. "I belong only to myself."
"Little girl If you did, your weak father would not have given you off so easily as he did"
Dominic said to her
"Don't you dare talk about my father, I hate you for agreeing to this even more than I hate him"
It was public.
It was bold.
It was poison in the blood of the mafia world.
The room fell silent every eye locked on Dominic DeLuca.
A man who couldn't be challenged without consequence.
He stepped closer slow, deliberate, terrifying in restraint.
"If you want to prove autonomy," he said softly, "then I'll give you a chance."
He snapped his fingers.
Two guards stepped forward.
The room watched, breathless, expecting her to be dragged away.
But instead
Dominic spoke four words that changed everything:
"Unguard her. Completely."
Maya blinked, confused.
The guards stepped back.
Space opened around her like a trap.
Dominic's voice carried cold and clear:
"Maya…" Dominic stepped back, expression unreadable, voice dropping to a threat wrapped in velvet.
"I want to see the exact moment you break. And you will break."
"She wants freedom? She'll have it.
No guards. No escort.
No protection."
A dangerous silence followed.
Men smiled seeing prey unshielded.
Women whispered sensing blood in water.
The mafia world did not forgive defiance.
Maya's heartbeat pounded like war drums.
He didn't cage her.
He released her into wolves.
A punishment worse than walls.
Worthier.
Sharper.
Deadlier.
Dominic leaned close, lips near her ear tone dark silk, promise and warning intertwined.
"Let's see if courage survives without a cage."
She stepped back, breathing fire through fear.
"I'd rather die fighting than kneel."
His eyes gleamed, unreadable hunger, fury, fascination.
"Good.
Fight, then."
Dominic's pulse spiked not with rage, but obsession.
No one had ever challenged him like this.
No woman had ever spit fire into his authority.
Most women trembled before him.
Maya stared like she was ready to draw blood.
Dominic should have been furious. Instead, something inside him tightened fascination, hunger, the dangerous urge to push her harder.
She was not a bride.
She was a war.
And he was already addicted.
And he walked away leaving her surrounded, exposed, unprotected.
Free, but hunted.
Freedom was never safe.
Not in the DeLuca world.
And defiance had only begun.