Elena I tip back my vodka mixer and order a second one, ignoring the bartender’s attempts to flirt with me. Thank goodness for the horrendous pounding music that drowns him out. I’m in no mood to socialize tonight, as usual. I shouldn’t have gone out at all, but I figured I should celebrate my 23rd birthday somehow. The bartender hands me my drink, and I try to resist the urge to finish it in one gulp. I learned the hard way that liquor won’t numb the emptiness and the worry I constantly feel. If it did, I would no doubt have become a raging alcoholic two years ago. It still gives me a pleasant buzz though, and tonight I’ll settle for that. I smile apologetically at the bartender who keeps glancing at me and turn away, my eyes roaming over the dance floor. It doesn’t take me long to find the girls I came with. We all work at the same diner, and when they found out it was my birthday, they insisted that I join them tonight. I should’ve said no, like I always do. I feel like the odd
Alexander Her eyes… they have me captivated. The swirls of green amidst the light brown; they’re beautiful, and vaguely familiar. The girl sitting next to me is stunning in a timeless way, and she’s got me enthralled. I take in her ridiculously long lashes, her high cheekbones, and that luscious long hair. She’s a classic beauty, unlike the plastic girls I’m usually surrounded with. None of that bullshit, the fake-everything, fake nails, fake lashes, fake hair, fake lips. I’m tired of it. This girl… she’s real, and she might very well be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She seems nervous as she sits down next to me, her fingers pulling on the hem of her dress, as though she’s uncomfortable in that sexy dress that she’s wearing. She has no reason to be. She’s sexy as fuck without compromising on the classiness she oozes. She looks up, and when her eyes find mine, she’s got me spellbound. “You have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, yet, I don’t know yours.” Her eyes wi
Elena The nurse that usually takes care of my mother greets me warmly as I walk into her hospital room. “Happy birthday, sweetie. I wish we didn’t have to call you tonight. You deserve to act your age every once in a while, but you know what Dr. Johnson is like.” “Thank you, June,” I say, trying my best to smile at her as I sit down next to my mother. Dr. Johnson doesn’t believe in keeping my mother here when he could be using her bed for a patient that he might be able to save, but he can’t turn me away either. Not while I’m still able to pay the bills. Eight years. My mother has been in a coma for eight years now, and I’m the only one who still believes she’ll wake up one day. I can’t help but feel like it’s a race against the clock. It’s become a question of what will run out first, the money that keeps her alive, or my mother’s remaining health. The doctor walks into the room and nods at me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the man smile. “Dr. Johnson,” I say, nodding back. “I h
Alexander I pace in my bedroom, exhausted. I’ve been up all night, trying to figure out who Diana is. “Find her,” I tell Vaughn, the owner of Inferno and almost every other nightlife establishment in this city. “She told me her name was Diana. Long brown hair, dazzling green-brown eyes… and that smile. I doubt she’s a regular. She looked far too sweet to frequent your seedy places.” Vaughn laughs. “Since when are you into sweet girls?” I bite down on my lip, unable to shake the thought of Diana. I can’t even pinpoint what it was about her. I didn’t even kiss her. All I know is that I want to see her again. I want to see her again and find out why she called me Alec. “She was different. I don’t know.” Vaughn and I have been friends since we were children. He knows as well as I do that girls like Diana are far from my type. I usually go for alluring, sexy, and confident women. Not that Diana wasn’t sexy… she was hot as fuck. But she didn’t exude sexuality, almost like she didn’t eve
Alexander I stare at the photos of my father in my inbox and tighten my grip on the phone in my hand. This time, he’s in Tijuana with two blondes half his age. “You know the deal,” I say, my jaw clenching involuntarily. “Make sure these photos never see the light of the day.” “Of course,” Elliot says, rattling on about the costs to make these photos disappear. “I don’t care,” I tell him. Elliot is one of my closest friends and he might well be the best hacker alive. Thanks to that, he has no qualms about extorting me in return for keeping shit like this off the internet. “Just make sure my mother never sees this. No one can ever see this.” I end the call, annoyed. My father is no longer even trying to be sly about his affairs. There are no excuses anymore, no more made-up business trips, no more lies. Now he just disappears for months on end, leaving my mother heartbroken, over and over again. I have spent over twenty-thousand dollars trying to keep his affairs hidden, but there’
ElenaI stare up at the grand mansion in front of me, the gates imposing. I inhale deeply before forcing my feet forward. I press my palm to the scanner, and a sigh of relief escapes my lips when the gates swing open. Part of me expected to be denied entry—I wouldn’t put it past my stepmother to find a way to remove all my biometric data. She’s tried to cut me off from my father and brother the moment she stepped into our lives, and she’s succeeded. I wouldn’t even be here if my mother’s life didn’t depend on it.I’m nervous as I reach the door, my gaze dropping down to the old clothes I’m wearing and my torn-up shoes. A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in this outfit, and now I can’t afford anything better. I hardly ever feel embarrassed for the way I live my life now, but standing here in front of my childhood home, knowing I’ll be judged and found lacking… it hurts.It kills me that I have to resort to coming here at all, that I’m incapable of caring for my mot
ElenaI look up at the beautiful building in front of me and double check the address on the card in my hand. This place is not quite what I expected. It doesn’t look seedy at all. I was expecting an underground strip club or something similar. Instead, I take in the sprawling mansion with its perfectly manicured lawns, a huge gate separating me from what is sure to be the worst decision I will ever make.I timidly walk up to the two security officers guarding the gate. Their rigid posture reminds me of soldiers guarding a palace, and the hostility on their faces does nothing to ease my nerves. Their cold eyes are on me as I approach, and for a second I wonder if they might pull out the guns strapped to their belts. I exhale in relief when they smile, or at least attempt to.“Madam?” the guard on the right says, nodding at me. I fumble with the black business card in my hand, unsure of what to say. I can’t tell them I’m here to sell myself to the highest bidder, can I? The guard’s eyes
AlexanderI can’t believe I didn’t recognize her.Elena.Those eyes of hers should’ve clued me in. She’s the only girl I know whose eyes are an intriguing combination of light brown and green. I should’ve trusted my instincts when I thought she looked familiar.The last time I remember seeing her, she was an awkward teenager with braces and glasses that were too big for her face. She was always quite pretty, but the girl I’ve come to know as Diana…She’s downright stunning. The black dress she’s wearing today hugs her figure, and it’s quite obvious that Elena is far from a little girl now.Why would she even hide her identity that night? Why would she deceive me?I pause on the steps of Vaughn’s club, unable to shake the feeling that something isn’t quite right with her. I haven’t stopped thinking aboutDianasince that night, but I can’t shake the anger I’m feeling either. I feel like she toyed with me by hiding who she was, and it doesn’t sit well with me. I grit my teeth at the thought
“Keep. Going.”All over this city, I inspire fear in men. People talk about me in low whispers of pure dread, but I have no power here. It’s all Elena.“I’ll show you how bad you really want it,” I growl, pulling down her shorts and her underwear.Falling to my knees beside the bed, I stare in awe at her feminine core. She’s glistening with her wetness. Her lips are swollen with pure need. I reach under the bed and grab her ass, caressing her supple mounds as I bring my mouth to her slit.“Do you think this is a game?” I snarl.“I’m not playing any game.”“Sure you’re not. Beg me to lick your pussy. Beg me to make you come.”I stare up at her. Genuine desire dances in her eyes. She bites her lip. I can see how tortured she is. I can see how confusing this situation is—for both of us.“Do it,” she says after a pause. “Lick my virgin pussy, Dario. You own my clit.”“I don’townyou.”“Yes, you do.” She reaches down, dragging her fingernails through my hair. “You own me—all of me. Lick me.
I don’t know what this is. Is she trying to make some twisted point?She slides her hand higher up my leg. “You fought for me. Go on. I’m your trophy, your property.”“You don’t want this,” I groan.“Says who?”“You’re not thinking straight.”“I know you want it …”Fuck. She slides her hand even higher, finding my hot, pulsing steel and stroking me up and down through my pants. The mania in her eyes gets even more intense. I should stop her, but dammit. Her hand feels like it belongs on my precome-slick heat.“See,” she moans, moving even closer. “I know this is what you want. A woman who can see something like that and then give her wet pussy to you.”“Elena,” I groan. “This isn’t how you want to do this.”“Maybe I just want to forget.”She kisses me passionately, almost desperately. It’s like she wants to immerse herself in our pleasure so she doesn’t have to think about everything. Maybe this is her way of proving I only want to use her, not be with her, but it’s not true.Her body
DARIO“She doesn’t want to speak to me,” I tell Mother, a strange numb feeling cloaking me.“She’s never seen anything like this before,” my mother replies, her hand on my shoulder. “I’ve lived in this world for most of my life, andI’venever seenthataspect. You can’t blame her for being in shock.”“She looked like she hated me,” I say, looking up at the night sky as I sit on the back porch. “Do you know what she said when we got into the helicopter?Don’t look at me. Don’t touch me.She doesn’t even want me to bring her aunt and her friend here. She said she feels dirty, different.”“Dario,she’s in shock.”I grit my teeth, but I can’t stop reliving the beating I gave that lowlife who was going to hurt Elena. When I stormed the farmhouse after the successful shootout, and I saw him standing there with her, the monster in me came out—the part of me I never wanted her to see.“I’m going to see how she’s doing.”My mother sighs. “Is that a good idea?”“She’s my fiancée,” I snap.My mother t
I shudder, still not looking at him, but I’m forced to when he violently stabs the knife into the wood of the table. “I asked you a question.”“No. I don’t know.”He grins a thin, ugly smile. “The other fellas don’t much like the things Vesper does to ladies. Some of them got their morals, or that’s what they call them, anyway. Me? I take a more flexible view. Get what I mean? They don’t want to be here in case I’ve got to make you see sense. Please, make me have to make you see sense. Get it?”Part of acting is using my imagination to immerse my mind fully in a character’s experience, but this doesn’t require much effort. I don’t have totryto imagine what hemightmean. This man, the psycho who refers to himself in the third person, is willing to go to lengths even regular Mafia soldiers won’t. That means serious, life-ending abuse.“That wasn’t rhetorical,” he says.“I understand.”He taps the knife against the table. “Why don’t you try to give me some fight, hmm? Why don’t you try to
ELENAI’m pretty sure I’m in the back of a car. My hands are bound in front of me with zip ties. I think it’s a car, not a truck, because I can see light shining through the bag they’ve put over my head. I have no idea how long we’ve been driving. Time has distorted, losing all meaning. I’ve been trying to focus on slowing my breathing down.They haven’t hurt me yet, apart from the ambush itself, my head still splitting down the middle from what I assume was some sort of grenade. It all feels surreal—an acid reminder of how unsuited I am to this world.I’ve stopped crying, at least. When I think back to the attack, I feel like an idiot. I shouldn’t have assumed that the men were on my side. Nobody in the mob, not even Dario, is on my side. I’m not just from a different world but from a different universe.I think about all my aspirations and dreams of acting as Aunt Rosa sits lovingly and supportively in the crowd and all the good times Giulia and I would share. Now they’re all gone t
“I didn’t tell them anything,” my father says. “I only learned about this after the fact. Please, son, sit. Try to slow down. Try to think. You can’t approach this how you need to if you’re in this state.”I lay my fists on his desk, glaring at him. He flinches away. Now, it’s the second time he looks spooked by me. “I’m in the exact state I need to be. The right mood to tear this city to pieces to find Elena. The right state to destroy the Romanos.”“We have to be intelli?—”“Are you telling me tolet them get away with this?”“No, of course not,” he says quickly. “When they find her, I know you’ll do what you must.”“So, what are you saying?”“I don’t want you to domorethan is necessary,” he says slowly. “Find her. Rescue her. Hurt anybody who gets in your way, but as it stands, there have been no deaths.”“That we know of,” I say, then regret saying it. Putting it into words is like giving it a chance to be real. I slam my fists on his desk. “I don’t want to think about that. Elena
DARIO“Don’t start a war?”I roar down the phone at my father on speaker as I speed through the city, my hands tight on the steering wheel, blood boiling through my body like a call to violence. “Are you fucking joking? The Romanos attacked Mother and my fiancée. Theytook her, and you want me to be calm?”“Your mother is safe. The men got her out.”“And they left Elena!”“They didn’t leave her,” my father says as I speed around the corner to the theater. The police are already here, a cordon out front, which means I’m too damn late to get any information. I’m unsure what I will find, but not Elena, the one thing Ineed. This can’t be happening. “They tried to rescue her, too, but the Romanos had already taken her by the time they arrived. They didn’t abandon her, son.”“Do you think that makes any of this better?” I bellow, then hang up and call Allessio. “What’ve you got?”“No activity at their safe house on the docks, Dario,” he says. “I’m going to check their warehouse in the industr
I almost laugh, breaking character. Instead, I take the cell and pretend to type. “What’s your passcode?”She grins. “I shouldn’t tell you that, should I? I’ll type it for you.”“Here you go. Oh!” I pretend to drop the phone, then lean down and pick it up. “It’s busted. I’m so sorry; I’ll pay for a new one. In the meantime, do you have a landline?”Her eyes gleam. “I’ve been waiting for one of your kind to come.”I’m surprised for a moment, but the exhilaration of acting keeps me going in the scenario. I broaden my stance. I put a grim note to my voice. “So you know what I am, then, day dweller?”“I know, and I’m ready.” She pretends to take something out of her pocket. “This is a clove of garlic.”I smirk. “Those old myths, day dweller? I’ll take your garlic and use it in my pasta sauce. It doesn’t do a thing to us.”“What aboutthis?!” She leaps to her feet, looking so different from her usualpersonathat I wonder if she’s been putting on an act all this time, too. Or maybe it’s natur
ELENA“Iwould just like you to give me a concrete reason I can’t visit the theater,” I tell Rocco, my driver and mafiosi bodyguard.The lean man frowns at me from across the roof of his car. We’re in the front courtyard of the townhouse, the vehicle gleaming after a recent wash. “There are several issues, ma’am,” he says, clearly uncomfortable with challenging the soon-to-be Mafia princess.Since Dario left around two hours ago, I’ve felt more restless than I have since I agreed to this deal. I let myself fall into a false sense of intimacy, let the sass hint at something real. However, earlier, and let’s be honest, I played my part, too. He made it clear that was a mistake.“Are you seriously telling me?—”“Is something wrong?”We both turn at the sound of Maria Moretti’s voice. She walks toward us in a long, flowing dress that makes her appear to floatelegantly. Rocco stands a little straighter, his hands behind his back.“I was telling Miss Esposito that we can’t, at this time, tak