The Shadow Guard

I was Don Vincenzo’s secret for ten years. I was waiting for a ring. Instead, after fucking me, he told me he was marrying someone else. That's when I knew I was just a body for him to use.

An hour ago.

For the thousandth time, he fucked me, wild and furious.

I came apart under him, my nails digging into his shoulders.

“Yes… like that…”

I gasped, feeling every one of his thrusts deep inside me.

He kissed me hard, harder than ever before.

When it was over, I curled up in his arms, tracing the scars on his chest with my finger.

His voice cut through the dark. “Tomorrow night, you’re coming to the family dinner.”

I looked up at him, my heart pounding.

I’d slept with him for a decade. He’d never let me near a family dinner.

“Vincenzo,” I sat up, my voice trembling. “Is this it? Are you finally making me yours?”

He raised an eyebrow, giving me a sideways glance.

“Official?” He blew a smoke ring, his tone sharp. “What’s to make official? The dinner is to welcome my fiancée. Katerina Petrov, the Russian Bratva princess.”

Every word hit me like a sledgehammer.

My heart stopped. My mind went blank. “You’re getting married? Then what the hell am I?”

The smirk on Vincenzo’s face died. He leaned in close.

“Don’t tell me, Chiara,” he purred, a finger tilting my chin up. “You didn’t really think you could be the lady of the Russo family, did you?”

I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing.

"Her. When did you decide?"

"Six months ago." He got up and walked to the bathroom, without a single glance back at the wreckage he’d made of my face. "It's for the alliance. For the family."

Six months ago.

I remembered all his business trips to Europe.

Every time he came back, I was waiting for him in bed.

And on those trips, he was getting engaged to another woman.

I followed him into the bathroom. The mirror showed my pale face, my body covered in his marks.

An hour ago, they were trophies. Now, they were just marks of shame.

"Do you love her?"

"Love?" He turned on the shower, steam quickly fogging the mirror. "Chiara, I thought you were smarter than that. This is business. Not a fairytale."

He stepped out of the shower, water dripping down his perfect body.

Ten minutes ago, that body drove me wild.

Now, it just made me sick.

"Katerina is young, beautiful, and useful. She brings the entire Eastern Bloc with her." He grabbed a towel. His eyes swept over my naked body. "And you… you have other uses."

Other uses.

A warm body in his bed. A loyal weapon.

I just stood there, feeling his cum run down my leg. I had never felt so dirty.

When I pulled myself together and walked back out, Vincenzo was already in a suit, sitting on the sofa, on the phone.

“The Fabergé egg. Make sure it’s the ‘Winter Egg.’ It's Katerina’s favorite. The flowers have to be lilies of the valley, flown in from Russia. She loves the scent. And get a dozen haute couture gowns ready for her to try on. All white. She says it’s the color of angels.”

Hearing that, my heart seized up.

I couldn't help but look. And I saw it. A smile on his face I had never seen before. It was almost… sweet.

The pain I’d just managed to push down came flooding back.

Clatter.

My phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor.

Vincenzo turned at the sound, still smiling. “All clean? Good. See yourself out. I’ll take care of the bill.”

He grabbed his coat to leave, but stopped at the door and looked back at me, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Chiara, you’ve always been my best weapon. So lose that kicked-puppy look, Chiara. It makes you look pathetic. Like you’re reaching for something you could never have.”

“I know you inside and out. I know what you’re thinking with just one look. Don’t you think that’s a little… predictable? If we were actually together, it’d be so damn boring.”

His voice faded with his footsteps, but the words echoed in my head.

I sat on the cold bed. I started to laugh. And then the laughter turned to tears.

I sat there until late, then went back to my own studio.

I walked to the safe and put in the code.

Inside was a gold Desert Eagle. The grip was engraved with my initials. A “gift” from Vincenzo for my eighteenth birthday.

There were also the jewels, the paintings, the antiques he’d given me over the years.

Tonight, I threw them all into the incinerator, one by one.

“Miss, all this good stuff… you’re really getting rid of it?” my assistant asked, his eyes full of regret as he watched the flames.

I nodded slowly. My voice was quiet.

“I don’t want them anymore.”

Not just them. This relationship, this man… I didn’t want any of it.

I dialed an encrypted number.

“Papa. It’s me.”

“Chiara? You finally decided to call.”

“In seven days, I want the name Chiara Rossi to disappear from Chicago. Forever.”