{CARA'S POV}**I haven’t fully recovered yet.I haven't even begun to process the mess of what's happening. Every bruise still throbs, every word still stings. The fact that I’m here, dressed up like some doll for Edmondo, the Don of the North, makes my stomach churn with disgust. Yet, here I am. I should be trembling with fear, maybe even begging for my life like the others would expect me to. But instead, I feel... numb.Grief. Pure grief. Grief for the life I had, grief for the person I used to be. But there's no time for that. There's no time for grieving anymore. Instead, this is time for dressing up like a fucking prize, a Donna, for some twisted circus of power.This is all about being owned. I’ve been dragged into their web, and I can’t get out.Edmondo. I should’ve known. I should’ve recognized him for what he is, for who he is. The Don. The man who holds all the power in this damn northern Italy, who controls everything and everyone, and here I am; nothing but a pawn.
{EDMONDO'S POV}**“Dio bono! LChësta fameja i à tütc i oci blö (Good God! Everyone in this damn family has blue eyes),” is what anyone would say walking into this room.It’s like some cursed family heirloom we’re all forced to carry. My mother, my sisters Lucia and Francesca, my brothers Giordano, Giorgio, and Enzo; all with those cold, unforgiving blue eyes.Sadly for me, faces blur together. Features slip away like smoke. Ever since the accident six years ago, my vision’s been a cruel trickster. Details disappear. Identities smear into nothing. It's a disability; I can't recognise faces.So I’ve learned to adapt. I don’t recognize people by their faces anymore; I recognize them by the way they move, the habits they don’t even realize they have.Lucia’s to my left, gripping her glass so tight it might shatter. She always holds onto things like that when she’s on the fucking edge. Like if she can choke the tension out of her life which is a foolish lie.Next to her, Francesca taps h
{EDMONDO'S POV}**Trust me, if I ever lie to the world, I wouldn’t to myself.All I want is to hear her say my name. After hearing her call her father’s name like she’s some fucking robot programmed to, I’m jealous.When I chose to capture her days ago, I thought she’d arrive, I’d fuck her, then torture her until she was close to death. After that, I’d slowly kill both her and her precious papá, who, in her eyes, can do no wrong. But now…Everything’s changed.Now, all I want is to delve into her mind. To learn how a woman so young and shrouded in the darkness of our world can be so…innocent. Yes, surviving in our world as syndicates hasn’t been kind to many of us. But in her short life, she’s far too fragile at heart compared to her rough, scarred body.I hope she finds the picture of her sister, Agata, in the glassy clothes cupboard. I wanted to tell her everything I know about her fucking dipshit of a father, bu
{Edmondo’s POV}**"Ensure nothing leaves that corridor," I say, my tone deliberate and sharp. "No rumors, no whispers, no shadows. If anyone so much as breathes differently—""I'll handle it," Giovanni interrupts, nodding once.For a moment, I let the silence stretch. I study him; faint lines etched around his mouth, the tension in his jaw. Loyalty is one thing; trust is another."Good," I finally say, leaning back in my chair. "Go. I expect updates by tomorrow on the La Rosas."He hesitates, fingers brushing the edge of the desk. "Are you sure about…" He trails off, leaving the question incomplete, dangling in the thick air.I narrow my eyes. "If you have doubts, Giovanni, fucking speak now."He clears his throat, straightening. "No doubts. Just confirming we're clear on the objectives.""Crystal clear," I reply, the coldness in my voice ending the conversation.With a final nod, he turns and leaves, the door clicking shut behind him. Silence follows.I lean back in my chair, my la
{CARA'S POV}**“Huh?” I raise my brow in utter disbelief of what I'm seeing in the fragile paper between my fingers. It is a prescription slip from a doctor. It's harmless at a glance, but at the bottom, scrawled in precise, deliberate letters, is the name: Edmondo D’ Avi.My stomach churns. This prescription slip feels like a key to a locked door. A secret door meant to be hidden from every eye, yet I don’t know if I want to open it. What's really going on with Edmondo? Is he sick? Sick, that he had to see an optician?The sharp creak of the door snapping open wrenches me out of my thoughts.And there he is.Edmondo.He strides in, his movements deliberate, his tailored suit framing the menace he exudes. His presence transforms the room into a cage. The air feels colder, sharper, as his icy gaze locks onto the paper in my hand. He doesn’t speak at first. He doesn’t need to.With two steps, he closes the distance between us. His hand darts out, snatching the paper from me before I
{Edmondo's POV}**I toss her chin away like she’s nothing more than a plague, refusing to let her see the conflict brewing inside me. Her defiance is amusing, even enticing, but it’s also dangerous. I have to keep her in line, keep her beneath me, or risk her discovering truths that could ruin everything.“Prepare yourself,” I say sharply. My voice is cold, calculated. “Wash yourself. If you need assistance, let Madame Margarita know. She’s just an intercom away.”I point to the sleek device on the wall, ensuring she sees it before I add, “I need you clean and sparkly before tonight. That’s why I haven’t shot you yet. Or,” I pause deliberately, letting my gaze linger on her trembling lips, “fucked your brains out, just yet.”The way her breath catches makes something inside me twist. Satisfaction or shame, I’m not sure. I don’t wait for her response. I can’t.I turn on my heel and leave, slamming the door behind me.The hallway stretches before me, dim and endless. My steps echo ag
{CARA'S POV}**I stare at myself in the mirror and the sight of myself is disgusting to me. I mean, what the hell is this?My skin feels like it's suffocating under the tight, barely-there leather that's supposed to be clothes. The boots. So high. They make me feel taller, but they also make me feel like I'm walking on sharp glasses.My legs are exposed. Too exposed. I can barely breathe under this constricting outfit; these leather straps that digging to my skin, leaving marks I'll never be able to erase. This isn't me. This can't be me. I've never worn anything like this in my life. Hell, I've never wanted to wear anything like this. Papa would never want this. He wouldn't even let me look at something like this, let alone where it. But here I am, dressing in... this.They weren't clothes. They were... strings. Like something of a dirty street corner. I'd seen girls like this before, the ones papa used sometimes to distract men. They weren't even real women. They were whores,
{EDMONDO'S POV}**I don’t recognize faces. Never have for the past six years, never will. It’s a curse, really. It makes things harder. People blend together for me. But you know what? I don’t need faces to read a room. I’ve got other ways. I can smell the tension in the air, feel it in the way people move. I hear things that most don’t even notice — the click of a shoe against the floor, the shift of someone’s weight, the breath they take before they speak. I can see things that aren’t obvious, catch the flicker in their eyes, the slight shift in their posture, the way they hold themselves. It’s all I’ve got, but it works. I trained myself to for six fucking terrible years and it's become a weapon.And when we walk into Bruce’s place, I can feel it immediately. It smells of smoke, too much cologne, and something sour — like desperation. The kind of scent a man gets when he’s drowning in his own lies. I don’t need to see Bruce’s face to know who he is. The air is thick with his
{CARA'S POV}**Edmondo’s grip yanks me through the chaos. Gunfire cracks the air, sharp and violent, but I feel him more than hear it. His body is a steady pulse of rage, a force cutting through the storm like a predator with purpose. I don’t even know what’s happening. Not really; bodies falling, voices screaming.. but all I can focus on is him, dragging me, pushing me along in this mess I can’t escape.“Stay close,” he orders, his voice low, rough, like the ground beneath us could swallow us whole.My mind races. Why am I here? What’s this even about? But I’m not in control anymore. Edmondo is. His presence is an anchor, a storm in a human form, and I’m tethered to him by force of will and something darker—something that makes my pulse spike."We’re splitting up," he says, like it’s nothing. "Giovanni, twelve o’clock. Luigi, a quarter past six. I’ve got a burden so I'd go at three o’clock."Burden? What the hell does that mean? What’s he talking about? What's with the time telli
{EDMONDO'S POV}**I’m not sure when it happens. One minute, I'm staring at her, watching her flinch. The other, we’re in the back of some van, the world spinning around us in ways I don’t even want to process.The gunshot's still echoing in my ears. The blood.. it's everywhere. And Cara's staring at me, like I'm some kind of beast. Like she doesn’t even know who I am anymore. Good. I don’t want her to know me.I slam the van door shut behind her. My fist is still clenched, the rage pulling at my insides like I'm about to rip through the fucking walls. The van jerks forward. I don’t even care where we’re going. But, I'm sure Luigi and Giovanni are at the front.I light the second cigarette. The flame flickers, and for a second, the dim glow is the only thing between us, between my storm and the world.Cara says something. Her voice, soft. Questioning. Weak.“Don’t you think that’s going to start a fire?” she asks. Her voice is cracking, like she’s not sure whether she should be ma
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