Bound by the Mafia

CHAPTER TWO: COLD WALLS AND STOLEN HEAT

“I’m Not Your Pet”

"Do I look like I take orders?" I shot the question at Alessandro as soon as he stepped into the room.

He barely blinked. Just walked in like he hadn’t locked me inside this godforsaken palace and watched me nearly break my ankle trying to escape.

“You look like a woman who hasn’t learned her place,” he said.

“Oh, I know my place,” I said, stepping toward him. “It’s just not beneath you.”

His eyes tracked my movement. Sharp. Calculating. “You’re bold.”

“Bold gets remembered,” I muttered.

He stopped just short of me, the scent of expensive cologne clashing with the gunpowder edge of his aura. “You’re not here to impress me, Valeria. You’re here to remind your father what happens when debts go unpaid.”

“I’m not some goddamn message,” I snapped.

“You’re not,” he agreed. “You’re the envelope. Fragile, sealed, and easily burned if opened by the wrong hands.”

There it was again—his talent for turning cruelty into poetry.

I clenched my jaw. “I’m not scared of you.”

He looked at me like he already knew every lie I told myself to survive.

“I don’t want your fear,” he said quietly. “I want your silence. Your obedience. Your usefulness.”

I laughed. “You want a trained dog. Sorry—I bite.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t move. Instead, he turned, walked to the desk in the corner, and pulled a thin folder from a drawer.

He dropped it on the bed.

I stared.

Photos. Documents. Phone records.

My life.

“This is everything we know about you,” he said. “The books you read. The pills you flushed. The calls you made when you thought no one was listening.”

I didn’t speak. My tongue had gone dry.

He leaned forward, close, voice low and lethal.

“Try to run again, and I’ll show you what real cages look like.”

Then he left me with the silence and the folder. But he’d already taken the air with him.

"Do you always eat like a ghost is sitting beside you?"

Giovanni’s voice was casual, but the tension in the dining room was anything but.

“I’d eat better if I wasn’t being babysat like a toddler,” I said, stabbing a piece of pear with the fork like it owed me answers.

“You tried to run,” he said with a shrug. “We don’t exactly hand out trust like espresso around here.”

I didn’t respond. The dining hall was elegant, too perfect. Crystal chandeliers, antique silverware, polished oak floors. But beneath the charm, the tension clawed like nails under the surface of painted wood.

Across the room, Alessandro entered. The silence shifted with him, like the air knew when to bow.

He sat opposite me without a word.

I refused to look at him.

He poured himself coffee, calm as a priest before confession.

“You’re angry,” he said.

I looked up. “You’re perceptive.”

“I gave you freedom,” he said, “and you used it to escape.”

“You gave me a door without a key and a house full of cameras.”

Alessandro placed his cup down. “You think I enjoy this? Having you here?”

“You don’t scare me, Ricci. I just don’t like you.”

His jaw twitched. Just slightly. “Liking me isn’t a requirement.”

“I wasn’t asking for permission to hate you.”

For a moment, the tension between us hovered like heat from a flame.

And then the door opened.

She walked in.

Isabella Grimaldi.

Blonde, beautiful, and ice incarnate.

She walked straight to Alessandro, leaned close, whispered something I couldn’t hear, and left a lingering hand on his shoulder longer than necessary.

I looked away before she glanced at me.

But not before Alessandro saw me look.

And not before something shifted in his expression—curiosity... or danger.

"You think you’re untouchable because of who your father is?"

Isabella's voice echoed off the marble as she circled me like a vulture that had lost patience.

I stood still in the middle of the ballroom, arms crossed, back straight. “No. I know I’m untouchable because of who I am.”

She laughed once, sharp and joyless. “You’re just a spoiled daughter. Dipped in silk and secrets.”

I stepped toward her. “And you’re the maid who cleaned her way to second-in-command.”

Her hand shot out—quick, brutal.

But I caught her wrist.

Her eyes widened, just for a second.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I said.

“Good,” she whispered, twisting her arm from my grip, stepping back. “Fear is for those with something left to lose.”

She turned and walked toward the grand staircase, heels clicking like war drums.

I didn’t move.

Alessandro was at the top of the stairs. Watching.

He’d seen it all.

He didn’t speak.

Just nodded once.

To me.

Not her.

And for the first time—I wasn’t sure who was being tested.

"Why do you keep watching me like that?" I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

He didn’t flinch. He stood by the fireplace, arms crossed, shadows dancing across the sharp angles of his face.

“Because I can’t figure out if you’re the storm or the calm after it.”

I rose from the velvet chair, stepping closer. “You think I’m here to break?”

“No,” he said. “I think you’re here to break something.”

A pause hung heavy between us.

“I’m not your prisoner,” I said.

“But you’re not free either,” he replied.

I hated the truth in his voice.

My breath caught. “What do you want from me, Alessandro?”

His gaze darkened. “Everything your father refuses to give.”

“You think using me will change him?”

“No,” he murmured. “But it’ll change you.”

He stepped forward, and something in me fluttered and fought at once.

His fingers brushed my chin—light, fleeting, dangerous.

I didn’t pull away.

Not fast enough.

He leaned closer, voice a breath against my skin. “Do you feel it too?”

I swallowed. “I feel sick.”

He smiled without humor. “Liar.”

And then the sound came—muffled, metallic.

A gunshot.

Not close.

But not far enough.

He turned, barking orders. “Stay here.”

He didn’t look back.

I didn’t listen.