chapter 5
1335 Words
Valentina woke up with the taste of iron in her mouth.
For a second, she thought it was all a dream. That she wasn’t trapped in a killer’s house, that she hadn’t watched men die like animals the night before.
Then she looked down.
Her hands.
Dried blood clung to her skin, dark and cracked. Not hers. Theirs.
She threw the sheets off, bolting to the bathroom. Water. Soap. Scrubbing. Hard enough to turn her skin raw. But the blood wouldn’t leave. It seeped deeper, like a curse, a permanent mark of the world she was now in.
She clutched the sink, panting, her reflection staring back at her with wide, haunted eyes.
She wasn’t supposed to be here.
She wasn’t supposed to be trapped with a monster.
A knock on the door made her flinch.
“Breakfast,” Dominic’s deep, impossibly calm voice announced.
Her stomach twisted.
She stayed frozen.
Another knock—louder this time. Sharper. A demand.
“Five minutes, Moretti.” A pause. Then, with something dark curling at the edges of his voice, “Or I’m coming in.”
She walked into the dining room feeling like a corpse among the living.
Dominic sat at the head of the table, wearing a crisp black shirt, sleeves rolled up, revealing strong forearms and faint scars. He looked fresh. Clean.
Untouched by the slaughter.
Like the blood of last night never happened. Like the dead bodies didn’t stain his hands.
She hated him for it.
“Sit.”
Her legs locked.
His silver fork paused mid-air, and slowly, his cold gaze lifted to her.
“Moretti,” he said, voice quiet but threaded with something deadly. “Sit.”
She sat.
The food on the table was rich, too much, yet she felt sick just looking at it.
Dominic ate casually, like he hadn’t murdered men just hours ago.
“You’re not eating,” he noted, cutting into his steak.
Valentina’s throat felt dry. “I don’t have an appetite.”
He hummed. “Strange. I do.”
Bastard.
Her stomach twisted. She could still hear the gunfire. The screams. She could still see the way their bodies hit the floor, the way their eyes went glassy with death.
“You killed people last night,” she whispered.
Dominic wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Yes.”
“You—” Her voice cracked, but she forced the words out. “You shot them like they were nothing.”
Dominic exhaled, almost as if she had bored him. He set down his fork, leaned back, and studied her.
“Let me explain something to you, Moretti,” he said smoothly. “In my world, there are three types of people. Killers, survivors, and the dead. Which one do you want to be?”
Her fingers curled into fists. “You think this is a game?”
He exhaled, almost like she was boring him. He leaned back, knife still in his grip, twirling it between his fingers like a predator biding its time.
“Do you want an apology?” His voice was laced with amusement.
Her nails dug into her palms. “Do you feel nothing?”
“Wrong question.” He tilted his head. “Ask me if I regret it.”
She swallowed hard. “Do you?”
His smirk deepened, but there was no humor behind it. Only death.
“No.”
Her hands trembled under the table.
“You’re part of the Moretti family,” he continued lazily. “Haven’t you seen this kind of bloodshed before?”
She hesitated.
He caught it. Of course, he did.
“Oh?” His tone darkened, intrigued. “What’s the matter, princess? Haven’t you seen your father do worse?”
Her voice was quiet. “My father kept me away from it.”
Dominic’s brow lifted. “Kept you away?”
She swallowed hard. “He… he always said I had to be pure. Clean. That I had no use in the dirt. That one day, he’d trade me for something valuable.”
For the first time, Dominic didn’t have a smart reply.
He simply stared at her, something dangerous flashing in his eyes.
Then, slowly, he sat back, his expression unreadable.
“So he kept you innocent, just to trade you off when it suited him?”
She said nothing.
Dominic hummed, swirling his whiskey. “So that’s what you are.”
A shiver crawled up her spine.
“A tool. A perfectly preserved offering,” he murmured, voice thick with amusement… and something else.
Dominic smirked again, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Eat, Moretti.”
She had no appetite.
But she picked up her fork.
After breakfast, Dominic led her to the living room.
“I’m making something clear,” he said, voice casual but with a razor-sharp edge.
She crossed her arms. “Oh, please do.”
His lips twitched in amusement. Then, without breaking eye contact, he pulled out her phone… and snapped it in half.
Valentina gasped. “What the hell—”
“You don’t need a phone,” he said, tossing the broken pieces onto the coffee table. “If someone needs to reach you, they go through me.”
She took a furious step toward him. “You don’t get to—”
Dominic moved so fast she barely had time to react. One second, she was glaring at him, the next—
Her back was against the wall.
His hand was wrapped around her throat.
Not squeezing. Not yet. But a warning.
His breath was warm against her ear. “You belong to me now, Moretti.”
She swallowed hard. Fear licked at her spine.
“You will speak when I allow it. You will breathe when I allow it.” His grip tightened slightly, not enough to choke, but enough to steal her air for a second. “And you will learn that defying me is a very, very bad idea.”
Her nails dug into his wrist, but she refused to show weakness.
His lips brushed against her cheek, his voice lowering.
“Try to leave,” he whispered, “and I’ll make sure your father pays the price.”
Her blood turned cold.
She hated him.
But she was trapped.
There was no way out.
Of course, she tried to escape.
She waited until the house was quiet, until Dominic disappeared into whatever dark business he had.
She ran for the front gate.
She didn’t even make it ten steps before three men blocked her path.
A slow clap echoed behind her.
She turned—and there he was. Dominic.
Arms crossed. Amused.
“Predictable,” he sighed.
Valentina glared at him. “Go to hell.”
Dominic chuckled. “Darling, I live there.”
Without another word, he grabbed her wrist and dragged her back inside.
Later that night, long after she stopped struggling, Valentina heard something.
A low clink of glass. The faintest sigh.
Carefully, she stood, stepping toward the slightly open door.
There, in the study, Dominic sat alone, a bottle of whiskey in one hand.
And in the other—a photograph.
Even from a distance, she could see it. A woman. Dark hair. Sharp eyes. Beautiful.
But the edges of the photo were old, worn… loved.
Dominic stared at it, his mask slipping for the first time.
He looked—haunted.
Valentina felt something strange in her chest.
And then, as if sensing her, Dominic’s head snapped up.
The cold mask returned.
“What are you doing?”
She hesitated. “Who was she?”
His jaw tightened. He stood, stepping into the dim light.
“Go to bed, Moretti.”
She didn’t move.
His voice turned sharper. “Now.”
This time, she obeyed.
But as she walked back to her room, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Dominic’s demons were far worse than she had imagined.
And the scariest part?
She wasn’t sure if they’d consume her too.
- Writer
