It was morning. I had no idea when because I didn't remember shutting my eyes.
I stood in my bedroom with a small leather bag open on the bed, hands shaking as I folded the few things I dared take. One spare dress, a pair of jeans, two plain shirts, underwear, and the black wool coat that still carried the faint scent of the twins. No jewelry. No credit cards. No cash except the few euros I found scattered in a drawer. Victor had already canceled everything in my name. My phone was the only thing left that connected me to the world, and even that felt like a weapon pointed at my chest.
Every movement sent fresh reminders through my body. The soreness between my legs had settled into a deep, constant ache. Bruises on my inner thighs brushed against the fabric of my clothes with every step. Bite marks on my neck stung when the collar of my shirt shifted. I moved slowly, carefully, trying not to think about how those marks had gotten there or how loudly I had moaned while they were made.
Victor’s voice still rang in my ears from the living room. “You are no longer part of this family. Pack your things. Leave in the morning.” He had said it without hesitation, eyes cold, jaw tight. Father had not spoken another word after declaring me disowned. Lucia had hovered nearby, playing the role of concerned sister while her eyes shone with quiet victory every time no one was looking. Father had allowed me to stay for one night. I should have been out yesterday but he told me to stay back and leave in the morning, he termed it as being merciful to a cheap w***e.
I zipped the bag shut. It was pathetically light. Twenty-three years of life reduced to something I could carry in one hand. I glanced around the room that had been mine since childhood. The piano in the corner where I had practiced in secret. The mirror where Lucia had helped me with makeup before the gala. Everything felt foreign now, like I had already been erased.
A sharp knock sounded on the door. Victor stepped inside without waiting for permission. His face was flushed with anger. “Time is up. Get out.”
I lifted the bag onto my shoulder. “I have nowhere to go.”
“That is not my problem,” he snapped. “You made your choice when you let those bastards f**k you in their suite. The photos are everywhere. Business partners are pulling out. The family name is poison because of you. Leave before I have security drag you to the gate.”
He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the hallway. His grip was bruising. I stumbled after him down the grand staircase, past the portraits of ancestors who had never known shame like this. Lucia stood at the bottom, eyes wide with fake worry. She reached out as if to hug me.
“Sorellina, this is all so sudden. Let me at least give you some money for a hotel.”
Victor shot her a look. “No. She gets nothing. Let her learn what it means to betray blood.”
Lucia lowered her hand, but I caught the tiny smirk that flickered across her lips when Victor turned away. She had won. The photos she leaked had done exactly what she wanted. My one accidental moment of glory two years ago had been repaid with total destruction.
Victor marched me through the front doors and into the courtyard. Rain had started falling, a steady drizzle that quickly soaked through my thin shirt. He shoved me past the gate and slammed it shut behind me. The metal clanged like a final judgment.
“Never come back,” he shouted through the bars. “You are dead to the Ferraros. A w***e who chose pleasure over family. Stay away or we will make sure the world knows exactly what kind of slut you are.”
The gate locked with a heavy click. I stood on the curb outside the high walls of Villa Sorrentina, small bag clutched to my chest, rain plastering my hair to my face. Water ran down my cheeks, mixing with the tears I could no longer hold back. My clothes clung to my skin. The soreness between my legs throbbed harder in the cold. I had no money for a taxi, no friends who would risk angering the Rossis by helping me, no plan beyond the next five minutes.
I sank down onto the wet curb, knees drawn up, bag resting between my feet. The rain grew heavier, drumming on the pavement around me. Cars passed occasionally, headlights cutting through the downpour, but none stopped. I looked small and broken, just another discarded thing on the side of the road. My mind kept replaying the photos, Victor’s screams, Lucia’s hidden smirk. Everything I had been raised to be had been stripped away in a single night. The quiet daughter. The obedient spare. The one who never caused trouble. All of it gone because of one spiked glass of champagne and two men whose names I still did not know.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out with wet fingers, expecting another notification about the scandal. The screen showed an unknown number. I stared at it for a long moment, rain dripping from my lashes. Part of me wanted to ignore it. Another part, desperate and exhausted, answered anyway.
I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
A deep, commanding voice filled the line. It was smooth and dark, exactly like the voice that had whispered filthy praise against my ear while I came apart on black silk sheets. The same low timbre that had ordered me to look at him while he filled me. The same tone that had growled “good girl” as I screamed around the stranger’s c**k.
“Come back to us right now.”
The words sent a shiver racing down my spine that had nothing to do with the rain. My breath caught. Heat flared low in my belly despite the cold and the shame.
“You had no right to run from that bed,” the voice continued, dominant and unyielding. “You belong to who f****d that night. Every inch of that pretty body that was marked, every moan that was pulled from your throat, every drop of c*m left inside you. It all belongs to who drew out the pleasure.”
I clutched the phone tighter, rain streaming down my face. My thighs pressed together instinctively as fresh slickness gathered between my legs. The soreness there pulsed in response to his words, a traitorous reminder of how completely they had owned me.
The voice dropped even lower, rough with command. “Tell me where you are. A car will be sent to you. Do you understand?”
My heart hammered. Panic and unwanted desire twisted together inside me. I was soaked, disowned, sitting on a curb with nothing but a small bag and a ruined reputation. Yet this stranger’s voice, the same one that had broken me so sweetly the night before, made my body respond like it had been trained in a single night.
“I… I have nowhere else,” I whispered, voice cracking.
“Good girl,” he said, the praise sliding over me like warm silk. “Now tell me exactly where you are. I am coming, Bella and this time, you will not leave!.”
Rain continued to fall, but the cold no longer felt as sharp. The spark that had ignited in the car yesterday burned brighter now, dangerous and alive.
I opened my mouth to speak but the caller ended the line.