Sold to the Devil

Chapter One The Debt By the time Isabella Rossi reached the end of Maple Street, the paper handles of the grocery bags had dug deep red lines into her fingers. She shifted their weight with a quiet sigh, brushing a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear as the evening breeze carried the scent of rain through the neighborhood. It had been another long shift at the diner, another day spent smiling at customers who never noticed how exhausted she was, but she didn't mind. As long as she brought home enough money to keep food in the fridge, things would eventually get better. They had to. She had spent the last three years believing that, even when every overdue bill shoved through the mailbox insisted otherwise. The small white house at the end of the street looked exactly as it always had. The porch light flickered lazily, one shutter hung slightly crooked, and weeds had begun pushing through the cracked stone pathway because neither she nor her father had found the time to pull them out. To anyone driving past, it looked like an ordinary home. To Isabella, it looked like years of trying to hold together something that had been falling apart for far too long. She nudged the front door open with her elbow and stepped inside. "Dad?" she called, setting one grocery bag on the floor so she could kick off her shoes. "I got the pasta you wanted. They finally had it in stock." No answer. A faint crease formed between her brows. Usually her father answered immediately, even if it was just to complain that she'd taken too long or ask whether she'd remembered to buy his cigarettes. Tonight, the silence lingered long enough to make her uncomfortable. It wasn't empty exactly. It felt occupied, as though the house itself were holding its breath. She picked up the bags again and walked toward the living room, but stopped before she crossed the doorway. There were strangers sitting in her house. Three men, all dressed in black suits that looked as though they had been tailored specifically for them, occupied the small living room with effortless confidence. One stood near the window, his broad shoulders almost blocking the evening light. Another leaned casually against the fireplace with his arms folded. The third sat in her father's worn leather armchair, one ankle resting across his knee as though he had every right to be there. Her father remained on the sofa opposite him, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed, looking years older than he had that morning. The grocery bags slipped from Isabella's hands and landed softly on the hardwood floor. No one spoke. The man in the armchair slowly lifted his eyes to meet hers. She had never seen anyone quite like him before. He couldn't have been older than thirty, yet there was something unsettling about the way he carried himself. His charcoal suit fit perfectly, his dark hair was neatly combed back, and an expensive watch disappeared beneath the cuff of his sleeve whenever he moved. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't look angry either. If anything, his expression was almost unreadable, as though he had learned long ago never to reveal what he was thinking. The calmness in his face was somehow more frightening than shouting would have been. Isabella looked toward her father instead. "Dad... what's going on?" He didn't answer. His hands were trembling so badly that he had laced them together to hide it. "Dad?" "Izzy," he said quietly, finally looking up. His eyes were bloodshot, his voice rough, and for the first time in her life she saw fear on her father's face. Not worry. Not stress. Fear. "Come inside." She didn't move. "Who are they?" Before her father could respond, the man in the chair stood. He was tall enough that the room suddenly felt much smaller, and every movement he made seemed slow, deliberate, completely controlled. "My name is Dante Moretti." His voice was low and even. She waited for the name to mean something. It didn't. "I'm sorry," she said cautiously. "Should I know who you are?" One corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly, though it wasn't quite a smile. "No." The answer confused her. She looked back at her father, hoping he would explain why complete strangers had made themselves comfortable in their home. Instead, he looked away. Something cold settled deep in her stomach. "What is this about?" Dante glanced toward the papers resting on the coffee table before returning his attention to her. "Your father owes me money." The words hung heavily in the room. She blinked once before turning back toward her father. "You borrowed money?" Her father rubbed his forehead with shaking fingers. "It wasn't supposed to get this bad." "How much?" Silence. She frowned. "Dad... how much?" His lips parted, but no words came. Instead, Dante answered for him. "Five million dollars." For a moment, Isabella genuinely believed she had misheard him. She stared at him, waiting for someone to laugh, to admit it was some twisted joke, but neither man moved. "Five... what?" "Million." Her breath caught. Their house wasn't worth even two hundred thousand. Everything they owned together wouldn't come close to paying back that kind of debt. Her eyes snapped toward her father. "Tell me he's lying." He couldn't. The tears gathering in his eyes were answer enough. "I don't understand," she whispered. "How do you even borrow five million dollars? Dad, we've been struggling to pay the electricity bill." "It started small," he admitted quietly. "Business investments... gambling... trying to win enough to pay back what I'd already borrowed. Every time I lost, I borrowed more." "You gambled?" she repeated, unable to hide the disbelief in her voice. "You told me the money disappeared because of taxes." "I know." "You lied to me." "I know." She laughed softly, though there wasn't a trace of humor in it. "Every single time I asked if we were okay..." "I know." "...you said everything was under control." "I know." His voice broke on the last sentence. The anger building inside her battled with heartbreak. This was still her father. The man who had raised her alone after her mother died. The man who worked double shifts until his business collapsed. The man who used to dance with her in the kitchen whenever old songs came on the radio. Somewhere along the way, that man had disappeared. In his place sat someone she barely recognized. "So what happens now?" she asked quietly. No one answered immediately. Dante reached toward the coffee table and picked up a thin stack of papers before placing them carefully in front of her. "The debt reached its deadline yesterday." Her eyes drifted toward the document. Legal language filled the page. Most of it meant nothing to her. Then she noticed two signatures at the bottom. One belonged to Dante Moretti. The other belonged to her father. A strange feeling crawled up the back of her neck. "What is this?" Her father shut his eyes. "I'm sorry." Those two words were enough to make panic bloom inside her chest. She looked down again, forcing herself to read further. Every sentence made less sense than the last until one line stopped her completely. Collateral Transfer Agreement. Her breathing became uneven. Slowly... painfully... she continued reading. The room around her seemed to disappear. By the time she reached the final paragraph, her hands were shaking so violently the paper crumpled between her fingers. "No." Nobody moved. "No." Her voice was louder this time. She looked at her father as though she had never seen him before. "You signed this?" He couldn't answer. "You signed this?" she repeated, nearly shouting now. Tears rolled down his face. "I had no other choice." "No." She backed away from the table, clutching the papers against her chest. "There is always another choice." "I would've been killed." "And so you sold me instead?" The words echoed through the room. No one denied them. She looked from her father to Dante and back again, desperately waiting for someone to tell her she'd misunderstood, that the contract meant something else. Instead, Dante remained perfectly still. The silence itself became confirmation. "I am not a house," she whispered. "I'm not a car. I'm not something you hand over because you couldn't pay your debts." Her father's shoulders shook. "I know." "You don't know." Her voice cracked under the weight of tears she had tried desperately to hold back. "If you knew, you wouldn't have done this." Without another word she turned and ran. She barely remembered reaching the front door. She only knew she had to get away from the suffocating walls of that house before she completely fell apart. The cool evening air hit her face the moment she stepped outside, and she sprinted down the sidewalk with no destination in mind. Tears blurred her vision until the familiar streets melted into streaks of color, but she kept running anyway, driven by instinct rather than thought. She didn't hear footsteps behind her. She only realized someone had caught up when a firm hand wrapped gently—but unavoidably—around her wrist. She spun around, trying to pull free. "Let me go!" Dante released her wrist immediately, though he remained standing in front of her. "You can run," he said quietly. "It won't change what happened." "I don't care." "You should." "I hate you." For the first time, something flickered across his face. It vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, leaving behind the same unreadable expression. "I know." She laughed bitterly. "You act like this is normal." "It isn't." "You bought a person." "I collected a debt." "I'm the debt!" "No." His answer came so quickly it startled her. "You are the consequence." She stared at him in disbelief. "I don't belong to you." "No," he agreed calmly. "But according to the contract your father signed, you'll be living under my protection until his debt is settled." "My protection?" she scoffed. "That's what you're calling this?" "It's the truth." She searched his face for cruelty, satisfaction, arrogance—anything that would make sense of the monster everyone in this situation expected him to be. Instead, she found something far more confusing. Regret. Only for a second. Then it disappeared. A black SUV rolled slowly to the curb beside them. One of the suited men stepped out and opened the rear door without saying a word. Dante looked toward the vehicle before returning his attention to Isabella. "I won't force you into the car." Hope sparked inside her. "But if you run," he continued, "someone else will find you before morning. And they won't treat you with the respect I'm offering." The hope vanished. She wanted to scream. To fight. To disappear. Instead, she looked back toward the house where her father still sat surrounded by the consequences of his own decisions. The place that had once been home no longer felt like somewhere she could return to. She wiped the tears from her face with the sleeve of her jacket, lifted her chin with what little dignity she had left, and climbed into the SUV without another word. As the door closed behind her and the car pulled away from the only life she had ever known, Isabella made herself one silent promise. She didn't know who Dante Moretti really was. She didn't know why a man with his kind of money had agreed to a deal as cruel as this. But one day, somehow, she was going to find a way to leave him. And when she did, she would never look back.