Chapter 3- Between Hell and Hell
1381 Words
They dumped my fathers body at the front of my house the next morning.
Unconscious with bruises worse than yesterday.
He looked almost dead.
My father groaned softly, still half-conscious on the floor.
I stood there, watching him but my eyes were empty.
Dante wanted me.
Me.
I clenched my fists, trying to steady my breath, but my mind was spiraling, a chaotic mess of fear, anger, and exhaustion.
He wants me.
His cold, unfeeling words echoed in my head. I wasn’t naïve; I knew what that meant. He didn’t just want my body, he wanted my freedom, my life.
For what? To erase my father’s debt?
I looked down at the man lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, his face a mangled mess of bruises and blood.
How the f**k had it come to this?
“Dad,” I muttered, my voice low and shaking. I crouched down beside him, the metallic scent of blood thick in the air. “Dad, you need to wake up.”
He groaned again, weak and pitiful, his hand twitching as he tried to push himself up.
“f**k…” I swore under my breath, running a hand through my hair, yanking it in frustration. I needed to know what the hell he had done to get us into this nightmare.
Finally, his eyes blinked open, bloodshot and hazy. His lips moved, mumbling something incoherent, his body struggling to hold itself together.
“What did you do?” I hissed, unable to keep the anger from boiling over. “What the hell did you get us into?”
He winced, his hand weakly reaching for mine, but I yanked it back before he could touch me. I didn’t have the patience for his bullshit right now.
Not when Dante had just put me in the worst f*****g position of my life.
“S-Sienna…” His voice was barely more than a whisper, raspy and broken. “I’m sorry…”
“Sorry? Sorry? You owe half a f*****g million dollars to a f*****g mafia boss! How the f**k did you think this would end?” My voice cracked, each word feeling like glass in my throat. “You’ve f****d up my life, Dad! I can’t—I can’t deal with this right now. I can’t…”
He groaned again, curling in on himself as though that could somehow ease the pain. His eyes were barely open, staring at me through swollen lids. “I didn’t want this for you…”
“But it doesn’t matter, does it?” I spat, standing up and stepping back. “It doesn’t f*****g matter what you wanted. Now I have to clean up your mess. You put me in this position!”
My chest was tight, my lungs refusing to take in enough air as the reality of everything hit me again, I had not slept last night, my eyes opened thinking about what I did wrong to suffer like this.
I was already drowning, Mom’s cancer, my own diagnosis, stripping just to scrape by, and now this.
“I can’t do it.” The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them. “I’m f*****g exhausted, Dad. I’m tired. I can’t… I can’t carry this anymore. Not for you. Not for anyone.”
Tears stung the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them away, refusing to break down. Not now. Not in front of him. Not when the weight of Dante’s demand still hung over me, suffocating me.
His words playing in my head.
I want you.
The thought clawed at me, making my skin crawl. Dante Marino wasn’t some random asshole from the streets. He wasn’t one of the pathetic men I danced for every night, tossing crumpled bills at my feet. No. He was a man who could destroy me with a snap of his fingers.
Dangerous. Cold. Ruthless.
And now he owned me. Whether I liked it or not, Dante f*****g Marino owned me.
My father tried to speak, tried to say something, probably another useless apology, but I couldn’t hear him anymore. The noise in my head was too loud. The pressure too much.
“What the hell do I do now?” I muttered, pacing across the small, broken living room. My hands were trembling, my pulse racing. “He wants me to just… be his? What the f**k does that even mean?”
I knew what it meant. Of course, I knew. Dante wanted control, ownership. He wanted me under his thumb, at his beck and call, whenever he decided.
There was no sugarcoating it. He might say he doesn’t want to sleep with me, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t want his men to use me.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered, running my hands through my hair again, pulling at the roots. “This can’t be real.”
But it was. And the reality of it was sinking in, wrapping around me like chains. I had no choice. No f*****g choice. Dante had made that clear, if I didn’t play along, the consequences would be far worse. He would ruin everything. And my father’s blood would be on my hands.
“Please,” my father’s voice broke through the fog of my thoughts, weak and pathetic. “Please… forgive me…”
I stared at him, my heart twisting painfully in my chest. “How am I supposed to forgive you, Dad? You’ve made my life a living hell.”
He whimpered, curling into himself like a wounded animal. “I didn’t want this...”
“Well, guess what?” I snapped, my voice trembling with barely contained rage. “You didn’t get a choice. And now neither do I.”
The apartment was too small, too claustrophobic. I felt like I was suffocating in here, the weight of everything pressing down on me like a boulder. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.
“I need to get out of here,” I muttered, more to myself than to him. I grabbed my coat, shoving my feet into my boots, trying to steady the violent shaking in my hands. “I can’t be here right now.”
“Sienna… please…” My father’s voice was weak, almost begging, but I couldn’t bring myself to stay. I needed air. I needed to think.
“I’ll be back,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I meant it. “Just… stay here. Don’t do anything f*****g stupid.”
Without waiting for a response, I stormed out of the apartment, the door slamming shut behind me. The cold air hit my face as I stepped onto the street, but it didn’t do anything to clear the fog in my head.
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep the chill from seeping into my bones, but it was useless. I felt frozen from the inside out. Every step I took felt heavier than the last, my mind spiraling, sinking deeper into the realization that my life wasn’t mine anymore.
Dante had made sure of that.
---
The streets were quiet, the distant hum of the city a faint murmur in the background as I wandered aimlessly. My thoughts were racing, every possible scenario running through my mind, but there was no solution. No way out.
I had six months to live. Six months. And now I had to spend those months belonging to a man who could snap me in half without breaking a sweat.
A man who watched me like a predator circling his prey every night at the Mirage.
A man who had never said a word to me, but whose eyes had followed my every move.
I shivered, pulling my coat tighter around me. How had this become my life? Stripping to survive, a sick mother, and now a mafia boss demanding my servitude.
I wanted to scream.
To tear the world apart and demand some f*****g fairness. But there was nothing fair about this.
There never had been.
I paused, leaning against a wall, my chest heaving with the effort of holding back the panic threatening to break through. I had no choice. I had no f*****g choice.
Dante was going to own me.
And I didn’t know if I could survive that.
- Writer
