Bound to the Devil's Vow

Prologue

There are some debts that can be paid with money.

Others demand something far more valuable.

I learned that the hard way.

My name is Elena.

I grew up in a small house where the roof leaked whenever it rained, where every peso had a purpose, and where my father taught me that having little didn't mean having nothing.

I believed him.

Until the night a black car stopped outside our house.

Until three men in black suits stood at our door.

Until I met him.

Dominic Salvatore.

I didn't know who he was then.

I only knew that my father was afraid of him.

And when a man like my father—a man who had always stood between me and the world—couldn't even look me in the eyes, I knew something was terribly wrong.

Dominic didn't raise his voice.

He didn't need to.

He carried a kind of silence that made the entire room feel smaller.

“You don't know what your father owes me.”

His voice was calm.

Almost too calm.

I looked at my father.

“Pa?”

He said nothing.

That was the moment I realized that some secrets were never meant to stay buried.

And some debts were never meant to be paid with money.

I thought poverty was the worst thing that could happen to me.

I was wrong.

Because poverty only taught me how to survive.

Dominic Salvatore would teach me how much survival could cost.

And by the time I understood the price...

It was already too late to run.