SOLD TO SIN

Bleed For Me

Chapter 03

Obsidian Tower, 1:18 AM

****

Blood looked black in the dark.

It dripped from Lorenzo De Santis’ knuckles onto white marble, each drop a metronome counting out his sins. His suit jacket was gone. Dress shirt torn at the collar, soaked through with sweat and someone else’s blood. Not his. Never his.

But he was hurt.

Aria saw it the second Dante shoved her into the penthouse. Enzo leaning against the bar, jaw clenched, left hand pressed to his side. His face was stone, but his eyes — those emerald blades — were dimmer. Pain.

“Get out,” Enzo told Dante.

Dante looked at Aria. One warning glance. He bleeds, you pay. Then he left.

The door locked.

Aria didn’t move. She was still in the green dress. His color. His brand. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding through your shirt.”

Enzo pushed off the bar. Walked to her. Each step was controlled, but she saw the hitch. The way his breath caught. He stopped a foot away. Blood at his temple. Gunpowder on his skin.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“Dante brought me.”

“Wrong.” His eyes dragged over her face. “You’re here because I don’t let anyone else see me bleed.”

The words hit like a bullet.

Aria’s throat went dry. “You should sit.”

“I don’t sit for girls I own.”

“Then bleed standing up. See if I care.”

His mouth twitched. “There she is.”

“What?”

“The girl who didn’t beg.”

He turned, hissing through his teeth. The movement pulled his shirt tight, and Aria saw it — red blooming high on his ribs. Stab wound. Not deep enough to kill. Deep enough to matter.

“Sit,” she said again. Softer.

This time, he did.

He dropped onto the black leather couch like gravity finally won. Head back. Eyes closed. For a second, he wasn’t the Emerald Serpent. He was just a man who’d been carved out of violence.

Aria found the first aid kit. Knelt in front of him. The dress rode up her thighs. She didn’t fix it.

“Take it off,” she said.

His eyes opened. “Excuse me?”

“The shirt, De Santis. Unless you want to bleed out to prove a point.”

Something dangerous flickered in his face. But he reached for the buttons. Slow. Deliberate.

He didn’t have to be shirtless. But he was all muscle and scars — a serpent eating its own tail across his stomach, famiglia carved into his collarbone, a bullet scar near his heart. Every mark was a body count.

He pulled the shirt off. Tossed it.

The wound was angry. Two inches. Still weeping.

Aria wet the towel. Pressed it to his skin.

He hissed. His hand shot out, grabbed her wrist. Not hard. Warning.

“Gentle,” he growled.

“Then don’t get stabbed.”

His grip loosened. He let her go.

She cleaned the blood. His skin was fever hot. She dabbed antiseptic. He didn’t flinch. Of course he didn’t. Lorenzo De Santis learned to stop feeling at eight years old.

“You’re shaking,” he said.

“I’m not.” She was.

He caught her chin. Forced her to look at him. His thumb brushed her bottom lip. Once. Like he couldn’t help himself.

“Twenty-one,” he murmured. “And no man’s ever touched you, have they?”

Aria froze.

He saw it. The answer. The truth.

Virgin.

Something broke open in his face. Possession. Hunger. Restraint.

“Look at me,” he said.

She did.

“If I kiss you right now, stellina, you won’t know how to stop me. And I won’t know how to stop myself.” His voice was ruin. “So I’m going to give you one chance to say no. And you’d better mean it.”

The air left her lungs.

This was it. The line. Cross it, and she belonged to him. Don’t, and she walks away bleeding in a different way.

Aria’s hands were fists in her lap. Her heart was a war.

“No,” she whispered.

Enzo went still.

“No,” she said again. Stronger. “Not like this. Not because I’m scared, or because you’re bleeding, or because you think you own me.”

For a second, she thought he’d snap. That the monster would win.

Instead, he laughed. Broken. Quiet.

“Good,” he said. He dropped her chin. “Good girl.”

The praise shouldn’t have warmed her. It did.

He stood. Slow. The wound pulled. He didn’t care. “Go to your room, Aria.”

She stood too. Legs unsteady. “That’s it?”

“You said no.” His eyes were black with want and something worse — respect. “In my world, no means no. Even from things I own.”

He walked to the bar. Poured whiskey. Didn’t drink it. Just held it. Looked at her over the glass.

“The next time I touch you,” he said, “you’ll beg me for it. And I’ll still make you say yes twice.”

Aria left. The Green Room, 2:04 AM

Aria couldn’t sleep.

Her mouth still burned from where his thumb touched it. Her skin still remembered the heat of him.

No man’s ever touched you, have they?

She hated that he knew. Hated that it mattered.

A knock.

Nyx. No knife tonight. Just a smile and a glass of water. “Truce?”

Aria didn’t take it. “What do you want?”

“To warn you.” Nyx stepped in. “He calls you stellina. He called Lucia that too.” She tilted her head. “Do you know what happened to Lucia?”

Aria said nothing.

“Car bomb. Five years ago. Meant for him.” Nyx set the glass down. “He doesn’t keep things he loves, little debt. He buries them.”

Obsidian Tower, Rooftop, 3:00 AM

Enzo stood at the edge.

Buttoned black shirt. No blood. No weakness. Only the city below and the war in his chest.

Dante stepped beside him. “She’s sturbborn "

“I know.”

“You’re not angry.”

Enzo looked at him. “Should I be?”

“You’ve killed men for less.”

“Men aren’t her.”

Dante was quiet for a long time. “The accounts. Eighty-two million. She hasn’t signed them over.”

“She will.”

“How do you know?”

Enzo thought of green silk. Of shaking hands cleaning his blood. Of the word no said like a weapon.

“Because she’s not for sale,” he said. “Not anymore.”

He looked out at Manhattan. At the empire he’d built on bodies.

And for the first time since he was eight years old, Lorenzo De Santis wanted something he couldn’t take.

He wanted her to choose him.

And that terrified him more than any war.

She left.

Aria stared at the water.

And poured it out.

TBC