OWN BY THE MAFIA DON

Hacking

Owned By The Mafia Don*

*Chapter 4: Hacking Out*

The office was a cage made of glass and code.

Aria had been in the chair for 16 hours. Her back ached. Her eyes burned. The monitors in front of her glowed with Bratva encryption she’d been peeling apart layer by layer since Luca left her here after breakfast.

She cracked the first manifest at hour three. The second at hour seven. The third at hour twelve. Names, dates, dock routes through Chicago and Cleveland. Proof that the Romano family’s “legit shipping” was a lie. Proof Luca could use.

She didn’t do it for him. She did it because if she stopped, she’d start thinking about last night. About the bedroom. About the camera with the red light. About how little control she had left.

Her fingers flew over the keyboard. She was good. She’d been good since she was 14, running scams in Vegas and Atlantic City before she even knew what a firewall was. Code was the one thing that listened to her. That didn’t hit back.

Footsteps behind her.

She didn’t turn. She knew his walk. Heavy, measured, like a man who never needed to hurry because the world moved for him.

Luca stopped behind her chair. Close. Not touching. Just there.

“You’ve been busy,” he said.

Aria kept typing. “You said noon. It’s 11:42.”

“I see that.” He leaned over her shoulder, looking at the decrypted files scrolling on the screen. Names of Bratva lieutenants. Shipping times. Bribes paid to port officials. “Clean work.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

Luca straightened. He didn’t respond. He walked around the desk and sat in the chair across from her, watching. Gray eyes flat, assessing. Like she was a puzzle he hadn’t finished yet.

Aria’s hands shook. She hid it by typing faster.

“You’re angry,” Luca said.

“You think?” She finally looked up. “You dragged me 1200 miles, locked me in your penthouse, and now you want me to say thank you for letting me use your keyboard?”

Luca didn’t blink. “I want you to understand your position.”

“My position is captive.”

“No,” Luca said. “Your position is asset. There’s a difference. Captives are disposable. Assets are valuable. You’re valuable, Aria. As long as you’re useful.”

She laughed, short and bitter. “And if I’m not?”

Luca’s mouth curved. Not a smile. “Then we find out how expendable you are.”

The air went cold.

Aria turned back to the screen. She pulled up Luca’s phone. It was synced to the terminal for the data transfer. She told herself it was just to move files faster. That was a lie.

She knew his passcode. She’d watched him type it at 3 AM while he thought she was asleep. Six digits. He was arrogant enough to think no one would dare.

Her fingers moved. Fast. Quiet. She slid into his messages, his call logs, his encrypted notes app. If she could find something — blackmail, leverage, a way out —

The screen went black.

Then white text appeared, one word at a time:

_Deleting._

Aria froze. Her blood went cold.

Luca leaned forward and tapped one key on his side of the desk. The monitors flickered. Every file she’d spent 16 hours cracking — gone. Every line of code she’d written — wiped. The terminal reset to a blank screen with a single line of text:

_Try again, Aria._

She stared at it. Then at him.

“You—” Her voice broke. “You asshole.”

Luca stood, walked around the desk, and took the chair beside her. He picked up his phone, unlocked it with his thumb, and showed her the screen. Clean. Empty. Like it had never been touched.

“I run this city,” he said quietly. “I don’t let people into my systems. Not even you.”

Aria’s hands clenched into fists. “I was almost done. That was hours of work.”

“I know,” Luca said. “That’s why I deleted it.”

She shoved the chair back and stood, fury boiling over. “Why? Why make me do it just to erase it?”

Luca didn’t move. “To see if you’d try it again.”

The words hit harder than a slap.

Aria’s chest tightened. “You’re testing me? Like I’m a dog?”

“You’re not a dog,” Luca said. “Dogs obey because they’re scared. You obey because you’re smart. I needed to know which one you are.”

She grabbed the empty coffee mug from the desk and threw it at the wall. It shattered. Coffee and ceramic sprayed across the glass.

Luca didn’t flinch.

“Good,” he said. “Anger means you still think you have a choice. You don’t.”

Aria stormed past him, past Tony who stood silent by the door, straight to the bathroom off the bedroom wing. She slammed the door and turned the lock. Didn’t matter. Luca had keys to everything.

Hot water. She cranked it until steam filled the room. She stripped off the oversized shirt she’d been wearing since breakfast and stepped under the spray.

She didn’t cry at first. She was too angry. She beat her fists against the tile until her knuckles went numb. She screamed, once, short and raw, then clamped her mouth shut because screaming was what he wanted.

Then the anger cracked.

She slid down the wall and pulled her knees to her chest. The water hit her back, too hot, but she didn’t move. She thought about Miami. About how easy it used to be to vanish. About how she’d thought she could scam the wrong Romano and walk away.

She’d been wrong about everything.

The bathroom door opened. She didn’t look up.

Footsteps on tile. Luca didn’t speak. He didn’t turn off the water. He just stood there, watching her through the steam.

“Get out,” Aria whispered.

Luca crouched outside the shower, not coming in. Just close enough that she could see his silhouette through the glass.

“You deleted sixteen hours of work,” he said. “And you didn’t break until now. That’s control, Aria. That’s why you’re valuable.”

“I don’t want to be valuable to you,” she said, voice muffled by her arms.

“I know,” Luca said. “But you are. So we work with what we have.”

He reached out and turned the water colder. Not freezing, just enough to make her gasp.

“Rule two,” he said. “You don’t lie to me. And you don’t try to hack me. I always know.”

Aria looked up through the steam. Her eyes were red but dry. “Then why let me try?”

Luca’s expression didn’t change. “Because I wanted to see if you’d do it in front of me. Most people hide their defiance. You don’t. That’s dangerous. And useful.”

He stood, reached in, and turned the water off. Then he pulled the glass door open and offered her a towel. Not his hand. Just the towel.

Aria stared at it like it was a trap.

“Take it,” Luca said. “Or stay in there until the water runs cold and you catch pneumonia. Either way, you’re still mine.”

She snatched the towel and wrapped it around herself. She stood, stepped out, and tried to push past him.

Luca caught her wrist. Not hard. Just enough to stop her.

“Look at me,” he said.

She did. Hate burned in her eyes.

Luca’s thumb brushed over the red marks on her wrist from the leather cuffs last night. He didn’t apologize. Men like him didn’t apologize.

“Try again, Aria,” he said quietly. “Not with my phone. With the Bratva manifests. From memory. You remember what you wrote. I know you do.”

She jerked her arm free. “Why should I?”

“Because if you don’t, I assume you’re done being useful,” Luca said. “And useless people don’t get towels. They get sent to Ivan Petrov.”

The threat hung in the steam.

Aria pulled the towel tighter and walked past him, dripping water on the marble floor.

Back at the terminal, she sat down. Her hands shook. Not from cold. From fury. From the humiliation of starting over.

She began to type.

Luca didn’t leave. He sat in the chair across from her and watched. Silent. Patient. Like a man who had all the time in the world to break her.

Every keystroke felt like surrender. Every line of code she reconstructed from memory felt like giving him another piece of herself.

Hours passed.

When she finished the first manifest again at 2 AM, she pushed the chair back and stared at the screen. Done.

Luca leaned forward, scrolled through it, and nodded once.

“Good,” he said. “Again.”

Aria closed her eyes.

“You’re a monster,” she whispered.

Luca stood, walked to the door, and paused with his hand on the frame.

“I know,” he said. “And monsters don’t let go of what’s theirs.”

The door clicked shut behind him. The lock engaged.

Aria sat alone in the glow of the monitors, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

She could stop. She could refuse.

She started typing the second manifest.

Because the alternative was Ivan Petrov.

And because somewhere under the hate, a part of her was starting to understand: Luca didn’t want her broken. He wanted her sharp. Dangerous. His.

*Cliffhanger:* “Try again, Aria.”