The Don's Obsession

The Bait

⚠️ *Content Warning*: Graphic violence, psychological manipulation, forced confinement, pregnancy distress. Reader discretion advised.

It had been a week. No word from the Don. No sound of his steps in the hall.

Only food through the slot. Only the butler’s hands. Old hands, no rings. He never looked in. Never spoke.

Three times a day. Same tray. Same silence.

Most of it came back up. Nine weeks pregnant now, and everything smelled wrong. Eggs made me gag. Bread turned my stomach. Water was the only thing that stayed down. I spent mornings with my head in the toilet, the camera blinking while I retched.

The camera blinked every six seconds. I timed it. Six. Twelve. Eighteen. That was my life.

Six seconds to look away. Six seconds to breathe. Six seconds to remember I wasn’t dead yet.

On the seventh night, I heard the maids outside my door. Whispering low, thinking I couldn’t hear.

_“He left for the port. Took every man. Trouble at the south docks.”_

_“Is it true about Marco? Two to the chest?”_

_“Shh. Don said no one enters the east wing until he’s back. Not even cleaners.”_

He was gone.

The house felt different. Still heavy, but hollow. Like the air had been pulled out when he left.

I sat on the bed. Hand on my stomach. Nine weeks now. My breasts hurt if I lay on them. My head spun when I stood too fast. Exhaustion sat on my bones like wet cement.

_Run._ That’s what Elena mouthed. Her father dead in a chair, and she told me to run.

If I stayed, my kid would learn that fingers break when you lie. Would learn that dying wives don’t buy mercy. Would learn to smile while people screamed in the next room.

I stood up. The room tilted. I grabbed the wall and waited for the dizziness to pass. Nine weeks meant blood sugar crashes. Meant fainting if I wasn’t careful.

I went to the bathroom. The window was small. Frosted glass. Old latch. Two days ago the maid had opened it to air the room out. She “forgot” to lock it when she left.

I tried it. It moved.

One inch. Then stuck. Paint had sealed the frame shut years ago. I pushed harder. Wood groaned. My hands were sweating. If the camera saw. If a soldier walked past.

_Crack._

The paint gave. The window shoved open six inches. Enough.

Cold air hit my face. Real air. Not the dead recycled air from the vents. It smelled like rain and dirt and trees. For once, a smell that didn’t make me want to vomit.

Outside was black. No moon. The mansion had walls. High stone walls. But past the walls were woods. I’d seen them from the car when he brought me here. Thick. Dark. You could disappear in there.

I went back to the room. Tore the bedsheet. Tied one end to the leg of the bed. Threw the other end out the window. It reached halfway down the wall. Twenty-foot drop after that.

I could break my leg. I could break my neck.

I didn’t care if I broke. I cared if I stayed.

I waited until 2 AM. The shift change. I’d timed it for three nights. Soldiers got lazy between 1:50 and 2:10. They smoked by the back gate, traded jokes, forgot to watch.

At 2:03, I climbed onto the window ledge. The sheet cut my palms. I slid down. Too fast. Hit the wall hard. Pain shot up my arm. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t scream.

I dropped the last twenty feet. Landed in mud. Ankle twisted. Didn’t break. Bile hit my throat from the impact. I swallowed it. Couldn’t stop to throw up.

I ran.

Barefoot. Nightgown plastered to my skin. Mud between my toes. The wall was behind me. The woods were ahead. Fifty yards of open grass. If the floodlights came on, I was dead.

They didn’t.

No alarm. No shouts. No dogs. No floodlights. Nothing.

It was too easy. That thought hit me halfway across the grass. Too easy. The window unlocked. The soldiers smoking. The yard dark. The Don didn’t do easy. The Don didn’t do mistakes.

But I kept running. Easy or not, I wasn’t going back.

I hit the tree line and kept running. Branches whipped my face, my arms, my legs. I didn’t feel it.

I ran until my lungs burned. Until my ankle gave out and I fell. Pushed up. Ran again. My stomach cramped. Nine weeks pregnant and running like this. Stupid. Desperate.

I don’t know how long. Hours. The sky started turning grey.

There was a creek. I remembered it from the drive in. I crossed it. The water was freezing. Up to my knees. I slipped on rocks. Went under. Came up spitting. The cold shocked the nausea out of me for three seconds. Then it came back worse.

On the other side, I collapsed. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. My stomach heaved, but nothing came up. Nothing left.

That’s when I heard footsteps.

Not running. Walking. Calm. Like a man on a Sunday stroll.

I looked up.

Don.

White shirt. No jacket. Clean. No mud on his shoes. Like he’d teleported here.

He wasn’t even breathing hard.

He stopped ten feet from me. Looked at his watch. Then at me.

“Forty-eight minutes,” he said. Same voice as always. Like he was telling me the time.

I tried to crawl back. My arms wouldn’t work.

Two soldiers stepped out of the trees behind him. I hadn’t heard them. Hadn’t seen them. They’d been there the whole time.

Don crouched down. Same way he did with Luka. Eye level. He smelled like cologne. Not sweat. Not dirt. The smell made my stomach roll.

“Did you think the window was an accident?” he asked. Soft.

“Did you think the soldiers smoking was luck? Did you think I left for the port?”

He touched my chin. Tilted my face up. His thumb was clean. No blood. Never blood.

“I let you run,” he said. “Because I wanted to see what you’d do. Where you’d go.”

He stood. Nodded to the soldiers.

They grabbed me. Not rough. Not gentle. Like I was a crate being moved.

As they dragged me back through the trees, I saw the creek again. My footprints on the other side. And next to them, his. He’d been behind me the whole time. Walking. While I ran for my life.

Back at the mansion, he didn’t take me to my room.

He took me to the east wing.

Luka’s chair was gone. Floor was clean. Smelled like bleach. The bleach made me gag.

Elena was still there. Chain. Collar. She looked up when we came in. Saw me. Saw the mud. The blood on my knees. The sweat and vomit.

She didn’t say run this time.

She just closed her eyes.

Don sat me in a new chair. Not metal. Wood. The same kind Luka died in. He leaned against the wall. Took his tablet out.

“You want to leave,” he said. Not a question.

“You understand the price now.”

He pointed at the clean floor where Luka’s chair had been.

“I did that to him.” His voice didn’t change.

“I’ll do it to you.”

He stepped close. Put his hand on the back of my chair. Fingers inches from my neck.

“I have business to handle,” he said.

“When I’m done, I’m coming back for you.”

His thumb brushed my pulse. Once.

“And I will make you beg the way he did.”

He walked out.

The door locked.

But I wasn’t alone.

His promise was still in the room with me. And I knew, deep in my bones, that promises from a Don weren’t empty. They were debts. And debts in this family were always collected.