Blood has a scent. Not like iron. Not like rust. It's warmer than that. It smells like endings.
The scent reached me before I even opened the front door. The heavy iron gates creaked as I stepped onto the marble steps of my family's villa. I still held the sketchpad I had taken to the gardens that morning, its edges smudged with charcoal. Little did I know, my last moment of peace had already come to an end.
The silence was wrong. Too still. Too clean. A single fly buzzed past my ear. I paused, fingers tightening around the doorknob. My gut twisted before my brain could catch up. The door creaked open, and there, just beyond the grand piano, slumped like a discarded marionette on the floor was my father.
His eyes were still open. Blood had soaked through the front of his crisp white shirt, blooming like a rose too wide across his chest. His hands, once capable of holding a thousand secrets, were still curled as if mid-conversation. There was no sign of a struggle. No shattered vase. No upturned chair. Just a single bullet hole. Clean. Efficient. Brutal.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I stepped inside.
"Papà?"
My voice came out as a whisper, like I was afraid to wake him. As if the bullet that shattered his heart hadn't already silenced everything that mattered. A movement in the shadows caught my eye. I turned, heart slamming against my ribs.
A man stood in the far corner, half-shrouded in the fading light pouring through the stained glass. He wore a black suit and black gloves. His face was calm—too calm. It was as if death were just another transaction for him. His eyes met mine, and I stopped breathing. Ice. That was my first thought. His eyes were like ice, not cold like winter, but cold like a knife pressed to your throat, slowly sliding beneath the skin, waiting for the moment you flinch.
He said nothing. Did nothing but watch me like I was something already his. Something owed. Something promised. Then he stepped forward. Measured. Silent. I didn't move. He stopped just inches from me, the scent of his cologne mixing with something darker, gunpowder, maybe. Leather. Heat. Control.
"You're Liana."
It wasn't a question. I swallowed hard, unable to look away. "Who are you?"
He reached up and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. My entire body froze. No man had ever touched me like that. Like I belonged to him.
"Your father made a vow."
I blinked. "A vow?"
He smiled, and it was the kind that didn't touch his eyes. "To me. About you."
His gloved hand skimmed my jaw, slowly… reverently.
"His debt is paid."
I slapped his hand away, finally finding my voice. "What the hell are you talking about?"
He stepped back, but not before I saw it—that flicker of something deeper. Possession. Hunger. Obsession wearing a mask of patience.
"I'm Dante Vitale."
The name hit me like a match igniting gasoline. The Vitale family was legendary—old mafia blood, ruthless and untouchable. There were whispers of fire, knives, and cold-blooded orders they had made. My father used to warn me about them in hushed tones, much like priests warn of devils in the dark. And now, the devil stood in my parlour.
"I don't care who you are," I snapped. "You killed my father."
"No," he said simply. "I freed you."
I stepped back like he'd struck me, breath catching in my throat.
"You'll be coming with me."
"Like hell I will."
"You'll marry me, Liana."
.Another blow. This one felt colder. He looked at me as if the idea wasn't absurd, as if it was inevitable. It was as though my life had already been carved into his palm and he was merely reading the lines.
"I'd rather die," I hissed.
He smiled again. "You will. If you run."
And then he turned on his heel, leaving me standing over my father's body, my blood running colder than the corpse on the floor. I wanted to scream. To cry. To fight, but instead, I whispered a single word to the silence.
"Dante."
The moment he walked away, the world felt like it was tilting. My knees buckled, and I sank to the floor beside my father, not minding that his blood was already seeping into the hem of my white linen dress. I touched his face, my fingertips trembling. It was still warm.
"Papà…" I choked, pressing my forehead to his.
I didn't realise I was crying until a drop splattered against his skin. My father had never been affectionate, never soft, but he had protected me. Hidden me. Kept me out of the family dealings with a fierce kind of love that never needed words, and now he was gone. Murdered.
By him. Dante Vitale.
A vow, he had said. A debt. My father had traded me like currency, as if I were nothing more than a coin to be flipped across a bloodstained table. Now, Dante had come to collect. I heard the front door open again, and footsteps echoed across the marble floor, slow and deliberate. My whole body stiffened as someone entered behind me. It wasn't Dante. It was another man—broader, taller, and silent as a shadow.
"Miss Moretti," he said in a thick Sicilian accent. "You'll need to come with me now."
I turned, my face streaked with tears, fury rising through the grief like a fire beneath my skin.
"Touch me," I hissed, "and I swear to God—"
"No one will harm you," the man interrupted, oddly gentle. "But you are no longer safe here. You have enemies now."
"I didn't choose this."
"No one chooses Dante Vitale," he said, and there was something like pity in his eyes. "He chooses you."
I didn't fight when they took me. Maybe it was the shock, or maybe it was because deep down, I knew what was waiting in the shadows was worse than anything I could imagine. I was escorted out through a back entrance, past the kitchen where the staff was mysteriously absent, past the hallway where I used to race through barefoot as a child. All of it now hollow, heavy, gone.
Two black SUVs stood by the back gate. The man opened the door for me, waiting patiently, as if this were a choice. As if I weren't already buried in decisions made long before I was born. I slid inside, and there he was.
Dante sat in the leather seat across from me, one leg crossed over the other, his gloved fingers resting on his thigh like a man at perfect ease. The window beside him reflected the red-stained skyline, but he didn't look outside. He looked only at me, as if I were a painting, a prize, or a possession.
"You came willingly," he murmured, voice low. "I'm impressed."
"You think I had a choice?"
"There's always a choice, cara mia," he said, lips twitching into a smirk. "You chose not to bleed."
I clenched my fists. "I chose not to die in front of my father's corpse."
Dante's eyes flickered at that. Something shifted in the sharp line of his jaw, barely, but I saw it. He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out a handkerchief. Silk. White. Immaculate. He held it out to me. I stared.
"For the blood," he said. "Or the tears."
I didn't take it. He leaned forward, closing the space between us. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"You can hate me. You will hate me. But you'll come to understand why it has to be this way."
I wanted to slap him. Scratch him. Scream. Instead, I sat frozen as his knuckles grazed my cheek again.
"I don't want your understanding," I said through gritted teeth.
"Then I'll take your obedience."
He leaned back, slow and smooth. The car started. The city blurred past in flashes of light and shadow, and with each passing second, my world grew smaller, darker and colder. I was being stolen. Not just from my home. Not just from my life but from myself. Dante Vitale didn't even ask permission.
The ride stretched on in suffocating silence. Dante didn't speak again, and neither did I. He just watched me like he was measuring my every blink, my every breath. My body hummed with adrenaline, fear, fury. And something I didn't want to name.
I wanted to reach for the door handle. I wanted to leap into traffic, to run until my legs broke and my lungs burned. But I knew better. I knew men like him didn't let things go. Not debts. Not blood and definitely not women. Especially not ones they believed they owned.
After nearly an hour, the car pulled off the main road... Tall, ancient trees lined the narrow path, casting darkness along the road as the sun set. Iron gates opened with a mechanical groan, revealing a sprawling estate carved into the cliffs.
The mansion resembled something out of a fever dream—stone and glass, where old-world charm clashed with new wealth under the moonlight. It was beautiful, isolated, and dangerous, much like him. The car came to a stop in front of a marble staircase, illuminated by wrought-iron torches that flickered in the wind. Before I could move, Dante opened the door, stepped out, and offered his hand to me.
I stared at it. "I'm not yours."
"You will be," he said simply.
I climbed out on my own, ignoring his outstretched hand. The stone beneath my feet felt colder than the air, and the smell of saltwater drifted up from the cliffs below. Somewhere, a wolf howled in the distance. Two guards flanked the entrance as Dante led me up the stairs, his presence too close, too calm. He didn't touch me, but I felt his influence with every step.
Inside, the estate was breathtaking. It featured vaulted ceilings, marble floors, and gold-framed paintings that seemed to stare down at me like ghosts. However, the beauty was deceiving; it couldn't mask the shadows creeping through every hallway. The weight of secrets hung in the air, thick enough to choke.
"Where are you taking me?" I asked, breaking the silence.
"To your room." He said without a glance.
"I want to see my father's body. I want to bury him properly."
Dante stopped in his tracks. He turned around, his eyes revealing nothing. "He'll be buried with honour by me."
A beat passed. His jaw clenched, then he paused.
"Tomorrow," he said finally. "Tonight, you rest."
I almost laughed. Rest? In the home of the man who'd killed my future and taken my life as casually as one might claim a bottle of wine?
He gestured toward a long hallway. "You'll find everything you need in there. Clothes. Toiletries. Privacy."
"Privacy," I echoed bitterly. "Do you think this is kindness?"
He stepped closer. "I don't do kindness."
"I noticed," I said, brushing past him, showing my disgust.
He didn't respond; he simply stared at me as if he were carving me into memory. Then, quietly, he said: "You've been mine for a long time, Liana. You just didn't know it yet."
The door in front of me opened by itself. A faceless man in black stood there, waiting to usher me inside. I stepped into the room without a word, determined not to show him how shaken I was. As the door shut behind me, it made a final, deliberate click.
The suite was enormous. Rich velvet curtains. A chandelier above the bed. A bathtub carved from stone is in the corner. Every luxury imaginable, and yet all I could feel was the cage.
I stood in the centre of the room, staring at my reflection in the full-length mirror. There was blood on my dress and salt on my cheeks. My father's death still clung to me like smoke, and just outside that door was the man responsible for his death. Dante Vitale. He was waiting, watching, and owning what was his.
I didn't cry again, not even as I lay in the unfamiliar bed, staring up at the ceiling and unable to sleep. Deep down, I knew this was the beginning of something from which I might never escape. Worse yet, a sick, twisted part of me wasn't sure if I wanted to.