The hiss of the espresso machine was starting to sound like static in my head. Twelve hours straight, and I was still wiping down tables, serving burnt coffee with a fake smile. Don Carlo muttered behind the counter, flipping through unpaid bills like they were love letters.
Three months. Three months, and my wages hadn't come. He promised me every week "Soon, ragazza. Soon." But promises didn't pay rent. Promises didn't fix sneakers splitting at the seams.
And promises sure as hell didn't silence Damian DeLuca's voice in my head.
You'll regret ever stepping into my world.
It had been days since the alley, and still, I felt it crawling under my skin. Every time the café bell chimed, I thought it would be one of his men again. Every time a black car passed the window, my chest locked tight.
"Aria," Carlo barked. "Table six."
I grabbed the tray, balancing cups that rattled with every step. My hands weren't steady anymore. Sleep hadn't helped. Work hadn't helped. Nothing helped.
The couple at table six argued in hushed voices, shoving coins across the table like they could barely afford the drinks. I set the cups down, plastering on a smile that didn't reach my eyes.
"You alright, miss?" the man asked, glancing up at me.
"Fine," I lied, pulling the tray back against my chest.
I wasn't fine. I was a mess in borrowed sneakers, trapped in a job that didn't pay, haunted by a man whose name I couldn't say aloud without choking.
The café emptied slow, the neon buzzing weak in the window. By the time I closed up, my legs felt like cement. I wanted nothing more than to crawl home and collapse face-first into bed.
But the streets outside felt wrong. Heavy. The kind of night that whispered bad things in the dark.
I tightened my bag against my shoulder and started walking. The closer I got to my house, the heavier the dread grew in my stomach. My feet wanted to stop, but the road dragged me forward.
And by the time I turned onto my block, I already knew something had happened.
The house came into view, and my chest squeezed. The front door hung crooked on its hinges, one side splintered as if someone had kicked it in. Light spilled out into the street, too harsh, too frantic.
I broke into a run.
"Mom! Dad!"
Inside looked like a storm had passed through. The living room was wrecked, drawers yanked out, clothes and papers tossed everywhere. The glass cabinet that once held Mom's porcelain treasures stood gutted, shelves bare. Broken picture frames crunched under my shoes, my family's smiles smashed beneath shards.
My little brother sat on the couch, arms hugging his knees, face pale. My sister clutched him tightly, as if her grip was the only thing keeping him from shattering too.
"Aria!" Mom's voice cracked. She was crouched near the rug, gathering pieces of a broken bowl with trembling hands. Tears streaked her cheeks in messy trails.
I dropped beside her. "What happened?"
"They came," she whispered, her whole body shaking. "They took everything, your grandmother's chest, the brass clock, even the silver trays…" Her voice broke off into sobs.
"Collectors," Dad spat from across the room. His face was red, jaw clenched, eyes blazing. He was pacing like a caged animal, fists tightening and loosening. "They didn't just take, they destroyed." He kicked at a shattered frame, glass scattering further.
I looked between them, heart hammering. "Who? What collectors? Why would anyone…."
Dad's head snapped toward me. "Because of me." His voice was a low growl. "Because I owe a man money. A lot of it."
The words felt like a knife to the gut.
"You…" My throat went dry. "You're saying this is because of you? You let them walk into our home"
"I didn't let them," he roared, cutting me off. "I couldn't stop them. You don't say no to men like that."
Mom covered her face with her hands, sobbing harder. My siblings pressed closer together on the couch, eyes wide and frightened.
My pulse was a drumbeat in my ears. I wanted to scream, to break something, to demand why my family had to pay the price for his mistakes. Instead, I forced the words out.
"Who's the man?"
Dad went still. For a long moment, the only sound was Mom's quiet crying. Finally, he muttered something low. Not a real name, more like a title, sharp, foreign, ugly on his tongue.
"They call him Voss."
The word meant nothing to me, yet the way Dad said it made my skin crawl. Like even speaking it out loud was dangerous.
I barely slept that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the broken furniture, Mom clutching her chest like her heart might split open, my little brother curled in a corner trying to disappear.
By morning, the rage had hardened into something sharper. I stormed into the kitchen, words already clawing their way up my throat, ready to demand answers Dad had dodged last night. But he was already waiting. Sitting at the table, eyes sunk deep, like a man who had been awake all night with ghosts whispering in his ears.
"You don't have to carry this, Aria," he said before I could open my mouth. His voice was thin, defeated. "I've found a way."
"A way?" I laughed without humor. "What way? Because I don't see one. Unless you're planning to sell the house walls next, or maybe Mom's wedding ring."
His jaw tightened, but he didn't snap back. That scared me more than if he had. Dad wasn't a quiet man.
"They came for what I owed. They'll come again. Next time, they won't stop at breaking things." He rubbed his temples like he could push the thought away. "So I went to them. I asked for time."
"And?"
He hesitated, eyes flicking toward my mom as she shut door, then to my brother still curled up on the couch. His shoulders slumped. "They said…there is something else I can give."
My stomach turned. "What does that mean?"
"You," he whispered.
The word was a knife. It split the air, split me.
I stared at him, waiting for the punchline, the bitter laugh, the correction. Nothing came.
"You made a deal with them? With that man, Voss?" My voice shook.
He couldn't look me in the eye. "If you work for him, if you keep his house, clean, serve, whatever he asks, then my debt starts to dissolve. Your wages go directly to him. It buys us safety."
I gripped the edge of the table, nails digging into the wood. "You're selling me to him. That's what this is."
"No," he snapped, too fast, too desperate. "It's work. Honest work. Not what you're thinking. He's a powerful man"
"Powerful?" My laugh was jagged. "He's a monster who sends men to wreck homes because he's owed money.
My father's jaw worked, the words dragging out of him like they cut his throat on the way up.
"This is the only way, Aria. Do you want them to come back? Do you want them to drag Luca into the street? Do you want Sofia next?"
My chest went hollow. The names of my brother and sister hung in the room like a curse.
I swallowed hard, forcing the lump in my throat down. "How does he even know I exist? How does this man know you have an eldest daughter?"
Dad looked away, shame flashing across his face. That was answer enough.
Mom's chair screeched against the floor as she shot to her feet. "Marco!" Her voice cracked, raw with rage. She never called him that, not in front of us. "How could you? How could you hand over your daughter like some… some bargaining chip?"
He straightened, bristling, but his eyes were wet. "Elena, we don't have a choice!"
"You had a choice when you borrowed from him!" she spat, trembling. "And now you're selling her to fix your mistakes?"
"It's not selling her!" he roared back, the vein in his neck pulsing. "It's work. A job. She goes, she earns, and the debt shrinks. That's how we survive."
Mom's hands shook as she pressed them to her face, muffling a sob. "She's our daughter, Marco. Not his servant."
The fight cracked open in the middle of the room, their words ricocheting off the broken walls while Luca and Sofia huddled close together on the couch, silent witnesses to the wreckage of our family.
And I just stood there, caught between their fury and the weight of what it meant for me.
Because no matter how my father dressed it up work, safety, survival, I knew the truth.
This wasn't a choice.
It was a sentence.
The ride to my father's debtor was silent.
Not the kind of silence that comforted. The kind that pressed against my chest, heavy and airless, like the world already knew where we were going and refused to warn me. My father's eyes never left the road, jaw clenched tight enough to crack a tooth.
I sat rigid, watching the city I knew blur past the window until it disappeared into streets too polished to belong to us. The graffiti, the rust, the noise, all stripped away, replaced with glass walls, trimmed hedges, and gates that whispered money. My stomach turned with every mile, dread sinking deeper.
Then the car rolled to a stop.
The gate loomed above us, black steel threaded with gold, carved like something royal, cruel in its beauty. Guards stood at attention, suits sharp, faces unreadable. My father lowered the window, voice cracked when he spoke, but the guard cut him off.
"Not the car. You walk."
Dad nodded quickly. Too quickly. He parked at the curb, his hand trembling as he shut off the ignition. My throat tightened. Every instinct screamed to run, but my feet betrayed me, moving when his did.
The gates groaned open, and we stepped into another world.
The path stretched long and endless, lined with stone statues that looked like they were watching. The house, no mansion, rose in the distance, every light glowing warm but not inviting. Its walls were too perfect, too deliberate, like a cage built to look like paradise.
By the time we reached the entrance, my palms were damp. The guards didn't ask us to sit. Didn't smile. They simply led us down a wide hall, marble floors gleaming beneath my worn shoes. Gold frames lined the walls, faces I didn't recognize staring back, each one reminding me I didn't belong here.
The air smelled expensive. Cold.
Finally, we stopped at a door. One guard pushed it open, and we were ushered into an office that looked less like a workspace and more like a throne room dark wood, leather, shelves filled with books that probably cost more than my father's entire life.
I swallowed, my heart slamming against my ribs.
Then I saw him.
At first, only the silhouette, broad shoulders, tall, deliberate in the way he moved. And then the light caught his face.
My breath hitched.
It was him.
The man from before.
The man my father owed.
The man who now stood between me and whatever life I thought I had left.
Our eyes locked, his unreadable, mine wide with shock.
And in that moment, the truth burned itself into me.
I wasn't here by chance.
I was here for him.