SCARLETT L ANGFORD

Keeping Her Captivated

OceanofPDF.com
 Copyright © 2022 by Scarlett Langford

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the
publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website,
or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names,

characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the
author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All characters in this book are consenting adults over the

age of eighteen.

Cover Design by Moonstruck Cover Design & Photography,

moonstruckcoverdesign.com

Developmental editor - Elise Hitchings

First edition
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

OceanofPDF.com
 Content Warning
This book is intended for mature readers and may contain
content that is triggering for some. The book contains
depictions of sex, violence, gore, captivity and references to
sexual assault and physical abuse.

OceanofPDF.com
Keeping Her Captivated

Scarlett Langford

OceanofPDF.com


I stood and inhaled,

The stars and the lights.
The cool summer air,
Was a kiss from the night.

L.B

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER ONE

Liliana

As I sat in the dusky room, my classmate’s tone-deaf singing

filling the air and my ex making out with another girl two
seats over, I wondered which part of this was supposed to
be fun.
One of the main reasons I decided to study in Hale City
was to get as far away as possible from my small
hometown. Parents included. But the reality of enjoying my
freedom in the big city wasn’t quite living up to
expectations.
College isn’t just about the degree, it’s about the
experience. Or so I had been told. But as I sat back in the
private fifth-floor karaoke room, staring at my half-eaten
plate of Chinese food on the table, I wished I had stayed in
bed.
“Bryce, it’s your turn,” Casey said as her deafening
rendition of a ten-year-old pop song came to an end.
“Bryce!”
 Bryce stopped making out with the random girl he had
met in the bar beforehand for an astonishing three seconds
to respond. His light brown curls bounced as he moved his
head away from the girl and his lipstick-stained mouth was
parted in confusion as he brought himself back to the room.
“Uh, I’ll go up later,” he mumbled. “Liliana can go next.”
My blood started to boil. As if it wasn’t enough that Bryce
had ghosted me two weeks prior, he had shown up to our
joint English society outing, picked up the first girl he could
find, and spent the evening with his tongue down her throat.
And now he had the nerve to suggest that I sing in his place
so he could continue to play tonsil tennis with his new fling.
“I can’t go up now,” I retorted. “I need a bathroom
break.”
I wasn’t a fan of karaoke. But what I hated more was
submitting to anything that Bryce wanted me to do. I got up
and left the room in search of the nearest bathroom I could
hide in.
It took a few minutes of trawling through the maze of
corridors connecting the karaoke rooms before I found
myself in the empty ladies’ bathroom. Once inside, I
examined myself in the full-length mirror. My turtleneck
sweater was up to my chin, my tan legs were sheathed in
black tights, and my wavy hair was pinned back by bobby
pins. Did I dress too uptight? Was that to blame for my awful
luck in dating? I shook away the self-deprecating thoughts
and instead splashed water on my face, hoping that the cold
liquid would snap me out of whatever hell hole I had found
myself in.
It didn’t work. I pushed my bottom lip out in a pout as I
accepted that there was nothing left to do but return to the
karaoke room of hell.
That’s if I knew how to get back.
As I re-entered the maze of corridors, I prayed I would
know intuitively which of the numerous, identical doors I’d
find the rest of the society members behind. Casey would
most likely sing another song when she found everyone else
reluctant. Surely I’d hear her blood-curdling singing from a
mile away, guiding me in the right direction.
But on the contrary, the corridors were completely silent.
I guess it made sense for a karaoke hall to soundproof their
rooms.
Finally I halted at what I believed to be the right door. I
was pretty sure this was the one I remembered the server
lady escorting us to. The number next to the door was
engraved in gold and black and read ‘thirty-three’. I seemed
to remember that being the number of our room.
I pushed the door open, expecting Casey and the gang to
come into view behind the door.
But that wasn’t what happened.
As soon as the door swung open I knew my mistake.
Instead of the college English society, there were three men
seated around a square table in the middle of the room.
 Two of the men were possibly the most attractive men I
had ever laid my eyes on. The one closest to the door was
tall and athletic with slick black hair, defined cheekbones,
curled lips and penetrating dark eyes. The one next to him
was a pretty boy; doe eyes and sandy hair, and almost as
tall and strong as his companion. They both looked to be in
their late twenties.
They were also two of the best-dressed men I had ever
seen. Both men wore well-fitted, tailored black suits that
oozed money and style. An unmistakable air of power
emanated from the both of them.
The man sitting opposite the two wasn’t nearly as
enigmatic. He was middle-aged with graying hair and pink
cheeks. But despite his commonplace features, he looked
familiar to me.
The three of them were speaking in hushed voices. That
was until they noticed me standing in the doorway.
The two attractive men were the first to turn away from
the conversation and swivel their heads in my direction. The
third man shortly followed suit. After a few seconds of
speechlessness, I quickly apologized in the direction of the
men’s glares and closed the door behind me, running off in
search of the room I was supposed to be in.
My second go at Karaoke Room Lottery turned out to be
more successful.
As I re-entered our room, I saw that, as predicted, Casey
hadn’t yet handed over the karaoke baton. But what I hadn’t
anticipated was that Bryce was now missing. And so was the
girl he had been with. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to
figure out the reason for their early departure.
But surprisingly, the idea of them finding their way to the
nearest bed wasn’t as heartbreaking as it would have been
a few minutes ago. After setting my eyes on those men in
the other room - men being the keyword - I almost felt
embarrassed remembering the sleepless nights I had over
college boys. When apparently there were such handsome
men with expensive tastes living in the city.
I thought of the taller man in the room. His features were
beautiful, as was his body. I imagined him towering over me,
bending down to impart a kiss on me with his full lips, my
hands roaming inside his suit as he leant into me.
My thoughts then flitted to the pretty boy. I imagined
hunger in his eyes as he touched my body, his eyes
widening in surprise as I felt him back, my hand trailing
lower and lower…
“Liliana!” I was immediately brought out of my reverie.
Casey was pointing the karaoke mic in my direction,
threateningly. “Come on, sing this one with me.”
Bryce had gone. There were only a few others left in the
room, all deep in drunken conversations. And I was in a
better mood than I had been half an hour ago. What was the
harm?
So I joined Casey in singing a popular dance song. As the
beats filled the room I thought back to how those men
looked at me when I stepped into their domain. Though their
expressions were hard to read, they didn’t seem to be looks
of anger.
Could they even have been looks of interest?
Unlikely. With expensive taste probably came high
standards. But a girl could dream.
It felt like, by taking a simple wrong turn, I had ended up
in some undercover world that I wasn’t supposed to be in.
The idea that there were secrets underpinning this city felt
exciting.
The night came to an abrupt end a few hours later when
the house lights came on and we were politely ushered out
of the closing building. Before I had a chance to organize a
ride back with Casey, her boyfriend Todd came and swept
her off at the last minute, leaving me alone at midnight
trying to figure out a way back home. Subways were closed.
So instead I stood outside the entrance of the karaoke
rooms building, fumbling on my phone for an Uber.
“Hello, sweetheart,” said a cooing voice from near me.
The sleek yet softly spoken words were almost lost among
the cool night breeze. I looked up in search of the voice’s
owner. And when I did I almost did a double-take.
The pretty boy from karaoke room number thirty-three
was standing in front of me.
He looked even more handsome out here on the street,
his confident stance showing off the length and contours of
his body, his lips curled in a subtle smile.
 Despite internally gushing at the realization that his
words were directed at me, I tried to keep my cool as I
thought of a good response. The glow of the orange street
light reflected against his hazel eyes as he waited for my
reply.
But before I could find the words, someone came up
behind me and put a firm hand over my mouth, their leather
glove muffling my screams.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWO

Liliana

The next thing I knew, I was being manhandled in the

direction of a shiny, black SUV. Pretty Boy was out of view.
Instead, my anonymous captor marched me forward,
keeping a firm hold of both my mouth and the small of my
back as he pushed me forward. As we reached the car he
ushered me inside.
Once in the vehicle, Pretty Boy came in on the left side of
me, leaving me no doubt as to who it was who was sitting
on my other side with his gloved hand over my mouth.
“I’m going to remove my hand now and you’re not going
to scream,” my captor said from next to me. “As long as you
cooperate, you won’t get hurt”
“Not yet, anyway,” Pretty Boy added lazily as he got
comfortable in the car. If it wasn’t already obvious, his
disposition now made it clear that his prior flirting was an
act. What an idiot I had been to think otherwise.
 The car started moving, being driven by a chauffeur
dressed in all black.
“I’m going to remove my hands in three,” my capture
continued. “And when I do, you’re going to behave.
Otherwise, things will be made a lot more difficult for you.”
I didn’t see any reason not to oblige. We were hurtling
through an empty main road in a car with tinted glass.
Screaming or making a scene would be futile. The best thing
to do was to keep calm and try to think of how to get out of
the predicament unharmed.”
“Three,” he said in my ear. “Two. One.”
He removed his hand from my mouth. I panted, breathing
in the air around me.
“Good girl,” he said from next to me. I turned to meet his
eye. I was right. It was the other suited guy from the room.
The tall, sexy one. These two handsome strangers were
kidnapping me and I had no clue why.
“Kane, when you hear from Leo you need to inform him
of this development,” he said over my shoulder to my other
captor. “We’ll take her to a motel until he tells us what to do
with her.”
Motel. What to do with her. As these snippets rang
through my ears I started to fill up with dread. How did I get
myself in this mess?
“How much should I tell him she knows?” Pretty Boy,
Kane, replied.
“Just tell him she knows too much.”
 My fear morphed into confusion.
“I don’t know what you guys are talking about, but I don’t
know anything,” I blurted out. “You have the wrong person.
I’m just a student. I have no clue who you people even are.”
“You may have just been a student when you walked into
our private room earlier this evening,” said the taller man.
“But now you’re a liability. You saw too much.”
“I don’t even know what I saw,” I said, defeated.
“You saw someone like us talking to someone like him,”
he replied. “And that’s a big problem.”
I then listened as Kane left a voice message for whoever
Leo was, telling him to call him or Vince back immediately.
Vince must be the name of the one who was currently being
the bigger pain in my ass.
Soon the car pulled up at a run-down motel on the side of
the highway. Vince pulled me out of the car by my arm and
marched me toward the building, Kane following closely.
“I can walk myself,” I said, trying to release myself from
Vince’s hold.
“When you’ve proven that you’ll cooperate with us then
you can walk on your own. But for now, enjoy being snug.”
His hold tightened, pulling me in closer as we walked.
As we approached the motel office, I went on high alert,
hoping this would be my chance to signal for help.
But as we entered the dark, dusty room, to my dismay,
the motel owner didn’t seem perturbed by the scene in front
of him. It was clear I was in danger by the way Vince was
manhandling me. But the older man behind the desk didn’t
even meet my eye, and instead spoke directly to my
captors.
“I recommend rooms five and six,” he told them. “Six is
the biggest space and has no plumbing issues, like the rest
of them. And five is, well, next to it. They’re all yours.”
The man handed the keys over to Kane. “If you need help
with anything, let me know.”
As Vince marched me out again and we made toward the
rooms, it hit me that the guy hadn’t asked either Vince or
Kane to pay. In fact, he was practically bending over
backwards to give them anything they wanted.
Who were these guys?”
We halted outside room five.
“This room’s yours for the night,” said Vince. “Sleep
tight.”
He then winked.
“And don’t try any funny business,” Kane added. “It won’t
work.”
I walked into the room reluctantly, the two men a barrier
between me and the outside. As they closed the door and I
heard a light clanging sound as they locked me in. A few
seconds later I heard the room next to me come alive with
the sounds of their footsteps and muffled chatter.
Once left to my own devices, I tried to wrack my brains
for ways to escape. My first instinct was to reach for my
purse where my phone would be. But neither were on me.
Either Vince or Kane must have taken it from me while I was
too busy being kidnapped to notice.
I searched around for a motel room phone, but there was
none. Coming to think about it, there wasn’t much of
anything in the room at all. Including any windows. The
room only contained a bed, a single nightstand and an open
door leading to a tiny, windowless bathroom.
Now I understood the hidden subtexts behind the motel
manager’s words when he recommended this room to Vince
and Kane. This room was practically designed to keep
someone captive.
I sat on the edge of the bed, the hardness of the
mattress another reason that I knew I wouldn’t be getting
any sleep.
I tried to process the night’s events. What had I seen that
had been so bad that I needed to be kidnapped for
witnessing it?
Vince and Kane, I had never seen them before, that’s for
sure. But the other man in the karaoke room. I tried to recall
where I had seen his face. But I couldn’t imagine where I
would have met him. And his face when he saw me didn’t
show any recognition back.
Then suddenly it hit me. I recognized him from the
television in one of the coffee shops I frequented when
studying. The news channel was often playing on the screen
and I had seen him feature more than once. Wearing suits
and giving speeches to the public.
 Had I had witnessed an important politician committing a
crime?
But I still didn’t know what that crime would be. All I saw
was the three of them talking relatively calmly.
I thought back to Vince and Kane. What if the crime was
simply talking to them?
I remembered the motel manager’s keenest to appease
them, the slight fear in his eyes. I pictured the two men’s
expensive suits. Their chauffeur. The way they moved
around with an aura of power, as if no one could touch
them.
Had I just been captured by some kind of mafia gang?
It made sense. The last thing a politician should be seen
doing was fraternizing with the mafia.
I cursed the karaoke door for not being locked. I cursed
Casey for suggesting karaoke in the first place. And the
most frustrating thing was that I had no interest in telling
anyone what I saw.
I held my head in my hands in exasperation. If I’d been
captured by the mafia, then this was more serious than I
thought. No one would try to go against them to save me.
They were capable of the unthinkable and would be able to
get away with it, too.
I had to get out of here.
I got up. The only way out was through the front door,
which was locked. But there had to be a way.
 I bent down in front of the door, examining the keyhole.
Like the rest of the motel, the lock looked pretty old and
flimsy. But I had no lock-picking experience to even know
where to start. Then I remembered there was one thing I did
have in my arsenal.
I pulled out the bobby pin from my hair, letting my
voluminous waves fall against my shoulders. I inserted the
pin into the lock, trying to bend it against the edges of the
opening, willing it to mimic the key that I didn’t have. As I
kept digging the pin around, I finally heard some hopeful
clinks. Had it worked?
I pulled the door handle and it opened.
And then I was met with Vince standing on the other side
of the door.
“Didn’t we tell you not to try anything?” He was smirking,
as if he found my attempt humorous.
My heart sank.
“I get it now,” I said to him. “I saw you talking to
someone you weren’t supposed to be seen talking to. But I
don’t even know who the guy is. Like I said before, I’m a
student. I’m not from here.”
“That I can tell,” he said, stepping forward into the room,
his face turning serious. I stood back instinctively, like a
captive animal being lured inside a cage. As he moved his
body closer toward me, despite myself, a thrill surged
through my body.
 “If you were from here you’d have learned by now not to
test us.” His face was inches from mine. I couldn’t ignore
how beautiful he was. His deep eyes, his full lips, his strong
facial structure. While both men appeared to be of Italian
heritage, his features hinted at him also being of East Asian
descent. We had being mixed in common.
“I won’t tell anyone anything,” I said, my voice sounding
small. “Can I please just go home? There will be people
looking for me.”
He ignored the lie. The truth was that no one would even
notice I was gone. It wasn’t unusual for people in my dorms
to disappear for weeks at a time, whether it be a
spontaneous trip back home or to play house with a new
fling. And it wasn’t unusual for students to skip a few
classes. Especially with summer vacation approaching. As
far as my parents went, I only spoke to them a couple of
times a month. Our last communication was two days ago.
“We’ve done some research on you, Liliana,” he said.
“You study journalism. We can’t have this ending up on the
local news channel, can we?”
“I study creative writing!” I said in exasperation. “I write
poems and short stories. I have one journalism class, that’s
it. I couldn’t care less about you and some old guy having a
conversation.”
But I knew he couldn’t be convinced.
Just then the door to the room next door opened and
closed and Kane came into view behind Vince.
 “I got hold of Leo,” he announced to Vince. “He says to
bring her in.”
Vince’s eyes didn’t move from mine.
“Looks like you’ve been upgraded,” he said. “Now come
with us, Princess.”

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER THREE

Liliana

Another car ride later and we were pulling up in the

underground parking lot of a tall building. After exiting the
car, Vince and Kane guided me to an underground entrance
and then inside an elevator. I watched the number of floors
grow in number on the small screen until the elevator finally
stopped on the twenty-ninth floor.
We walked out into a pristine, white corridor and were
met with a solitary door that Vince opened and guided me
through.
We stepped into the spacious living area of a modern
penthouse apartment.
The apartment had high ceilings, large cream couches
and the largest flat screen TV I had ever seen. Vince and
Kane moved me past an open-plan kitchen and onto a
metallic spiral staircase which led onto a second floor.
As we walked through the upstairs hallway and passed
room after room I saw how huge the place really was. The
hallway itself was lined with tall windows, showcasing a
panoramic view of the city. The vibrant lights, tall buildings
and bustling activity of Hale sparkled in the darkness.
There was an irony to being trapped in this high building.
Exposed in this glass tower to the whole city, yet isolated
and out of reach.
I had to give it to them, though. It sure beat the motel
room.
The other thing that was going for me was that I wasn’t
dead yet.
But this Leo character was a concern. Vince and Kane
seemed to take orders from him. My fate lay in his hands.
We turned a corner and reached a final door, on which
Vince knocked two times.
“Come in,” came a commanding voice from within.
Vince pushed me inside by the hips as I tried to ignore
the delicious warmth I felt from his touch. And then I set my
eyes on Leo for the first time.
The man behind the desk was the epitome of power. He
had a thicker build than the other two, his tight pants and
suit which left my imagination running wild. He had a strong
jaw that led up to penetrating dark blue eyes. He was
impossibly handsome. But the room he inhabited was dark
and clinical.
“So, what do we have here?” He asked as we entered the
room. An Italian-American lilt tinged his deep voice.
 Vince sat on the chair in front of Leo’s desk while Kane
and I stood back. Kane grabbed a hold of my wrist to keep
me in place.
As I observed Leo and his surroundings, I noticed
something out of place. A small, brightly colored ornament
of a bird birched on a faux branch was placed at the side of
his desk, swinging lightly. The fact that it was in movement
made me wonder if he had been playing with it before we
came in. The idea of this murderous mafia boss playing with
a bird ornament almost made me smirk.
“This is Liliana Blake,” Vince said. “A student at HCU. She
found her way into our private meeting with the chancellor
last night and was eavesdropping.”
“And why would you do something like that?” Leo asked
as he pointed his penetrating eyes in my direction.
“I…I didn’t,” I got out. “I was with my friends in one of
the karaoke rooms down the hall. On the way back I got
confused and went to the wrong room. I didn’t hear
anything, I swear. If you let me go, we can forget about this
whole thing.”
He continued to stare at me intently.
“What should we do with her?” Vince asked.
I waited for Leo to deliver my fate. But instead, he kept
on examining me.
“Find her a room,” he said finally.
I sighed in relief.
 “Kane, you take her to a spare room,” Vince said. “Leo
and I have some more business to discuss.”
Kane took me out of Leo’s office and back into the hall,
his hand still firmly grasping my wrist.
“Do you hold hands with all your captives?” I remarked.
I wondered where my sudden nerve was coming from.
Maybe Vince was right. I was a different person than I was
before tonight.
“I’ll let go once you’re safely in your room,” he said,
irritated.
Soon we reached my new residence. As promised, Kane
released my arm once inside. Then he left me there alone.
I couldn’t complain about the room. It was large with a
king-size bed, a TV and a nice view of the city below. And
upon turning a corner in the room I discovered an ensuite
bathroom complete with a bath and shower. A firm upgrade
from my student apartment, where I slept on a single bed
and shared a small bathroom with three others.
Once satisfied that Kane was out of the way, I went back
and examined the door. But it was as solid as steel and
locked from the outside. I couldn’t even see a place for a
key. A bobby pin wouldn’t get me out of this one.
Soon there was nothing left for me to do but lie down,
flick through the television channels and long for a time
when I wasn’t in captivity. But my racing mind was louder
than the TV and I struggled to concentrate on what was
playing on the screen.
 I laid back against the pillows, wishing at least I had my
phone for company. Even if I didn’t use it to get help, it
would be nice to scroll through social media and feel
connected to the outside world again.
Instead, I watched the images dance across the TV as the
birds started chirping outside. And soon I drifted off to sleep.

***

In the morning I was awoken by the sound of the door

opening. I bolted upright at the sudden noise. Vince walked
into the room and closed the door behind him.
“Relax, I just brought you some breakfast.” He was
carrying a bowl of cereal and some orange juice.
“Will I ever be let out of this room?” I asked as I watched
him place the food on the work desk near the TV. “It’s going
to get claustrophobic in here really fast.”
“Maybe if you’re a good girl,” he said.
“Out on good behavior,” I said under my breath. “It
sounds like prison.”
“Oh believe me, if this was prison you wouldn’t be
getting your own private bathroom and HD TV.”
“Can I get my phone at least?”
He chuckled. Whenever Vince laughed a dangerous yet
captivating smile lit up his face and his deep, brown eyes
came alive. “Not gonna happen, Princess,” he said.
 There was that infuriating nickname again. I wasn’t the
one with the swanky apartment towering over the city.
And then he left and closed the door behind him.
At least I was being brought food. I wondered how I could
use that to my advantage. Tackle the next person who
comes in to serve my food and slip out the door? No, that
wouldn’t work. These men were infinitely stronger and
faster than me. If whoever brought me my food didn’t pin
me to the ground as soon as my hand was on the door
handle, then he would call out and there would be two
others waiting outside who would.
Not to mention that, for some reason, they wanted to
keep me alive. For now, anyway. And I didn’t want to piss
them off and make them change their minds.
A few hours later, lunch was brought to me by Kane.
Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining, I thought, as I dug into
the sandwich I’d been given. Having handsome men serve
me food while I lazed about in bed watching TV sounded like
the life. I had even found silk pajamas folded up in the
closet which fit perfectly and were soft against my skin.
I managed to engross myself in reruns of a trashy reality
show for the rest of the day. As the sky turned dark outside
the large window, my door opened for the third time.
“Here you go, Princess,” Vince said with a wink as he left
me my dinner. I had to stop myself from smiling back at him
as he left.
 There was an underlying sexual undertone present
whenever Vince was around that I couldn’t ignore. The
flirtation in how he spoke, the prowling way he moved. Like
everything he did was a seduction. Even though it seemed
ingrained in his nature, there was a fire in his eyes
whenever he met my gaze that felt like it was just for me.
A plan started hatching in my mind. Maybe there was a
way out of this after all.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER FOUR

Liliana

Being locked in isolation for days was allowing me to notice

things I hadn’t when I first arrived.
For example, the murmur of voices or the hum of the
downstairs television dissipating into silence let me know
when the others were out of the apartment And small
changes in expressions during my interactions with Vince
and Kane let me know what kinda mood they were in on
that day.
But my most important observation came on my fifth
morning at the apartment, when Vince came to deliver me
breakfast.
As he came in, I noticed there was something small and
rectangular enclosed in his left hand. And when he started
to make for the door on his way out he began to bring it out.
Whatever he was carrying in his hand, it was the key out
of this room. And maybe the whole apartment.
 I needed to get him into a vulnerable state so that he’d
part with it.
I couldn’t hear the sound of others in the apartment.
They were either out or still asleep. This was my chance.
“Wait,” I said, before he could dart straight out of the
door. He stood in place. “It gets boring staying in here all
day. Do you want to watch something with me?”
“What do you think this is Princess, Netflix and Chill?” he
asked, amused.
And then he was gone. I felt a twinge of embarrassment
at my failed attempt at seduction. Maybe my approach was
too direct.
I figured that Kane also had a keycard. But his innocent
doe eyes combined with his reserved temperament made it
hard for me to imagine him being tempted by sex. Not that
that stopped me from testing the waters. But my flirty
“thanks, Kane” when he delivered my lunch was met with
silence.
That evening, my TV watching was interrupted by raised
voices coming from inside the apartment. I muted the show
I was watching to attempt to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t make
out any of the words being said. But the deep voice and
drawling accent of the raised tone was an unmistakable
one. It was Leo.
After a few more words were thrown around, I heard the
front door slam close. Someone had left the building in a
rage.
 A few minutes later, my door opened and Vince entered
my room. From the dejected look on his face, I figured he
was the one on the firing end of Leo’s wrath.
Vince dropped a plate of pizza slices on my desk. The
three men were prone to takeout and I often got their
leftovers.
“Pizza again?” I remarked.
“Yep. I hope you like it cold.”
“I don’t think I have a choice.”
He didn’t respond and instead turned back to the door.
“Are you okay?” I probed.
“Enough with the questions, Princess,” he responded.
Despite using my nickname, the usual fieriness behind his
words was missing.
“It’s just, I thought I heard shouting. I was just making…”
“You heard nothing,” he snarled as he turned back to me,
cutting me off.
He was standing to attention now. His eyes glaring at me.
His muscles flexed. There was that fire I was after.
“Are you sure?” I asked, knowing how irritating I was
being. “I just thought maybe your boss was mad at you.”
“He’s not my boss,” Vince snapped. “The three of us are
close as brothers. We’re cut from the same cloth.”
“Really? Is that why he has you on food serving duty.”
I watched as he abandoned the keycard on the desk and
came up to meet me. I stood up to face him.
 “I’m warning you, Princess,” he threatened. “Stop.
Talking.”
“Or what? You’ll go crying to your boss?”
He slammed his hand against the wall next to me and let
it rest there, his eyes staring down at me, menacingly.
“If you don’t stop talking now, I’ll come up with inventive
ways to make you shut up.”
Maybe he expected me to be scared. And maybe I should
have been. But instead, my core was throbbing from the
tension.
“But what if I want to keep talking?” I taunted.
“Feeling feisty today, aren’t you?” He took a moment to
examine me. My lips were parted as I looked back at him,
eyes wide.
“Maybe my cock in your mouth will shut up.”
I could feel wetness pool into my panties at his words.
“I dare you,” I replied, nearly breathless in anticipation.
With that he unzipped his slacks and pulled out his shaft
from his briefs. He then grabbed at my shoulder and pushed
me to the floor in front of him. He let out a deep groan as
my mouth made contact with his cock.
His cock was lengthy and rock hard. I licked and sucked
as he let out deep, angry grunts from above me.
“That’s it,” he said from above me. “Keep sucking my
cock like a good girl.”
I obliged and took the whole thing in my mouth, bopping
my head up and down on him.
 Then Vince grabbed the back of my head and started
guiding the rhythm. I could barely keep up with him and was
almost choking on his cock. He growled as he fucked my
face harder and harder.
“Please,” I moaned onto his cock. My pussy was
throbbing and begging for contact.
“Please, what?”
“Please. Touch me.” I didn’t care about the keycard
anymore. I didn’t care about getting out. I just needed him.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He said, pulling me up
again. “You’re such a little slut for me.”
He then moved down onto the bed, leaning against the
headboard as he pulled me toward him. Once I was on the
bed, he opened up the top buttons of my shirt, exposing my
breasts. He then positioned me so my head was down
toward his cock. I took him in my mouth again.
As I sucked him, he pulled down my skirt and panties and
began to stroke the wetness. He then inserted two fingers
into me.
I moaned onto his cock as his fingers picked up pace,
moving in and out of me ruthlessly.
“Look how needy you are, Princess. Getting off on my
fingers while loving my cock in your mouth.”
I couldn’t respond with anything but muffled moans.
“Here, let me help you with that.” He began thrusting
deep into my mouth again, grunting each time his cock
touched the back of my throat. Soon his movements
became more erratic as his groans loudened.
“I’m going to cum, Princess. Swallow my cum for me.”
He continued to thrust harder and deeper until I was
gagging on him, his fingers still moving inside of me. I
couldn’t take the overload of sensations anymore. Soon the
orgasm took over me and I was coming hard around his
fingers, his cock obscuring my screams. After a few more
desperate thrusts he filled my mouth with his hot liquid,
which I tried my best to swallow down. He then pulled away
and we both lay panting in the aftermath of what just
happened.
Then I remembered the reason I was trying to seduce
him in the first place.
“Could you get me a tissue so I can clean up?” I asked.
He nodded then got up and walked to the ensuite
bathroom.
I got myself ready to run to the desk when he was gone,
hoping he’d be kind enough to run the tissues under some
water, buying me extra time. Leo, at least, I knew was out of
the building. I had a chance to make a run for it.
But before reaching the bathroom, Vince stopped to hop
back up into his briefs and pants. And then picked up the
keycard from the desk and shoved it into his pocket.
Damn it.
Vince came back a few moments later with the tissues. I
cleaned myself up as he pulled on the rest of his clothes. He
then headed for the door.
Just as I thought he was about to leave without another
word, he turned back to me.
“Liliana, I meant what I said,” he said. “You’ve been a
good girl. Good girls don’t need their doors locked. From
now on, you can come and go from this room as you
please.”
And then he left, leaving the door on the latch so that it
didn’t lock.
I sat there dumbfounded. Vince was finally letting me
have access to the rest of the apartment? Was a blowjob all
it took?
And then I thought about his emphasis on the word ‘good
girl.’ There was a plea in there somewhere. He didn’t want
me to tell anyone about what just happened between us. So
he was giving me what I wanted in exchange for my silence.
Somehow, my plan was working after all.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER FIVE

Liliana

The next morning, I was quick to venture out of the room. If

the others saw that I was trustworthy around the apartment
then their guards would come down, making it easier for me
to escape when the time came.
But when I walked down the stairs and into the living
room, I found it empty. Maybe I had woken up before
everyone else.
My first port of call was to check out the front door, but
there was no way for me to open it. I still needed that damn
keycard.
Dejected, I then went to the kitchen in search of food.
Nothing in the fridge piqued my interest, so I put together a
simple bowl of cereal and brought it to the couch to eat in
front of the TV.
About twenty minutes later, I heard footsteps come down
the stairs. I turned around to see Kane approaching the
living area. Despite it being only 9 am, he was already
dressed in a nice shirt and black slacks. Did these guys just
wander around in designer clothes twenty-four seven?
“Why are you down here?” He asked, his tone more
irritated than concerned.
“Vince let me out of my room,” I told him. “You can ask
him.”
As if one cue, another set of steps came down the stairs
and Vince joined us in the living room. Vince, at least, was
still dressed in pajamas. But he still looked as attractive as
ever in navy silk pants and a black undershirt that
showcased his toned arms. A wave of heat traveled down to
my center as I replayed last night’s events in my head.
Kane cornered Vince in the kitchen. He spoke to him in a
hushed voice, but I was close enough to hear every word,
even over the television.
“What is she doing down here?” Kane asked. “Did Leo
approve this?”
“Relax,” Vince said. “She can’t get out of this apartment.
It saves us having to tend to her all the time.”
“You didn’t answer my last question.”
“He was the one who wanted her to get comfortable
here. It’s fine.”
The rest of their words were inaudible.
“Okay, I’m out,” Kane finally said loudly, making for the
front door.
“So I guess it’s just you and me,” I said to Vince once
Kane had closed the door behind him. Vince was still my
main target. The easiest way out of here was to get into his
pants enough times until his defences wore down.
“Don’t get any ideas, Princess,” he said. He then grabbed
a selection of food from the fridge and headed back
upstairs.
Maybe this would be harder than I thought.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER SIX

VINCE

Liliana was proving more fun than I thought she’d be. But
more of a problem, too.
I didn’t know if I should have our karaoke room workers -
who inadvertently brought her into our lives by forgetting to
lock the door of our private room - fired. Or if I should give
them a raise.
I did know that I shouldn’t be sticking my cock inside the
mouth of the captive.
But how could I resist Liliana? Her lips felt so good
wrapped around me. And she looked so delicious as she
moaned on my cock, her tits bouncing as my fingers slid in
and out of her wet pussy. I felt myself becoming hard as I
thought back to last night’s events. So I tried to move my
mind to another topic.
Tonight.
Tonight Kane and I were going to the Black Heart Casino
to show those Terra del Sud bastards what was really in
charge. That’s what I needed to be focusing my energy on.
In the evening, I went down to the living room, dressed
and ready for the night in a classic black Armani suit. But
once I was downstairs, instead of Kane waiting for me, I
found Liliana. I guess I was early. Too keen to get out of the
apartment.
Liliana was sprawled on the couch, her perky body nicely
on display. From my vantage point I had the perfect view
down her shirt.
“Have you seen Kane?” I asked her.
“Nope. Not since this morning.”
I hovered in the kitchen.
“You can wait here with me if you want,” she offered.
I quickly began to resent the fact that I was practically
hiding from her. So I went and sat down on the couch beside
her.
“Enjoying yourself, Princess?” I remarked, pointing out
how comfortable she had made herself in our living room.
“Yes, but I could be enjoying myself even more,” she
said.
The way she looked up at me through her lashes made
blood travel straight down to my cock. It was too
reminiscent of how she looked last night, when she was on
her knees in front of me. Then she put her hand on my arm
and slided it up to my chest. Fuck.
I couldn’t help it. I leaned into her like she had a
gravitational pull. As our lips touched I realized I hadn’t
kissed her yet.
Apparently there was no limit to what her mouth could
do. Her plump lips brushed softly against mine. My tongue
found its way into her mouth and hers massaged mine back.
My hands were all over her. Rubbing her tits, grabbing her
waist. And hers explored my body too, leaving a trail of heat
wherever she touched.
And then I heard the sound of someone on the stairs.
Fuck. Despite all my better instincts, I pulled away from
her.
“Ready?” I looked up to see Kane.
“I’m ready,” I replied, straightening myself up. “Let’s get
out of here.”
I knew Liliana would be trouble the moment I laid my
eyes on her in the karaoke room. But I just didn’t know how
much.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER SEVEN

Liliana

I waited a couple of minutes to make sure Vince and Kane

were firmly out of the apartment building. And then I ran to
the door. In my hand, I held the small keycard I had taken
from Vince’s pocket when we were making out.
I didn’t even know which part of the door the card
activated, so I waved it around wildly. Finally, I heard a small
beep as it came in contact with a black rectangle near the
door frame. I pulled the door handle and the door opened.
I stumbled through the outside corridor until I found the
elevator. I pressed the call button. But the elevator was
taking a painstakingly slow time to reach me. Even though
Vince and Kane were out, Leo was still upstairs. What if he
heard the front door close and came down to investigate?
I could see on the indicator that the elevator was still on
the first floor. I pressed the button again. And again. Finally,
the indicator told me the elevator had moved up to the
second floor, and slowly the number on the screen
continued to ascend.
“Come one, come on,” I muttered feverishly as I watched
the number go up. When the elevator finally reached the
twenty-ninth floor I let out a breath I didn’t know I was
holding. The doors opened I ran straight inside.
And straight into someone.
No, two people.
“Now we know what happened to my keycard,” said
Vince as I looked up at him sheepishly.
“You know we have security guards outside the building,
right?” Kane added. “You were never going to make it
outside.”
I guessed I missed that important detail when I was being
manhandled into the building against my will.
Vince and Kane marched me back inside the apartment,
my heart dropping with every step.
“Sit down,” Vince instructed once we were back inside.
“Are you really going to make me regret giving you full reign
of the apartment?”
“She needs to be locked back in her room,” Kane
suggested.
“We’re not leaving her anywhere. She clearly can’t be
trusted.” He turned back to me. “Find a nice dress to wear,
Princess. You’re coming out with us to the casino.”
My eyes lit up. I was finally going to leave the apartment,
even if it was with them.
 “And don’t get any bright ideas when we’re out,” Vince
added, noticing my excitement. “No one will be helping you
where we’re about to go. In fact, we’re the nice guys in
comparison.”
“Fine. But what am I supposed to wear?” I asked. “All I’ve
been given are pajamas. Unless you want me to wear the
same outfit I was wearing when you kidnapped me.”
“Those won’t do,” Kane said as I tried not to be too
offended. “Vince, don’t you have any clothes in your room
that one of your girls left behind?”
One of your girls. I knew he was a player.
Vince glared at him.
“I’ll have a look,” he said finally.

***

The casino was nothing like I had expected. When I thought

about casinos, I always pictured drunken gamblers and an
uncomfortable atmosphere. But the Black Heart Casino, at
least, was the complete opposite. It was clean and spacious
and the people inside were all refined and attractive.
Ambient music played and waiters were walking around
serving free cocktails and canapés.
I walked around in a tight black dress that Vince had
found after some searching around in his room. I didn’t
know who the original owner of it was and I didn’t want to.
“So, why exactly are we here?” I asked.
 “To feel things out,” Vince responded. “Sometimes you
just have to show your face to make sure that everything is
running smoothly. And so that people don’t forget who really
runs the place.”
“Plus, we have an inkling someone may be lurking
around here that shouldn’t be,” Kane added. “And we need
to know for sure.”
“Okay, so what do we do?”
“We relax and have fun.” Vince picked up a canapé from
a passing waitress’s tray and placed it in his mouth. “Which
table should we play first?”
“Oh, now I see what the mafia life is about,” I said.
“Turning up to glamorous venues and partying all night.”
“We’re not the mafia, sunshine,” he said, ignoring the
other part of my observation. “We’re La Trinità.”
“The trinity?” I asked. The Italian was easy to translate.
“That’s right,” he replied. “The three. The triad. The
trivium. People have different things they like to call us.”
I had my own choice words I wanted to call them. But
instead I followed Vince and Kane through the casino.
“Did you know that three is the strongest number?” Vince
continued. “Think about all the points on a triangle, how
they prop each other up. We stand strong in the number
three. We’re unbreakable.”
Vince stopped at a Roulette table.
“Now let’s see what you’ve got,” he said to me.
 Vince and I sat around the table while Kane gestured at a
slot machine and went off to play.
“He prefers the more solitary games,” Vince told me.
Kane did seem to like to withdraw into himself.
Vince was sitting so close to me at the table that I could
feel his leg pressed against mine. My body tingled at the
close contact.
The dealer behind the table, a young man with pale skin
and mousy hair, prompted me to choose my bet. Vince
handed me over some of the chips he had picked up on
arrival and I asked for them to be placed on the Black 21. I
watched as the dealer spun the wheel, looking on to see
where the ball would land.
It landed on Black 17.
It wasn’t my number, but apparently it was close enough
that I won some more chips. Vince looked at me and flashed
a smile as I took my winnings. This was the first time I had
seen him look genuinely happy rather than taunting. I
grinned back.
Soon, as other people joined the table and took their
turns in places bets, I felt a hand on my kneecap. I peeked
under the table to see Vince’s hand crawling up my leg. He
wore a poker face when I looked back up at him, eyes
focused on the table. But his hand continued to leave a trail
of electricity as it reached up to my thigh. Finally, he rested
his hand on my upper thigh, causing my pussy to throb from
the close contact.
 I was still reeling slightly from the make-out session
earlier on the couch. And Vince touching me now was
pushing me to the edge. Despite being in public, I wanted
nothing more than for him to touch me where I needed him.
But instead, he continued to tease me by massaging my
thigh.
I tried to ignore the sensations that Vince was eliciting
and turned my attention back to the game. But then Vince’s
hand slid even higher, resting on my pussy. It took
everything in me not to moan out loud at the contact. But it
was my turn next to bet.
I did my best to focus on what the dealer was saying to
me as Vince teased my opening with his fingers underneath
the table.
“Red or black?” The dealer asked.
I felt Vince’s hand gently stroking my clit through the
material of my panties.
“R-red,” I said. “Red 10.” The dealer looked back at me
curiously but then nodded. Then he rolled.
This time the ball landed exactly on the number I chose.
But my happiness at winning was quickly overridden by the
feeling of Vince’s quickening fingers.
“You’re a lucky girl tonight,” Vince whispered, his gravelly
voice in my ear almost enough to make me come right there
and then. Luckily my turn was over, and the dealer turned
his attention away from us as others played.
 Vince was now circling his finger around my clit, causing
wetness to seep to my panties. I covered my mouth to stop
myself from moaning, hoping everyone was too wrapped up
in themselves to notice that I was acting strangely. But the
pleasure was building. I was so close to letting it take me
fully.
And then Vince moved his lips to my ears once again.
“Come for me, Liliana,” he said slowly, stretching out my
name.
His fingers moved even faster against my swollen clit. I
felt the warmth knot in my stomach grow from the delicious
friction his fingers were creating until finally, the orgasm
took me. He kept on stroking me as I came, while I tried to
muffle my moans with my hand. After the waves of pleasure
subsided, Vince removed his hand, a satisfied grin on his
face.
We played a few more games and accumulated even
more chips. Soon we decided to retire from the table, me
feeling satisfied with my winnings in more than one sense.
But as we left our seats, I heard some commotion on the
other side of the room.
A broad man with unkempt black hair but who was
dressed sharply in all-white was arguing with one of the
casino staff members. The young woman was looking
sheepish as he continued to rant at her.
“I said, I want to know what those bastards are doing
here,” he spat. Then he turned his gaze in our direction.
 “I should ask you the same thing, Russo,” Vince called
across the room. The whole venue went silent. Everyone
watched on as the two men spoke.
“This casino is in our territory,” Vince continued. “It
belongs to us. You can play house here as much as you
want, but it doesn’t make it yours.”
The man, Russo, chuckled. “You La Trinità boys are so
cocky. I can’t wait to see the look on your face when Terra
del Sud takes this city from under you.”
“Have you even passed initiation yet, Russo?” Vince
asked condescendingly. “I heard it only takes a few months
for a recruit to pass the Terra del Sud initiation. How long
has it taken you?”
I could tell by Russo’s silence that Vince had touched a
sore spot.
“How do you like doing Terra del Sud’s dirty work while
they sit back and relax south of the river?” Vince continued.
This time anger swept the man’s face. He edged closer to
where we were standing.
“Can’t you get it through your thick skull? I’m not south
of the city because this casino, along with the rest of the
city, will also soon be ours.” He turned his head toward me.
“Even your bitch.” And then he reached around and grabbed
my ass.
And then my hand flew across his face.
I pulled back my stinging hand as Russo reeled
backward. I had never slapped anyone before.
 Russo clearly hadn’t anticipated a retaliation from me.
His eyes were wide in shock as he tried to regain his
balance. He then moved a hand up to his reddening cheek.
“You’re going to regret that,” Vince snarled, walking
toward him. “You don’t touch what belongs to me. Not her
and not this casino. Leave. Now.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Russo replied stubbornly.
“I’m going to count to three,” Vince warned. “And when I
do, you’re going to leave here with the tail between your
legs, crying to your boss that you got bitch slapped by my
girl and that you can’t protect a casino to save your life.”
Then Vince began counting down. “Three. Two. One.”
Russo didn’t budge. Instead he started laughing.
“If you think I’m scared of you, you have another thing
coming,” he said.
“We told you to leave,” came another voice from behind
Russo.
And then a loud cracking noise pierced through the air.
Next thing I knew, Russo was collapsed to the ground, his
brains blown out and his blood splattered all over the floor.
He had been shot dead.
Standing behind him was Kane; a gun outstretched in his
hand, his face and suit covered in Russo’s blood. There was
a semblance of a smirk on his face.
The combination of Kane’s expression alongside the
blood made him appear unhinged. Dangerous.
And he never looked hotter.
OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER EIGHT

Liliana

The next morning I was still reeling from the night before.
There was an initial shock of having someone die in front
of me. The lifeless body on the ground. The blood splatters
on my clothes, on the casino tables. But it didn’t taint the
excitement I felt. And most of that excitement was driven by
Vince and Kane.
Vince was a menace with his hands and all his other body
parts. And I felt completely helpless under his touch. No
matter how much of him I had, it never seemed to be
enough
And then there was Kane.
Before last night I was ready to pass him off as just a
pretty face. But after seeing him take control like he did at
the casino - how he was quick to kill the enemy at one sign
of disrespect - I couldn’t get him off my brain. Those same
hands that pulled the trigger I wanted to touch me.
 The only challenge was to peel past his constant
indifference and get him to notice me.
Or maybe he already had.
I wondered, with a buzz of adrenaline, if part of the
reason he did what he did last night was because of me. The
whole situation escalated after Russo put his hands on me.
I lazed around in my room for most of the morning,
emerging just before midday in search of lunch. Neither
Vince nor Kane were downstairs yet. And unsurprisingly, Leo
wasn’t either. Leo rarely made an appearance at all. He
spent most of his time out doing business or up in his office
or room.
After eating my meal in my usual spot downstairs, I
retreated back to my room. When I did, I noticed something
on my bed that wasn’t there before. A parcel wrapped up in
an elegant navy blue gift wrap.
Someone had been in my room. And they had left me
something.
I picked up the item. It was solid but not heavy. I
unwrapped the paper and let the item fall onto the bed.
What fell out was a notebook with an image of a wilting
red rose on the front. I opened it up to find that it was lined
with sturdy parchment paper. I wondered if it was vintage.
Either way, it was beautiful.
As I moved the gift wrap out of the way, I felt something
else still inside the paper. I fished inside the wrap and pulled
out an elegant black fountain pen.
 Someone had gifted me a journal and a pen to write in it
with.
After going so long without being able to do anything
with my hands, I jumped at the chance to scrawl down some
words in the book.
But the truth was I was in the middle of a bout of writer’s
block - there was nothing like turning your hobby into your
degree to suck the joy out of it. So I settled with christening
the new journal by writing my name in it over and over,
enjoying how my writing came out curvy and elongated in
the black ink.
I wondered if the gift was from Vince. He was the one
who I told I was a writer. And maybe, after his expressed
fear of me being a journalist, this was a sign of trust.
After spending some time with my new journal, I went
back downstairs to see if I could find any company. This time
I found both Vince and Kane hanging out in the living area.
Vince was sitting with his laptop in front of him and Kane
was standing near him. Before I could probe them about
who had given me the present, I was met with another
surprise.
“Get yourself ready,” Vince said when he saw me. “Kane
is taking you shopping.”
My ears perked up.
“He is?”
“We’ve decided that you may be helpful to us after all,”
Kane explained.
 “You did almost outsmart us,” Vincent added.
“Almost,” I repeated under my breath, recalling the
humiliating way that my escape attempt had failed.
“It’s better than most can do,” Vince responded. “But not
just that. The way you sent that bastard hurtling yesterday
was impressive.”
That I wasn’t going to argue with. I did feel pleased with
myself for successfully attacking a rival mafia gang member
“We want to take you on more outings,” Kane continued.
“But first, we need to buy you some appropriate clothes.”
“I’ve got to stay back and make some calls,” Vince said.
“But Kane will chaperone you and make sure you pick out
something nice.”

***

I had been to the Hale Shopping Plaza many times before.

But never to the wing that Kane and I were now walking
through.
The western wing of the Mall, which was decked in white
marble flooring and gold accents, was reserved for all the
designer stores. And it wasn’t somewhere I’d ever be able to
afford to visit. Until now.
Kane was letting me walk freely now. Maybe he knew
that I’d given up on attempting to outsmart La Trinità. Or
maybe he had sensed that my drive to escape had been
lowering.
 We stopped outside a store that’s window display
featured long, sweeping party dresses that were nicer than
anything I had ever seen before, let alone worn. I followed
Kane as he stepped inside the store.
When we did, we were greeted by the shopkeeper, a
blonde woman in her forties with immaculate makeup. She
smiled politely at me, but when she looked up at Kane her
expression completely changed.
My first thought was that her shocked reaction was
because of Kane’s attractiveness. But there was fear
intermingled with the awe on her face.
Was I the only person in this city who didn’t know who La
Trinità were?
“How can I help you, sir?” She asked with an attentive
smile, addressing Kane as if I no longer existed.
“She’ll be trying on a selection of your best dresses,” he
said.
“Of course. Just wait a moment.”
She examined me with her eyes for a second before
walking around the storefront and pulling out handfuls of
dresses. When she finally was satisfied with her selection,
she asked us to follow her as she guided us to the dressing
area.
She halted outside the velvety changing room curtain.
“Will you join her?” She asked Kane.
I could feel blood rush to my face as I imagined him
being in the room with me as I changed.
 “No, she’ll try them on herself,” he said, much to my
disappointment.
The shopkeeper handed me the dresses.
“Just call out if you need any help,” she said as she
walked back to the front of the store.
I went inside the changing room while Kane sat on one of
the seats just inside.
Once inside the cubicle, I slipped out of my clothes -
some causal wear Vince found for me - and into the first
dress.
I was surprised at how well the shimmery burgundy
number fit. The dress hugged my hips and revealed just the
right amount of cleavage and leg. When I looked into the
mirror and was taken back by my reflection. My body looked
perfectly sculpted and my skin looked golden against the
glittery material.
“I’ve tried on the first one,” I called out to Kane once I
had finally gotten bored of staring at myself. “Should I come
out?”
“There’s no need,” he said back. “Just tell me if you like it
or not.”
“What’s the point of you being here if you’re not going to
help?”
There was the implication that me looking hot would be
helpful for our outings. I needed to see if the dress was fit
for purpose.
 “Fine, show me quickly,” he said. “We don’t have time for
a fashion show.”
I walked out of the changing room. Kane was leaning
back in his seat looking more bored than usual. Until he saw
me emerge.
I wasn’t expecting much from him. But his eyes visibly
widened when he saw me, before his expression quickly
returned to his usual stoic one.
“What do you think?” I probed.
“That will do,” he said. “Take it. Let’s go. You can keep it
on.”
“But I still have five more dresses to try.”
“We’ll buy all of them. If they’re anything like that one,
then they’ll do the job.”
Was there a compliment in there somewhere?
On the way out of the changing area, I spotted a pretty
set of rose-coloured lingerie on display.
“Wait. I’m going to need some underwear. Can we get a
few sets?”
I was enjoying being able to shop to my heart’s content.
Kane cast his eyes toward the lingerie.
“Sure,” he replied.
“Should I try those on for you as well?” I teased.
He didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead he told the
shopkeeper to ring up a few lingerie sets along with the
dresses. Then he brought out his card and made the
payment. I left the store juggling the numerous shopping
bags.
“I thought maybe you wouldn’t have to pay, like at the
motel,” I said to Kane as we walked back into the mall.
“What’s the point of having money if you don’t spend
some of it once in a while?.” He replied. I couldn’t fault his
logic.
It felt weird walking back through the mall and into the
car park in a dress that cost more than my yearly rent. But it
was a weird that I quickly got used to. A smile tugged at my
face when I realized that the stares coming from passersby
were now not only pointed at Kane, but at me too.
By the time we got to the car I decided I would never
wear another turtleneck again.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER NINE

Liliana

When we got back to the apartment, Vince’s eyes nearly

popped out of his head.
“Princess, you look…” Instead of finishing his sentence,
he stared at me hungrily, his eyes trailing from my face
down to my legs. I knew he was struggling to look but not
touch. And I was enjoying every second of it.
After showing off my new attire, I retired to my room with
my shopping bags and got out of the dress. I hung it up in
my closet along with the rest of my new dresses.
Then I got to the bag of lingerie. I picked out the set that
had initially caught my eye in the store, feeling the soft
fabric in my hands. I had never worn such delicate
undergarments before and was keen try them on.
I slipped into the lingerie and turned to the mirror to
check myself out. The set looked even better on than in the
store, the pink lace see-through in all the right places, the
dip of the bra accentuating my boobs.
 And then there was a knock on my door.
“One sec,” I called out. I quickly pulled out pajamas from
the chest of drawers and put them on over my underwear.
“You can come in,” I then called.
The door opened and Vince walked in, closing the door
behind him. Finding myself alone in my room with Vince
made my legs turn to jelly. Especially when I could feel the
sexy lingerie against my skin.
“Can’t get enough of me?” I teased. But despite trying to
act cool, my voice faltered. He perched on my bed next to
me and all I wanted was to close the distance between our
bodies.
“That was quite a show earlier,” he said. “Though I was
hoping I’d catch you in that dress.”
“You can still see what I have underneath,” I said, my
voice nearly a whisper.
I didn’t know what this was between me and Vince
anymore. At first, the intimacy was a ploy to get him
vulnerable enough to make my escape easy. But now I
wanted him even more than I wanted freedom. And his
desire seemed to have moved passed being fueled by
anger.
Vince’s lips crashed against mine. I kissed him back
hungrily as his tongue explored my mouth and his hands
roamed around my body. Soon he was doing away with the
buttons of my shirt and I was pulling his over his shoulders.
He took in the sight of me in my new lingerie.
 “Kane did a good job. Remind me to thank him later.”
“These were my choice,” I replied.
“What can I say? I always knew you had excellent taste.”
He guided me backwards as I leaned my head on the
pillow. He hovered over me, kissing along my neck.
“Are you on the pill?” He asked as he pulled away.
“The implant.”
“Good,” said Vince. “I’m clean. I hope you are too. Health
is something we take seriously here.”
“I am,” I replied. I recently got tested after my stint with
Bryce as a precaution and was negative.
Satisfied with my answer, Vince went back to kissing
down my neck, moving down to my chest. He unclasped my
bra and started kissing and sucking my nipples. Loud moans
escaped my mouth as he licked and sucked at the sensitive
nubs.
“Fuck, you’re so hot,” he groaned. He trailed his mouth
down to my pajama bottoms which he soon pulled down to
my ankles. Now the thin cloth of my panties was the only
thing between me and him. I was throbbing in anticipation.
He started stroking around my entrance. I leaned my
head back and moaned deeply at his touch. He continued to
lightly rub my pussy until I could feel my wetness pooling
through the material.
“You’re so fucking wet for me,” he growled.
Vince then pulled down my panties and his tongue made
contact with my clit. His mouth searched me, lapping up my
wetness. His warm, wet tongue felt like heaven as it licked
me in all the right places.
He then alternated between licking and sucking my clit
and dipping his tongue into my entrance, practically fucking
me with his mouth. I was a mess of moans as he licked me
out while holding me in place by grabbing onto each of my
calves.
And then I heard the door creak open. My heart nearly
stopped.
Someone was about to walk in and see me in this
position. And there was nothing I could do about it. Vince
was too busy with his head buried into my pussy to notice.
And I couldn’t move if I wanted to due to his hold on my
legs.
Not that I wanted to move. The ecstasy I was
experiencing overpowered any potential embarrassment. I
couldn’t bear to stop feeling the pressure of Vince’s tongue.
And the fact that we were about to be walked in on almost
added to the arousal.
The door opened fully. Kane walked in. His eyes raised as
he took in the scene in front of him.
The light from the corridor fell on my body, causing Vince
to notice the door had opened. He turned to look behind
him.
“Can’t you see we’re busy here?” He said impatiently to
Kane. “Leave and close the door behind you.”
 And then he went back to thrusting his tongue into my
pussy.
I tilted my head back at the contact, trying not to
scream, as I heard the door close again.
But as I cast my gaze back forwards I could see that Kane
was still in the room. Watching.
His mouth was parted in desire, his eyes fixated on me. I
stared back at him. Deciding to then move my hands up to
my chest and caress my tits to give him more of a show.
Apparently it was more than he could take. Because he then
moved his hand down and started stroking the growing
imprint of his cock in his pants. The feeling of Vince’s warm
tongue building pace against my clit, along with Kane’s eyes
on me as rubbed himself, was too much. My orgasm started
building. I came hard making eye contact with Kane while
Vince lapped up my juices.
Vince got up from in between my legs. It was only then
he noticed that Kane was still in the room. Vince a short
laugh.
“Fine,” he said to Kane. “Enjoy the show.”
Vince turned back to me, pulling down his pants and
briefs and discarding them on the floor.
“I’m going to fuck you so hard, Princess. I can’t wait until
I make you come again on my cock.”
He climbed on top of me. His beautiful face was only an
inch from mine. He kissed me as his cock started teasing my
wet opening while I moaned into his mouth. Then he
grabbed onto my hips and pushed himself inside of me.
I nearly screamed at how good it felt having his large
cock stretch me out, moving deep inside of me at a slow
pace.
“Fuck,” he whimpered. “You feel so good, Princess. You’re
so tight around my cock.”
He looked so hot moving up and down on top of me, his
muscles flexing with his movements.
Just when I thought it couldn’t feel better, his pace
started to pick up.
I looked over Vince’s shoulder to see that Kane had now
unbuttoned his pants and had slipped his hand into his
briefs. He was a sight to see. Lips parted and hand stroking
his cock as he watched us. I could hear his quiet moans
alongside me and Vince’s louder ones.
I could feel myself nearing orgasm a second time as I
looked at him.
But next thing I knew Vince grabbed my chin with his
hand and turned my head toward him.
“Look at me while I make you come,” he growled.
I just tried to nod through his grip as I felt the sensations
building. He thrust harder and harder while still gripping my
face, forcing me to stare him in the eye as he fucked me
relentlessly. I couldn’t control my screams as I felt my
climax approach.
 “You’re taking my cock so good, Princess,” he said as he
fucked me. “Only I could fuck you this good.”
I was at the point of no return. Soon both of our moans
grew louder as my orgasm took over.
“Fuck Liliana, I’m going to cum,” Vince groaned.
The orgasm took over my whole body, I was shuddering
as Vince’s movements become fast and sloppy as he chased
his own climax. I contracted against his throbbing cock as
he released his cum inside of me with a string of deep,
guttural moans.
Vince collapsed on top of me. I embraced his body as I
met his lips in a deep kiss, losing myself in the afterglow.
After a few moments, Vince pulled away and I came up
for air. And when I did I saw that Kane had left the room.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TEN

Leo

“So, what do you have for me?” Vince said from opposite
me. We were both sitting at one of the small tables that
lined the third-floor bar of Obsidian.
We owned many clubs in Hale, but Obsidian was our
favorite haunt. Aside from the fun and debauchery that
could be had on its lower floors at night, during the day it
became the perfect place to have a quiet drink and discuss
business.
“Thank you, Sam,” I said to the bartender, who imparted
two glasses of whisky on the rocks for me and Vince.
As Vince sipped his drink I studied his expression. He was
still deflated from our altercation. Vince was prone to
extreme moods. And usually it was me who was able to
temper him. But the other day things admittedly got a little
heated from my side too.
And it was all because of Liliana.
 Liliana, the girl we were keeping. Who walked in on Vince
and Kane when they were doing a deal with the mayor.
Liliana with the perfect lithe little hourglass body and come
hither eyes.
“Vincenzo,” I said softly. Sometimes he needed a delicate
touch. “You’re still pissed from the other day.”
He placed his drink down on the table slowly.
“I don’t care anymore,” he responded. “Keep her alive.
Let her live with us. What difference does it make to me?”
Still defensive. But still calmer than he was before, when
he was lamenting all the best ways to end her life so that
she’d no longer be a problem.
I wonder if sticking his dick in her had anything to do
with his change of tone.
Apparently Vince thought I was some kind of idiot and
didn’t know what was going on between him and her. But I
did. It was hard for anything to get past me. Especially when
it came to Vince. He was like a brother to me and I could
read him like a book.
I didn’t care as much as he seemed to think, though. His
struggles to keep his dick in his pants correlated to his own
insecurities. Not mine. And the idea of Liliana getting railed
in the apartment made my dick hard, even if it wasn’t by
me. I’d let him have his fun with her. For now.
I had my own fun that I planned to have with Lilian, of
course. And that time would come.
 “Anyway,” Vince continued. “What did you want to show
me?”
“Well, as you know, Sud are continuing to be a huge pain
in our ass,” I said, delving into the reason for the meeting.
“So I’ve put some eyes on them. Jonny Davos, remember
him? He did some work for us before. Well, now he’s
keeping a close eye on Sud for us from a distance. He’ll let
us know any intel he gets so we can be a step ahead of
them.”
I picked up my tablet from on the table and showed Vince
the notes Jonny had already mocked up about Sud.
“Do you really think Sud are going to be that much of a
problem to warrant all this?” Vince asked, after reading
through the short document of names, addresses and
predictions about Sud’s strategy.
“No,” I said. “Look at how well their little stint at the
casino went for them. Sud have nothing on us. This just
helps us stay a step ahead of the game. Peace of mind, if
you will.”
Vince nodded, happy with my answer.
I gulped down the last of the whisky and placed the
empty glass on the table.
“Now, let’s get one more drink before we head back.”

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER ELEVEN

Liliana

Vince was gone by the time I woke up the next morning.

Which was fine, I wasn’t expecting a sleepover.
Instead, I lay back against my pillow, memories from last
night still fresh in my mind. The sex with Vince was
spectacular. And what made things even more exciting was
what had happened with Kane.
He had stayed when Vince told him to go after walking in
on us. He had touched himself while watching us. While
watching me. Had he just wanted to get his jerk session for
the day over with, and no better time than walking in on a
live sex show? Or did he actually like what was in front of
him?
Kane had seemed impenetrable until yesterday. Quiet.
cold. But now it was appearing that he was more interested
in me than I first thought.
Vince and Leo were out for most of the day. Meaning that
it was only me and Kane left in the apartment. Which wasn’t
as exciting as it sounded, as he was keeping to himself in
his room.
Around late afternoon, I found myself hungry, so I
waltzed downstairs in search of something to eat. But when
I opened to fridge it was bare. I frowned, knowing that I
couldn’t even order takeout without my phone.
I turned back to the refrigerator, seeing if I could put
anything together with its sparse contents. As I was raiding
the fridge, I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. I
looked up to see Kane, sharply dressed as always in a crisp
white shirt and black slacks, walking cautiously down toward
me.
“Let me guess, you’re here to keep an eye on me,” I said
as I pulled out some cheese slices and a canister of whipped
cream from the fridge, which were the only edible things in
there.
“Would you blame me if I was?” he questioned. “You
have quite the track record when it comes to being left
alone.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I replied with a sigh. “I’m just
hungry.”
He was now standing in the kitchen. Observing me.
Despite my feigned indifference, it was hard to look him in
the eye after what went down last night. All I could think
was that this man saw me naked. He saw me come. And he
had his hands in his pants when he did.
 With that thought I accidentally squirted a dollop of the
whipped cream I was handing onto my finger. Not knowing a
better way to get out of the sticky predicament, I placed the
affected fingers into my mouth and sucked the cream off
them. I looked back up to see Kane him staring at me
intently. Not all too different from how he was looking at me
last night.
“So, did you like what you saw? I asked, biting the bullet
and finally addressing the elephant in my room.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. But
despite his denial, he was edging closer.
“And you should be careful what you say,” he continued.
“We’re not all Vince. We don’t all like indulging in childish
games. Don’t forget who’s in charge here. Who owns the
weapons.”
There it was. The surprising brutality that hid lurking
behind his pretty face. And that turned me on to no end
when it revealed itself. His words didn’t intimidate me, they
just made me want to play with him even more.
“Of course,” I said. “You’re completely the one in
control.”
As I said those words I imparted a large dollop of the
cream on my finger and sucked it off slowly, looking into
Kane’s eyes as I did. He watched me ravenously as I sucked
and licked every last drop of the cream, enjoying the
sweetness as well as his reaction. Once I was done I sprayed
more cream on my finger, but this time I could feel some of
it remaining on my lips after I had finished.
But before I could lick it off, Kane suddenly leapt forward
toward me. His lips were on mine, kissing me until all the
cream was gone. But he didn’t stop there. His tongue
hungrily searched mine as his hands trailed downward,
exploring my body. I couldn’t help but moan into him.
Everything felt so good. His warm mouth, his wandering
hands, his slim but sturdy body firm against me.
Kane pushed me against the fridge as he continued to
kiss me deeply. The bulge in his pants was making contact
with my pussy as he devoured me. Soon he was rubbing his
hardness against me as we both moaned at the contact. His
hands found my lower back and he held me to him as he
rocked his hips back and forth into me.
Despite how good it felt, I needed more. As if reading my
mind, Kane hoisted me up by the hips and moved me onto
the countertop. He quickly unbuttoned my shirt and found
my braless tits underneath. He massaged them, my nipples
hardening under his touch.
And then he did something I was least expecting him to
do.
He grabbed the canister of whipped cream from next to
me.
Kane sprayed a large amount of the onto his hands and
then started rubbing the white cream onto my tits. It felt so
naughty but in the best way possible. He moved his mouth
to my boobs and started to lick and suck the cream off.
As he did, his other hand moved to my sweatpants and
he slipped his hand inside, rubbing the outside of my
panties as he sucked my nipples, leaving me practically
squealing.
“Fuck, keep going. Please” I called out. My arousal was
reaching its peak as he continued to obediently suck my
nipples and rub my pussy simultaneously. I was moments
away from orgasm as his hand picked up speed, rubbing my
clit hard and fast with his fingers.
And then came the electronic beep of the apartment
door being activated. And Vince and Leo’s voices could be
heard on the other side.
“Shit,” Kane said, registering what was happening at the
same time as me. He pulled himself off me and darted to
the living area, leaving me to quickly button up my shirt and
try to curb my arousal.
I finished buttoning up my top button just as the door
opened. I reopened the fridge door and pretended to look
inside once again.
“What’s going on here?” Leo asked as he walked in. His
voice cut through the loaded silence the two of them met
once through the door.
“I just came down to keep an eye on her,” Kane said.
“She said she was looking for something to eat.”
 Leo walked up to me, examining me. I prayed that I had
buttoned my shirt correctly. I also hoped there wasn’t
whipped cream smushed around my face or any other body
part. He looked from me to the can of whipped cream. When
he looked back at me he held the stare for a few seconds. I
felt myself weaken as his piercing eyes surveyed mine.
I couldn’t help but always feel taken aback by Leo. His
presence always felt powerful. Magnetic.
“Then get the girl some food,” he finally called back to
Kane.
“Yeah, sure,” Kane replied.
I noticed Kane wasn’t getting up. Probably trying not to
draw attention to his own situation which he must have still
had going on.
Leo went straight upstairs, but Vince lingered, sitting
down opposite Kane. It was amazing how much these men
could say with just a look. And the one Vince flashed Kane
as he sat seemed like a warning. The next second it was
gone.
“So,” Vince said finally. “Shall we order pizza?”

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWELVE

Kane

After dinner, I went back to my room and tried to shake off

the awkward meal where I had to pretend I wasn’t still hard
from my interaction with Liliana.
Having Liliana as a distraction in the apartment was
irritating. But what bothered me more was that I was letting
myself get distracted in the first place. Normally nothing
could get in the way of my primary focus, which was La
Trinità. So why was I finding Liliana so hard to resist?
Women had always seemed like a waste of time to me.
The way I was brought up, there was no space for such
frivolities. All there was was survival. Sure, there were pretty
girls in Hale. Vince had brought back half of them home. But
however many push-up bras and lip glossed lips I saw, they
never felt important enough to keep me from sharpening
my knife or practicing my aim.
That was until Liliana showed up. I never thought having
a woman around the apartment would be so distracting. But
then, I had never come across a woman quite like her
before.
I tried to turn my attention to another topic. I sat on my
desk and pulled out some documents I needed to go over to
make sure finances were in check. But my mind wasn’t
taking anything in from the papers in front of me.
The other issue was the obvious rift being created
between me and Vince. He started becoming secretive ever
since Liliana entered our lives. Normally he wasn’t shy about
who he was fucking, so this was new. Did he think I was
going to spill to Leo what he was doing to our captive? Or
that I’d disapprove of his actions myself? But who was I to
judge him when I myself was going through my own secret
battle.
I gave up trying to make sense of the papers. Instead, I
dipped my hand and below my belt and started to rub
myself, images of Liliana flashing across my mind. Her
cream-covered tits bouncing. Her mouth open, moaning as I
rubbed her swollen clit. Soon my movements became
furious, like being aggressive with it was the only way I
could dispense of the feelings. I came with a string of deep
groans as I pictured her getting fucked by Vince, hot liquid
spilling onto my hand.
And I was instantly unsatisfied.
What was the point if I couldn’t touch her? If it wasn’t her
that was making me cum? I lay back in bed, thoughts of her
reentering my mind.
It was going to be a long night.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Liliana

I took my all frustration out on my journal.

I lay in bed scribbling out all of my feelings, which were a
mess of desire, frustration, confusion and happiness.
At least I could say that my writer’s block was officially
gone.
Instead I was now grappling with my new life, my new
emotions. But among all the mess in my head, I did know
one thing; I didn’t mind being captive here anymore. In fact,
I was enjoying it. I mean, what was there to go back home
to? A degree that I didn’t need? College fuckboys? Fake
friends? Life with La Trinità was much more compelling.
After an hour of jotting down my thoughts, as well as
some random poems and pieces of prose, I leafed through
almost a dozen ink-filled pages. I smiled, satisfied knowing
The Muses had well and truly returned.
 Just as it approached midnight and my eyes were
growing heavier, there was a light knock on my door.
“Come in,” I called out.
To my surprise, Kane walked in. He was looking more
casual than earlier in a white t-shirt and dark blue
sweatpants. Unstyled hair was falling into his face. I guess
he didn’t sleep in his suit after all. But he looked just as
attractive out of his suit as he did in it. His handsomeness
wasn’t confined to nice clothing.
It was hard to know what to say as he stood in the
doorway, but the look I gave him invited him in. He closed
the door behind him.
I could hear my heart thumping as Kane edged closer to
me in the darkness. He found his way to my bed and
perched next to me.
This surprise meeting with Kane was a stark contrast to
the previous two occasions. This one felt like an admission.
He wasn’t slipping in while I had sex with someone. And he
wasn’t feigning reluctance before lifting me up onto a
kitchen countertop. No, he was here because he wanted to
be.
As he edged closer, we still didn’t say any words. Instead,
our gazes fell down to each other’s lips. And then we drew
together like magnets.
Our kisses started out soft and curious. And then they
grew hungrier. Both our hands roamed each other’s bodies
as our kisses grew deeper. I pulled up his t-shirt and felt up
and down his well-defined chest. He slipped his hands
underneath my pajama top and fondled my breasts. Next
thing I knew, I was leaning back on my bed with the weight
of his body on top of me. I pulled him close to me and
explored the contours of his body. He groaned as my hands
rubbed the bulge under his pants. In return, he planted
kisses down my neck, turning my inside into mush.
We disposed of each other’s clothes and lay next to each
other, kissing. Kane’s hand crossed my hip and found my
wetness. I gasped into his mouth as he rubbed and stroked
my center. Not wanting to feel alone in the ecstasy, I
reached my hand over to his hardness and stroked along his
shaft. We both were touching each other desperately,
moaning into the deepening kisses.
“Fuck. I want you so much,” he said, pulling away from
my mouth.
Those words were music to my ears.
“I want you too,” I responded. He then climbed on top of
me. He took his cock and placed it at my entrance, rubbing
it against me until we both couldn’t take it anymore and he
slid it in.
“Fuck,” he moaned as he thrust into me. “You’re so
fucking tight.”
I rolled my body back into the bed as he fucked me hard
into the mattress, his cock going deeper inside of me with
each thrust.
 After a few minutes of him fucking me desperately, it was
clear that we were both close. Kane’s movements were
becoming more rapid and his groaning was getting louder.
The feeling of him dipping in and out of me was too much to
handle and I was ready to explode.
“Yes, Liliana,” Kane moaned, noticing how close I was.
“Come on my cock.”
His words were all I needed to push me over the edge. As
he kept fucking me harder and deeper as I started to come.
My pussy tightening around him must have set him off as he
started groaning harder and moving faster, my name
escaping his mouth like a mantra, until he finally came
inside of me.
He then collapsed on me, kissing me as we reveled in the
remnants of our orgasms.
When we were done, he lay beside me and pulled me
closer to him. It was then that I glanced down at his chest
and saw something I hadn’t noticed before.
On the canvas of his skin, to the left of a few wirey
tattoos that crawled up his shoulder, was what looked like a
burn mark. It was dark pink and raised and a few inches in
diameter. Kane noticed my eyes surveying the mark. And
then he turned around to face the other way.

OceanofPDF.com


My heart and your hands,

The sheets of my bed,
Are one and the same,
All covered in red.

L.B

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Liliana

“And why are we at your rival’s cousin’s wedding?” I asked,

looking up at Vince and Kane. It was a Saturday night and
the three of us were standing in the middle of a dance floor
of a large wedding reception, the two men suited up and me
dressed in a pale pink chiffon dress, as wedding attendees
partied around us in the decorated venue. “Isn’t this just
asking for trouble?”
“They show their faces somewhere they’re not supposed
to, we show our faces somewhere we’re not supposed to,”
Vince replied, referencing the Casino night. “It sends a
message. Plus, the guy’s not going to make a scene on his
own wedding day.”
“You sure know how to pick your battles,” I remarked.
“Inside of being snarky, Liliana,” he said, closing the
space between us. “Why don’t you just learn to have a bit of
fun?”
 Sometimes I wondered if I purposely annoyed Vince to
get a rise out of him. His reaction when I did was always
kinda hot.
But I wasn’t against the idea of having fun. When the
next song came on - something cheesy but perfect to dance
to - I started to move my body to the beat. The other two
followed suit and began to dance; Kane more reserved in his
movements, moving his feet slightly, and Vince not afraid to
bust out some moves.
As the night went on, the two of them started taking
turns in dancing with me. For a whole song, Vince would
grab my hands, grinning as he twirled me around. Then for
the next one Kane would pull me away from Vince by the
waist and dance close to me, guiding my body with his
hands. We got the odd stare from the wedding attendees.
From the bride and her family, we got blank looks, which
told me they didn’t know who the hell we were. It was only
the groom whose fearful eyes occasionally darted to us. But
we ignored our surroundings and stayed in our own little
world.
Vince managed to wrangle my attention for a few songs
with the sexy way he moved his body and the growing
intensity in his eyes when he watched me dance with him. It
took me a while of getting him and heavy with him on the
dance floor to notice that Kane was no longer with us. I
looked around, searching through the dry ice and disco
lights for him, until I spotted him sitting on one of the chairs
against the wall looking bored. But Vince then suddenly
grabbed me by the wrist and turned my attention back to
dancing with him again
As each song went by, Vince and I’s bodies grew closer.
His hands rested on my hips as he moved me with them,
both our bodies in sync with both each other and the music.
Just when it felt like there was no one else in the world but
me and him, an angry voice interrupted our revelry.
“So are you just going to fuck her here on the dance
floor?” It was Kane. And his venomous tone was directed at
Vince. I had never heard Kane raise his voice. Even when he
murdered someone, he had done it with his signature poise.
“What’s gotten into you?” Vince asked as he turned to
Kane. “You went to sit down, so me and Liliana kept on
dancing.”
“I know you’ve been having sex with her, Vince,” Kane
said.
“And what have you been doing?” He barked back. “I’m
not an idiot. I can see you sneaking around the apartment
trying to hide your hard dick between your legs.”
“And you don’t mind? That she’s having sex with both of
us?”
I was wondering when I was going to be asked what I was
okay with in this scenario. Because it sure wasn’t this
unnecessary drama.
Vince didn’t respond to that. Instead, he gestured for me
to wait as he took Kane off to the side.
 I watched as he whispered in Kane’s ear. For a while Kane
still seemed agitated, responding animatedly to whatever
Vince was saying. But soon he became calmer and began
nodding to Vince’s words. They then both returned to where
I stood waiting.
“What was that?” I asked Vince when they returned.
“Just me and Kane learning how to compromise,” he
replied
Did that mean they finally made peace with me being
with the two of them?
“Anyway, let’s go home,” Vince said. “I hate weddings.”

***

I was wedged between both Vince and Kane on the car ride
home, watching the city roll by over Vince’s shoulders.
Suddenly he turned to me and planted a kiss on my lips.
And then another.
At first, I was apprehensive about kissing him in front of
Kane, after the drama that had unfolded earlier. But Vince
was impossible to resist. I kissed him back hungrily, our
open mouths colliding, his hands pulling me closer by the
hips.
And then I felt another hand on my thigh. It was Kane’s
and it rested dangerously close to where I was now
throbbing. He kept his hand there as I kept on kissing Vince.
Having Kane’s hand on me while Vince and I made out felt
unlike anything I had felt before. It felt addictive.
Vince pulled away from me.
“Keep going,” he said to Kane. “Keep touching her, she
obviously likes it. If Princess wants the both of us, she gets
the both of us.”
I looked back at Kane who was nodding obediently at
Vince’s request.
“Remember what I said earlier,” Vince continued. “We’re
brothers. What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is yours. Now
rub her pussy while I kiss her.”
Vince returned his attention to my lips, as he did, Kane’s
hand was edging high and higher up the skirt of my dress.
Soon it was playing with the hem of my panties, teasing me.
Before I knew it, he was palming my pussy over my panties.
I moaned into Vince’s mouth as Kane rubbed my now
soaking wet center.
“Oh, Princess likes it,” Vince said into my mouth as I
continued to moan.
“She’s so wet for us,” Kane said as he circled my wet
opening over the cloth. He then moved to my clit as Vince
pulled down the top of my dress and began caressing my
breasts. Vince then started to flick at my nipples. Hard. I
squealed at the pain, surprised at how good it felt. All while
Kane was stroking my clit painstakingly slowly.
Vince was continuing to flick my nipple harder and
harder, enjoying the pain he was inflicting. I was moaning
uncontrollably at the mixture of sensations, not sure how
much longer I would last, and not caring that the driver
would be able to hear me from behind his screen.
“You’re such a whore for us,” Vince said. “Whatever we
do to you, you like it.”
I hated how much his words were turning me on.
Vince then started slapping my tits, making them jiggle
around. Kane reached his other hand around me. He was
now using one of his hands to dip in and out of my opening
through my panties, while the other was picking up speed
and rubbing my clit.
I was so close to the edge.
“Kane, stop,” Vince ordered. Kane immediately removed
his hands from my pussy. The lack of contact was
unbearable.
Vince turned to me. “Say you’re a whore for us, and then
we’ll let you come.”
“I’m a …”
He slapped my tits again. “Saying it or all you’ll get is
pain.”
He was such a little shit.
As much as the pain felt good too, I needed my clit to be
rubbed again. I needed to be at the mercy of both of their
hands.
“I’m a whore for both of you.”
“Good girl,” Vince said.
 Then he pulled down my panties. His finger found my
soaking wet clit and he started circling it. Kane then
inserted two of his fingers inside of me and slowly weaved
them in and out of me as Vince stroked my clit. Vince pulled
my face towards his and entered his tongue in my mouth.
Kane started sucking on my neck. I could feel both of their
large bulges against me as they were pleasuring me.
The car filled up with the sounds of my moans and the
wet sound of Kane finger fucking me. The knot built up in
my core. I was so close to orgasming.
“That’s it, come for us,“ Kane murmured in my ear.
“Come hard on our fingers.”
And that was it. The sensations overwhelmed me and I
began to come, practically screaming as their stroking and
fingering picked up speed.
Once I had come, both men removed their hands from
me.
This time Kane was the first one to kiss me, kiss full lips
boring into me as my orgasm subdued.
Moments later, the car pulled up at the apartment.
“Princess,” Vince said as we walked out of the car. “This
is only the beginning of how much fun you’re going to have
with us.”

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Liliana

As the days went by, I enjoyed the freedom of being able to

go between Vince and Kane. Often being with them both
simultaneously. The only thing I hadn’t experienced yet was
feeling both of them inside me at the same time, as they
mainly focused on pleasuring me when we were all together.
But I knew it would happen.
The only issue was Leo. Despite neither of them wanting
to admit it, he had a tight rein on them. And we still had to
hide the fact that we were having sex. But as he was mostly
evasive, it wasn’t hard hiding it from him.
One Thursday afternoon, Kane and Vince wanted to go
shopping for clothes for themselves. I volunteered to go
with them. Who was I to miss the chance to watch the guys
try on new suits? Maybe I could wrangle something new for
myself, too. I doubted they would say no to a new set of
lingerie.
 Vince and Kane walked either side of me as we strutted
through the expensive wing of the mall. Our first stop was
an Italian designer that sold tailored clothing for men. Once
in the store, I sat eagerly on one of the cushioned stools as
the men tried on shirts, pants and jackets.
But it turned out that shopping with men was more
boring than you would think. Kane and Vince were making
comparisons to designers that I never heard of, then
tirelessly deliberated over cuts and measurements. The
novelty of how good they looked while being fitted was lost
quickly.
“I’m going to go next door and look at some
accessories,” I told them, then I stepped outside the store.
There was a stand nearby selling pretty purses and wallets
which caught my attention as we came in.
I stood and browsed through the purses, picking them up
and examining them with the occasional look in the small
mirror on the stand to see which colors would suit me best.
Normally I would be self-conscious picking up expensive
items while the store owner looked on, worried that they
would think I was about to run away with what I was
holding. But my new confidence let me shop freely with no
qualms.
As I reached the end of the selection of purses and onto
the row of wallets, I came face to face with someone
familiar. Someone I hadn’t seen in what felt like a lifetime.
“Liliana! Is that you?” He said excitedly. “You look great!”
 Bryce. I hadn’t seen him since that night in the karaoke
room.
“I haven’t seen you forever,” he said, smiling widely.
“I’ve been busy, you know how it is,” I responded. I didn’t
return his compliment. In fact, he looked nowhere as
appealing as I had previously thought he was. He looked
shorter than I remembered. His hair unkempt, his skin
blotchy. He, on the other hand, was giving me an approving
look up and down.
“Well, it’s great to see you, Liliana,” he said.
“You too,” I said, hoping this meant that the conversation
was coming to an end. But just when he looked like he was
turning away, he swung back around on his heel.
“Hey, are you free now by any chance? He asked.
“Maybe we could get a coffee or something.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stood in awe of how keen he
was to embarrass himself.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he continued. “I didn’t call
you back that one time. Well, I was an idiot. Clearly.” He
gestured toward me with his last word. “Why don’t we start
afresh?”
“Is he bothering you?” Came a new voice. Vince’s. I
turned around to see him and Kane approaching.
“No, we’re fine here,” Bryce said, dismissing them. He
didn’t realize they were with me. That was until Kane placed
his hand on my waist.
 “Are you sure about that?” Kane responded. “Because I’m
pretty sure she said no to your little offer.”
“Actually, she didn’t,” Bryce said to Kane, irritation
growing in his voice.
“No, but I was about to,” I said. Bryce couldn’t contain his
surprise at my words. He was accustomed to the little girl
who would beg him to give her another chance.
“You heard her, now leave,” Vince said.
“And who are you to tell me what to do?” Bryce said,
morphing his embarrassment at getting rejected into anger.
“This is a public mall. You can’t tell me where to go.”
“You’re right, this is a public mall,” Kane added casually.
“Anyone can come here. Unless of course, they get banned.
Then they can’t show their face here ever again.
“Banned?” He laughed. “And who the hell are you to ban
me? The mall police?”
Vince chuckled at the remark. Then he grabbed Bryce by
the arm and pulled him close to him. From the way Bryce
was suddenly tremoring, I knew he could feel the gun in
Vince’s pocket.
“I won’t tell you one more time,” Vince warned. “Now.
Go.” Vince let go of his hold and Bryce nearly fell to the
ground. He then scurried off as fast as he could without
turning back.
“You know, I could have handled that myself,” I said once
we were alone again.
 “You could have,” said Kane. “But why should you when
we’re here to handle it for you?”
“You’re our girl, and no one else’s,” Vince added. “If
someone tries to mess with you. then they have us to deal
with.”
He looked at the stall behind me.
“Now which of those purses did you want, Princess?”

OceanofPDF.com


CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Liliana

Living with La Trinità was a mixed bag. Some weekends

involved crashing weddings and threeways, others involved
eating takeout in pajamas while playing video games. This
weekend was the latter.
After going shopping the day before, today we were all
staying in. Vince and I were downstairs on the couch playing
a street-fighting game while Leo and Kane were both
upstairs in their rooms.
“Let’s see you lose another round,” I said to Vince as a
new fight started on screen, preparing him for what was
likely about to take place considering he had been losing
miserably all night. This was particularly frustrating for him
since he only just taught me how to play.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Princess,” he said.
The game began and within seconds I already had the
upper hand. Vince was pressing furiously at his controller,
which didn’t stop his avatar from falling to the ground after
a few of my roundhouse kicks.
“It’s cute that you tried,” I said, rubbing it in.
“I’d love to see how you’d fare in real life,” he teased.
“Oh, I still think I could take you if I really wanted to.”
“Try me,” he said. Then he slammed down his controller,
then doing a ‘come and get it’ gesture with his hands.
Which I interpreted in more than one way.
Just as I was pondering the best way to pounce on him, I
heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. Both
me and Vince looked up at the same time to see Leo making
a rare appearance. We moved silently onto another round of
the game as Leo fixed himself a coffee. A couple of minutes
later the scent of black coffee was in the air and Leo was
turning back upstairs with his new fill.
“I’m glad to see you’ve changed your mind, Vince,” Leo
said before ascending the stairs again.
Vince didn’t say anything. Which was rare for him. Then
Leo disappeared upstairs, leaving just me and Vince stewing
in the new, uncomfortable energy.
I paused the game.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“It was nothing,” Vince said, his mood now dampened.
“Anyway, enough games for tonight.” He got up to leave. I
followed.
“It didn’t seem like nothing,” I probed.
 “I said it was nothing,” he barked. “Now leave it.” He was
glaring now, trying to intimate me with his stare.
“It just seemed like …”
He cut me off by walking toward me and backing me
against the wall.
“I said leave it, Liliana.” His voice was raised. “How long
have you been with us? A couple of weeks? You don’t get to
know everything.”
The more defensive he was being, the more I wanted to
know what he was hiding. Whatever that weird exchange
was between him and Leo, it was clearly about me.
“I chose to be a part of you guys. Part of …”
‘You’re not part of La Trinità, Liliana, and you never will
be,” he spat. “And you didn’t choose anything. You’re a
captive here, remember? Now stop talking before you regret
it.”
“You wanted me to be of help to you,” I continued,
ignoring his baseless threats. “If I don’t know things that go
around here, how can I be beneficial?”
“I wanted you dead, Liliana,” he said. “There it is. That’s
what Leo was talking about.”
His words hung in the air.
“When you first got here, I wanted to kill you,” Vince
continued. “The only reason I didn’t was because Leo
wanted you alive. I changed my mind, clearly. But if it was
up to me, you would have been dead by now. So maybe you
shouldn’t get so comfortable here.”
 And then he pulled away from me and marched upstairs,
leaving me alone to contemplate his words.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Liliana

I managed to ignore Vince all of the next day. Anytime I

went downstairs and saw him standing around the kitchen
or sitting in the living area, I would turn my nose in a
different direction.
Having the night to mull over the previous night’s events
just wasn’t enough to make sense of what happened.
Sure, when La Trinità first captured me, I was the enemy.
But it bothered me more that Vince kept it from me. How
long had he felt that way? We got sexual pretty soon. Did he
wish I was dead when he was fucking me? When we lay in
bed together?
And out of all people, Leo was the one defending me? It
made no sense.
I knew Vince didn’t still want to hurt me. I could feel the
care he had towards me. But I still needed time to process
the new information. And his erratic behavior didn’t help
anything.
 “Let’s go out,” Kane said in the evening to me and Vince,
after he had gotten sick of us being passive-aggressive to
each other. “It looks like the two of you could do with a
mood lift.”
‘‘Kane wants to go out partying,” Vince remarked under
his breath. “This has to be the first sign of the apocalypse.”
“I’m down,” I chimed in. Doing something that Vince was
reluctant to do was suddenly appealing.
“Now that I think about it,” Vince added. “Downing
whiskey at a bar doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”
Half an hour later, after I had slinked into a red lace dress
and heels, the three of us were being dropped off outside a
club called Obsidian. I walked in the middle of Vince and
Kane, wondering how I looked decked out in an expensive
dress and jewelry with two sexy suited-up men on either
side of me.
The doorman ushered us in ahead of the large crowd of
people lining up to get in. No one questioned that we were
allowed in ahead of everyone else. The club, I was told, was
one of many that belonged to La Trinità. And everyone knew
it.
The inside of Obsidian wasn’t as busy as the number of
people waiting outside would suggest. Most people must
have been getting turned away.
We walked past the large dance floor on the first floor,
where people were starting to get going for the night,
swinging to the beats of the music, and instead walked up a
wide staircase that took us to a second level. Upstairs was
slightly smaller and quieter than the one below with
moodier lighting.
The three of us stood at the side of the dance floor. But
as song after song came on, it appeared that none of us
were in the dancing mood.
“I’ll get us some drinks,” Kane finally suggested. And
with that he headed to the bar, leaving me and Vince alone
together, both of us staring at our feet.
“So, can I explain myself or not?” Vince asked, breaking
the silence.
I looked up to meet his eyes. I didn’t say anything, but
allowed him to continue. He took that as a cue to pull me
away from the dance floor where the music was quieter.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Liliana,” he said
ominously once we were away from the crowds.
I wondered if the things I didn’t know were about him
trying to kill his girlfriends. I waited for more, but the words
weren’t coming easily from him.
“Now, my life is La Trinità,” he continued. “But there was
a past me. The me before I found the brotherhood. Before
this, I was engaged.”
I couldn’t hide my shocked expression. The idea of him
signing up for holy matrimony didn’t align with the Vince
that I knew.
“Were you in love?” I asked, curiously.
“I thought I was,” he said. “And that was the problem.”
 “Go on,” I said, now intrigued by how this story would
unfold.
“The other thing you didn’t know about me was that I
came from money,” he continued. “A lot of it.”
That part made sense. Vince’s expensive taste and air of
importance didn’t seem like it was adopted overnight.
“My mother was the one with the money,” he explained.
“My father had some too, but not as much. She inherited my
grandfather’s business in Korea. When she met my father
while traveling to Italy, what they had combined. And well, I
was an only child and my parents were generous.”
I listened to his words as I watched more people join the
dance floor, the purple lights lighting up their carefree faces
as they talked and danced.
“To cut a long story short,” Vince continued. “Less than a
week before the wedding, I figured out my financée had
been seeing someone on the side. And both her and the
bastard were planning to kill me after the wedding and run
off with my money.”
My focus went back to him immediately. “So what did
you do?” I asked, knowing that Vince wouldn’t let something
like that just slide.
“I killed him and made her watch,” he said. “And I vowed
never to let my guard down ever again.”
I was silent as I soaked in the new information, letting the
beats of the music permeate the air instead of our speech.
 “I’m sorry that happened to you,” I said finally. “But what
does that have to do with wanting to kill me?”
“I never let myself get close to a woman after that,” he
said. “Never let myself be around anyone for more than one
night. And out of all the people I was forced to be around for
an extended period, it had to be you. Someone it was
impossible for me not to fall for. So I thought it would be
better if you were dead. I suggested it to Leo but he said it
wasn’t an option. That was all.”
“So when did you realize that you actually wanted me
around?” I questioned.
“It didn’t take long,” he said. “I would be crazy not to
want to. Though sometimes there’s still an internal battle of
if I should be letting myself open up to someone. Old habits
are hard to shake off. But I wouldn’t hurt you.”
Was that because Leo wouldn’t let him? I still had so
many questions, but I knew that none of them would lead to
an answer that made sense to me. My head was only
becoming more and more of a mess.
Coming out was a bad idea.
“I’ll be back,” I said to Vince as I began to walk away
from him.
“Wait, where are you going?” He said, grabbing my
shoulder. I shrugged him off.
I didn’t know the answer to his question. I just knew I
needed some space.
 “I’m just going for a walk to clear my head,” I said. “I
won’t leave the building, don’t worry.”
He appeared satisfied with that, albeit not happy. Maybe
some trust really had been established between us. Or
maybe as soon as I turned my head he would message
security downstairs and tell them not to let me out.
I walked away from the dance floor and back down the
stairs, stopping at the floor below. The music in the room
was mellower, more calming. A few clubgoers danced on the
dance floor while others occupied the seating on the sides
of the room as they sipped their drinks.
I walked straight toward the bar.
“Vodka cranberry,” I said to the bartender, a slim man
with gelled-back dark hair. He took a few seconds to make
my drink, and when he was done he gestured to me for my
card.
Which I didn’t have.
I was so used to the guys getting anything we needed
that I hadn’t even realized that I didn’t have my wallet back.
“Here.” An arm outstretched toward the bartender, card
in hand. “A pretty girl like you shouldn’t be buying your own
drinks,” the voice then said to me. I turned to face the
person who made the gesture.
It was a man in his early thirties. Undeniably handsome
with short, dirty blonde hair, chiseled features and a
stubble.
“Thanks,” I responded to him with a smile.
 “I’ll get a gin. Straight,” he called back to the bartender
without moving his attention away from me. “Now what’s a
pretty thing like you doing sitting at a bar all alone?” He
asked.
“Oh, I’m not alone,” I told him. “My friends are upstairs.”
“Girl friends or guy friends?” He probed.
“Guy friends,” I replied a little too quickly, like I wanted
him to know there were men ready to come and kick his ass
if needed.
And then I felt silly. We were just having fun and this was
his not-so-subtle way of finding out if I was taken. I relaxed
my body and took a sip of my drink.
“Well, they’re crazy,” he replied. “If I was them, I would
be trying to dance with you all night.”
I laughed. “I think I’m over dancing,” I replied.
It kind of felt good to have someone new to flirt with.
Someone that didn’t carry all the baggage that was
suffocating me upstairs.
“Well, hopefully you don’t mind me talking to you,” he
continued. “You look so striking. Are you from around here?”
He was asking a lot of questions. But I guess that was
how people at bars got to know each other.
“No, I’m not. I came to Hale to study.”
“And what do you study, Liliana?”
“I…” I nearly choked on my drink. I never told the man
my name. My first instinct had been correct. Something was
very wrong.
 “I study writing,” I replied, trying not to let on to my
suspicions. “Anyway, thanks for my drink. I better get going.
My friends are probably wondering where I am.”
“Sure, no problem,” he replied. “It was lovely to meet
you.” His smile lingered as I got up from the bar.
I tried to walk away as fast as possible without it looking
like I was onto him. I had never seen the guy before, yet he
knew who I was. I needed to get back to Kane and Vince to
tell them what had happened. Maybe if I described him to
them they’d know who he was.
I walked past the dance floor. There were more dancers
now, lit up with bright violet lights, moving to the cadences
of the music. Why hadn’t I noticed how surreal this room
was? How dreamlike. As I made my way across the room, it
felt as if I was walking through Outerspace, the music
carrying my lightweight body, the colorful lights tickling my
skin.
I walked out onto the landing and toward the flight of
stairs, thankful to be away from the trippiness of the dance
floor as well as the man. But as I put my foot on the first
step, a wave of dizziness hit me.
Had the alcohol gotten to me that quickly?
I tried to walk up the stairs. But with each step, my feet
became heavier and heavier, making it impossible. I looked
up. The steps looked steep and mountainous.
Why was this so hard? I just needed to get back to Vince
and Kane.
 But I couldn’t walk anymore. Instead, the waves of
dizziness were becoming more numerous. Until they didn’t
stop.
And then I fell forward as if in slow motion, slumped
against the foot of the stairs. As my face lay against the
cold, hard steps I saw the feet of people passing me by. Why
was no one stopping to help?
And then I succumbed to the waves of blackness that
were permeating my vision.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Vince

“I got us all some whisky shots,” Kane said as he returned.

“Thanks. Needed more than ever,” I took three shots
from him and began to walk to the leather seating to the
side of the room.
“What are you doing?”
“No offense, brother, but dancing the same when it’s just
me and you,” I said. “It’s pointless without Liliana here.”
“Did she go somewhere?” Kane asked as he followed me
to the seats. “I thought she was in the bathroom.”
“She said she wanted to wander around the club,” I
explained. “Which was, of course, her way of saying she
wanted to be as far away from me as possible.”
We both sat down.
“Girls running away from you?” Kane remarked with a
raised eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re losing your touch.”
“Yeah. Right.” I forced a laugh as I downed one of the
vials of whisky. Kane was trying to subtly probe about what
was happening, but I didn’t feel like talking about it. I had
tried to explain things to Liliana the best way I could. But if
she didn’t get it, what could I do?
Half an hour passed and Liliana still hadn’t returned,
which Kane was growing increasingly anxious about, evident
in the way he was tapping his feet and looking around every
few seconds.
“I’m going to go look for her,” he announced finally. I
nodded. She wasn’t mad at him, maybe he’d do a better job
in convincing her to come back.
But another twenty minutes passed and Kane was added
to the list of missing people. Had he found her and decided
to fuck her in a bathroom stall somewhere? A month ago,
that idea would have been ludicrous. Kane’s cold heart was
hard to penetrate. He was laser focused and for the past few
years, he only cared about La Trinità and nothing else. But
all that changed after Liliana entered our lives. A lot of
things changed since then.
But after another fifteen minutes rolled by without sight
of them, I wondered if there was something else going on. I
sighed and put my empty shot glass down on the table and
went in search of them.
I found Kane on the floor below, but Liliana wasn’t with
him. Instead, he was questioning Sam, one of the barmen at
Obsidian who answered to us.
“Are you sure you haven’t seen her?” Kane was asking
him.
 “As I said, no one of that description has come to this bar
tonight.”
“Thank you, Sam,” Kane said in resignation.
“What’s going on?” I asked Kane as he walked away from
the bar. “Where is Liliana? Haven’t you found her?”
“She’s nowhere, Vince,” he said. “I even asked outside
security and they’re sure she hasn’t left.” Though he was
worried, there was annoyance in his speech that I couldn’t
miss. He thought this was my fault.
Maybe it was.
Was I worried that Liliana would run off and spill all our
secrets? No. At this point, I didn’t really care. The three of us
were untouchable. If she wanted to spill about the
chancellor that was his problem. Sure, it would make it
tougher not having him as a connection, but we’d find other
ways of retaining control of the city. We always did. Leo may
be a bit pissed. But he’d get over it.
I also knew Liliana well enough by now to know she had
no ulterior movies when she walked in on our meeting.
No, her telling wasn’t my first concern. My primary
concern was losing her.
“Let me look,” I said to Kane.
And then I scoured the club. All the floors, the balconies,
the smoking areas. Even the girls’ bathrooms. But I couldn’t
find her.
Just when there seemed to be no other possibility other
than her disappearing into the night, my phone buzzed in
my pocket. I pulled it out to find a text from Leo:
I’ve just gotten word from Jonny that Sud have taken
control of the club. Trust no one.
There was a lot to process within that small text. I sent
Leo a quick message back, saying I understood. Then I went
back to the first-floor bar and shoved Sam’s skinny body
against the wall until blood dripped from his head.
“I won’t ask you again. Where is she?”

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER NINETEEN

Liliana

I woke up in a small, windowless room with no clue how long

it had been that I had been out. And I still felt lightheaded
as a result of whatever that bastard must have slipped in
my drink.
Instinctively I tried to get up from where I was slumped,
but I couldn’t move. With a wave of horror, I thought
whatever I had been slipped had rendered me paralyzed.
But as I looked down around me I found that my arms and
legs were tied tightly to the wooden chair that I was sitting
on, and the chair was secured with a lock to pipping on the
walls. Which wasn’t much better.
The only saving grace was that my clothes were still
intact and I felt no sign of being tampered with in any way. I
was unharmed. For now.
But as the minutes went by and I still found myself alone,
I wondered if the plan was to leave me here until I died of
starvation. Suffocation, even. I didn’t know if it was my
imagination that the air in the room felt like it was thinning
by the moment.
I had no way of knowing how long I waited in my own
terror, praying that Vince and Kane would realize that I was
missing and come to find me. But if I didn’t even know
where I was, how would they?
Suddenly I heard the clanging sound of the door opening.
I turned to see the blonde man from the bar enter the room,
along with a few other men.
As I watched him enter the room, I wondered how I could
have been so stupid to fall for a handsome stranger for a
second time. And unluckily for me, this captivity didn’t feel
as kind as the last.
“Hello, baby,” he said as he approached me. His words
made my skin crawl.
And then he pulled out a knife. It was small but sharp. I
tried to move away as he brought the blade up to my face,
but it was useless. One of the other men in the room, a
sturdy man with a buzzcut, laughed at my attempt.
“Don’t worry,” the knife-wielding man said, seeing me
flinch. “I’m not planning to kill La Trinità’s new plaything.
Just ruin her a bit.”
La Trinità. He knew who they were. And he didn’t sound
like their biggest fan. Terra del Sud, I thought to myself. And
from the way this man took charge and how the others
acted around him, he had to be their leader.
The cold knife made contact with my face.
 “Won’t those three cunts be pissed when they find I’ve
defaced their pretty little toy?” He snarled. “God only knows
what they’ll see fit to do with you once they have no use for
you anymore.”
I stayed silent, concentrating on keeping my tears from
falling. I didn’t want him to see me weak.
“Of course, there is another option.” He pulled away the
knife. “I have to say, when I heard you were here tonight I
wasn’t planning on showing you any mercy. But now that
I’ve seen how beautiful you are, I have another idea. If you
come with me willingly, I won’t hurt you.”
“Why would I come with you?”
“Because La Trinità are over,” he spat. “Terra del Sud are
slowly but surely taking over the city. And you want to be on
the right side when that happens.”
No matter how handsome he was, and how much La
Trinità annoyed me at times, I couldn’t be paid to join the
other side. La Trinità had an undeniable power that wouldn’t
waver. I had no worries about being on the wrong side.
That is, if they would want anything to do with me after
he had his way with me.
“I’ll give you some time to think about it,” he said.
“Carlo, keep an eye on her until I’m back.”
“Yes, Dante,” answered the man with the buzz cut. The
leader, Dante, and the two remaining goons left the room.
As they left and the door opened and closed, I noticed
something I hadn’t before. Music.
 The sound of trance-like beats were coming from a
nearby source. The music was loud, but sounded slightly
muted. Like were submerged and it was coming from above
us.
We were still in the Obsidian. And I was trapped in the
club’s basement.
As soon as it was just Carlo and I in the room together I
realized I liked his company even less than Dante’s. He was
licking his lips as he watched me from the other side of the
room.
“How about we have some fun before the boss comes
back?” he said, breaking the silence and walking toward me.
He then towered over me, looking down at me
ravenously. Then he grabbed the top of my dress, trying to
pull it down. I screamed, attempting to move away from his
hand but it was no use. All I could do was scrunch my eyes
closed as I felt the strap fall down.
Then I heard a loud commotion. The door opening.
Shouting. And then gunshots. I opened my eyes to see that I
was covered in splatters of blood. But I was unhurt.
Instead, Carlo was collapsed on the ground, bullet holes
puncturing his lifeless body.
I looked up to see Vince standing in the doorway, putting
down a smoking gun. In his unarmed hand he was
manhandling Dante, grabbing the man by the back of his
clothes.
 “See,” Vince said, shoving Dante in the direction of the
dead goon, while keeping a hold on his shirt. “This is what
happens when you mess with us. If you try to hurt her
again, then you’ll go the same way. Understand?”
Dante didn’t respond.
“Understand?” Vince shouted, now pulling the man
toward himself and pushing the gun under his chin.
“Okay, okay!” Dante whimpered. “I understand! Fuck.”
Vince shoved him to the ground next to his dead friend.
He then walked over to me and undid my binds. I hadn’t
realized how tight they were until they were off, my wrists
now indented with marks and stinging.
“Let’s get out of here, Liliana,” he said.
I followed Vince out of the room and through the dark,
winding corridors of Obsidian’s lower level. But I soon grew
weak and was falling behind. Vince offered me his hand
which I accepted, and he used his strength to guide me
through the remaining passages.
Soon we reached the bright green lights of the fire exit.
Vince pulled open the door and as we stepped outside I
basked in the fresh night air. Even though it was a warm
summer evening, the air felt clean and welcoming in
comparison to the stuffy cage I just escaped.
I saw the familiar sight of the La Trinità SUV waiting for us
outside. We rushed over to it and Vince opened the door for
me to go inside.
 Kane was waiting for us in the car. I shuffled up next to
him as Vince came in on the other side of me.
“Are you okay?” Kane asked. I could see fear in his eyes
as he took me in, noticing the blood on me.
“I’m okay,” I said to both of them. “Thanks to Vince, I
didn’t get hurt at all.”
Relief washed over Kane’s face.
“Sud took over the club,” he then explained to me. “They
were notified as soon as we showed up. Leo’s spy, Jonny
Davos, got intel at the last minute.”
The car’s engine sprung into action.
“I showed those bastards they can’t get away with
messing with us,” said Vince. “They won’t dare try and pull
something like this again.”
But neither Kane nor Vince himself seemed convinced by
his words. There was a palpable silence in the car.
“You’re not leaving our sight again,” Kane said quietly to
me as we drove through the dark back toward home.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY

Liliana

Vince and Kane spend the next couple of days doting on me.
Serving me hot drinks and food as I lazed on the couch,
asking me repetitively if I was okay.
By the beginning of the week, I was feeling more myself
again. Whatever drug that Dante had given me - as well as
the shock - were fully out of my system. And Vince and
Kane’s worries over me were also calming down.
On Wednesday evening, Vince roped a reluctant Kane
into playing a car racing video game with him. I didn’t feel
like playing, so instead I watched on, taking turns in
annoying each of them by randomly choosing sides for each
game.
“If you think it’s so easy, Liliana,” Vince said to me after I
took great pleasure in berating him for making a wrong turn.
“Then why don’t you play as well? There’s an extra
controller in one of the spare rooms upstairs. Third room on
the left.”
 Snarky comments. Making me go out of the way to fetch
things. I guess the special treatment really had finished.
I sighed exaggeratedly as I got up from the couch and
went in search of the controller.
As I walked down the side of the hall upstairs that I
hadn’t been on before, a high-pitched noise caught my
attention, almost like a solidarity music note. Just when I
decided that the sound had been in my imagination and I
was probably losing it, I heard it again. And again.
I began following the noise down the hall, aware that I
had passed the spare room that Vince had directed me to.
Finally, I stopped at the end of the hallway, where a solitary
door stood in front of me, resting slightly ajar. Then the
noise sounded again. Louder this time. It was coming from
behind the door.
Then something piqued my curiosity even more than the
unusual noise. There was light leaking out of the gap in the
door, leaving a faint rainbow of colors on the wall next to it.
I lined my eye up with the space between the door,
intrigued about what was inside the room. But it was too
dark inside for me to make anything out clearly.
What was the harm of going in? I thought. I had full
access to the apartment now. So I pushed the door open
and walked in.
The room was the smallest room I had seen in the
apartment, but also the busiest one. While the rest of the
apartment was minimalistic, this was the opposite. Shelves
upon shelves lined the walls. And on them sat dozens of
ornaments, stuffed animals and even some taxidermy. I
walked around the room, examining the miniature versions
of owls, crows, finches, doves and parrots.
All birds, I realized.
Then I suddenly remembered the bird ornament I had
seen on Leo’s desk on my first night here. What was with
this weird bird obsession?
Many of the bird ornaments were beautiful, though.
Some golden with colorful jewels. The light peaking through
the blinds reflected off some of the jeweled ornaments,
creating a kaleidoscope of colors. Which explained what was
causing the colored light to leak outside.
And then, as I took a turn to look at the shelf on the
adjoining wall, I found the source of the high-pitched sound.
There was a large bird cage placed on a shelf with a real-
life finch inside. The bird was beautiful; delicate with yellow
feathers and a black pattern running across both of its
wings. At first, I smiled at the pretty bird. But it looked at me
from behind its bars I began to feel sad for it - caged up and
locked away from the rest of the apartment.
When I finally turned away from the bird cage my eyes
landed on something else unusual.
There was a framed photo of a young woman on another
shelf. She was smiling through a flock of wild black hair. She
was pretty. But I couldn’t help but feel uneasy that her
picture was placed in the dark and unusual room, one that
was feeling creepier by the minute. Was she a victim of
some sort of sick obsession? Was she in danger?
As my eyes gazed down I saw some papers sitting a few
ledges below the framed photo. I picked them up to find
that they were newspaper clippings.
As I read the headline of the first article the blood left my
face: INVESTIGATION UNDER WAY IN THE WAKE OF SERENA
MICHAELS’ MURDER. The article was dated a few years ago.
Then under the headline was the same picture of the girl in
the framed photo, only in black and white.
What had happened to her?
As much as I tried to reassure myself that La Trinità
weren’t involved, there was a niggling, terrifying thought
that I couldn’t shake off.
The girl in the photo was young, around my age. And she
was attractive. Definitely someone the guys would be
interested in.
Was she the me before I was?
And worse still - was I going to meet the same fate?
A cold chill ran down my spine.
How could I ever think I was safe with these men? There
was never any way for this to have a happy ending. Vince
was right. I shouldn’t have gotten so comfortable here.
I thought back to how there was a room ready for me
when I got here, complete with pyjamas that fit me
perfectly. How they had a dress for me on the casino night.
Like they were prepared. Was this what they did? Find
random women, butter them up, have their fun with them
and then kill them?
And then came a sudden voice.
“What are you doing in here?”
I swung around to see Leo standing in the doorway. If I
thought Leo was intimidating before, I’d seen nothing yet.
Leo when he was mad was far more frightening. His
eyebrows furrowed in anger, his muscles flexed, his voice
stern.
“I’m - I’m sorry,” I stuttered.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” he growled. “This door is kept
closed for a reason. Understand? Now. Leave.”
I nodded and then practically ran past him out the door,
heading straight to my room.

***

There was probably a good explanation for what I saw, I

tried to tell myself the next morning.
There was no proof that La Trinità were even the ones
who committed the murder. And if they did, it didn’t mean I
was next. I was probably still in fight or flight mode after all
the crazy stuff that had happened recently, being constantly
on edge, seeing the danger in everything.
Though, I still cringed when I remembered how Leo
scolded me. I guess he had the right to be mad if I was in
one of his private rooms. Hopefully he’d get over it.
 I got out of bed slowly and then made my way out of my
for breakfast. When on the landing, I could hear that Vince
and Kane were already downstairs, talking. They were
speaking with their voices lowered, which made me want to
eavesdrop even more. I took a few steps back so that they
wouldn’t see me and tried to listen what they were saying.
“Liliana went in?” I heard Kane ask.
There was a pause where I couldn’t make out anything.
Then came Vince’s voice. “You know how ruthless Leo is.
Don’t forget what happened to Serena.”
My heart dropped. Serena was the girl from the bird
room. I was right after all. Leo had done something to her.
And I had the awful feeling that me stumbling across the
secret room was leading me to the same fate sooner than
planned.
I rushed back to my room in a panic. But as I came in, I
noticed something small on the floor I hadn’t noticed when I
left the room. A small, blank card.
I picked up the white paper and turned it around, which
revealed a handwritten note. My throat felt tight as I read
the words on the paper:

The chauffeur, Frank, will come to pick you up at 8. Wear

something nice.
Leo

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Liliana

As the car winded through the dark streets of Hale I

contemplated my fate. Leo’s ominous note didn’t give much
away. How was he going to do it? Torture me first? Or put
me out quickly with a gun? If I could anticipate his moves,
maybe I could get myself out of it. But I didn’t like my
chances against someone like Leo.
As the car continued to glide through the night, an array
of lights emerged in front of us. We were headed for
downtown. An unusual place to murder someone, but La
Trinità was full of surprises.
As we drove toward the lights of the city, I thought of my
parents. Non the wiser back home, silently satisfied that
their daughter was off getting a higher education. Summer
vacation would be starting soon. And only then would they
notice that I never came home. Even though my parents
and I weren’t close, the idea of never seeing them again
hurt. Never seeing my mother’s satisfied face when I dug
into her homemade cooking, never seeing the awkward nod
and pursed-lipped my dad was prone to giving instead of a
hug.
I was brought out of my thoughts as the driver, Frank,
began to pull up the car. I looked out the window to see that
we had stopped outside of Hale National Museum, the
biggest museum in the city. Why would Leo want to see me
here out of all places?
The lights of the museum’s foyer were dim as we walked
in and there were no people in sight. Of course, I thought.
The museum would be closed at the time of night. But a
black-clad security guard emerged to greet us, then guided
us to an elevator which was ready and waiting.
“You’ll be meeting Leo on the top floor,” Frank told me as
the silver doors of the elevator closed in on us and he
pressed the button labeled ‘rooftop’.
Me and Leo on the roof of the museum. Great. What was
the likelihood he wouldn’t push me right off and make it look
like an accident? Worse still, he didn’t need to make it look
like an accident. This was a man who could murder me in
cold blood and get away with it.
But as the evaluator jutted to a stop at the top floor, and
Frank walked me up the steps that led to the rooftop, the
scene that unfolded in front of me was far from what I was
expecting.
In the center of the terrace was a table set up for two. On
the table was an array of Italian food; two large plates of
pasta along with smaller plates of appetizers. A large bottle
of white wine was sitting in a bucket of ice to the side.
Behind the table was Leo, surveying me as I was ushered
toward him by Frank.
As I walked forward, the view beyond the rooftop came to
view. We were right in the heart of the Hale skyline; lit-up
glass skyscrapers were scattered all around us, and a
golden crescent moon hung in the inky black sky above. I
had never seen a more beautiful view.
The romantic atmosphere begged the question, was this
a date?
I sat down tentatively opposite Leo as Frank went back
inside the building.
“Welcome,” Leo said, offering me a basket of breadsticks.
“I hope you like Italian food.”
“So you’re not going to throw me off the roof?” I asked as
I crunched on the starter.
“What would I do that for?” he questioned, looking up at
me with his dark blue eyes.
“I thought I was here for you to kill me,” I commented
sheepishly.
“Kill you?” He exclaimed, as if he was outraged by the
notice. “Why would I kill you? I’ve been looking after you
this whole time.”
I looked at him curiously, unsure what he was referring
to.
 “Who was the one who decided that you should live
when you turned up here?” He continued. “Who made sure
you were comfortable? Who gathered the info that saved
you when you were taken? Who’s been paying for your
clothes? Sending you gifts to your door?”
“Gifts?” I asked, confused.
“You got the journal, didn’t you?”
And then it hit me.
“You send that expensive notebook and pen to my
room?”
He chuckled. “Believe me, Bella,” he said, as I tried not
to turn to goo at the new nickname. “There’s a whole lot
more where that came from.”
All this time Leo had been looking after my best interest.
Keeping me safe and happy. I knew from Vince that Leo had
wanted me alive, but I had been unaware of the extent of
how he was caring for me from afar. It was a lot to make
sense of.
“I thought you called me up here because of the bird
room,” I admitted.
“Yes, that,” he said, shuffling in his seat. “I did want to
apologize to you for losing my temper earlier. That room’s
just very personal to me.”
He paused to intake a deep breath.
“That room is dedicated to my cousin, Serena,” he said.
“She was murdered six years ago.”
 The pieces that I thought I had put together started
rearranging themselves in my head. So the girl in the
picture wasn’t some random victim of La Trinità. She was
Leo’s relative. I felt myself relax into my seat. But now I felt
a new sadness for Leo.
“I’m so sorry,” I said sincerely. “What happened to her?”
“She was raped and killed on the streets of this city,” he
said. “Some homeless bum did it. The sicko even stole the
charm bracelet I bought her when we were kids. She never
took it off, but they found her without it. Luckily, they found
the murdering cunt and locked him up.”
There was still anger in Leo’s voice when he spoke of his
cousin’s killer. Even though justice was served, it appeared
he got no satisfaction from it.
“And that’s how La Trinità was born,” he explained to me.
“I wanted to take control of this ruthless city, the one that
took away someone I loved. I didn’t want to be a victim to it
anymore. I wanted it to play by my rules.”
A lot of things were making sense to me now. Leo’s
penchant for control. His solitude. Him always spending time
upstairs. I thought he was always in his office or room, but
now I guessed he spent a large portion of his time with
Serena.
“How about the bird stuff?”
Leo chuckled, and I saw a brief glimmer of joy in his eyes
amid the hardness
 “Serena loved birds, even when we were kids,” he
explained. “She even got a bird tattoo when she turned
eighteen. One of those where the birds look like they’re
migrating across the skin, taking off for flight. Serena was a
free spirit, so it made sense.”
I smiled as I watched him reminisce. But then I
remembered the sad-looking bird in the dark cage.
“Birds don’t like to be locked away, you know,” I said to
him.
“And Serena didn’t want to die,” he said coldly.
I didn’t probe any further.
Instead, I turned the conversation back to the present.
“So why did you call me here tonight?” I asked. I sensed
the apology wasn’t the only reason I was here.
“I wanted you here because I have a proposition for you,
Liliana.”
I looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue
“Kane and Vince, they’re family to me,” he said. “But
they have no clue what to do with a woman. Let alone one
like you. So how about you put those two to the side and
join me instead?”
I blinked at him. “And why would you want me to do
that?”
“I’ve been operating alone for a long time, Liliana,” he
said, driving his fork into a piece of fusilli on his plate. “And
I’ve always liked it that way - I could never imagine anything
else. That was until I met you. Now I’ve decided I don’t want
to be alone anymore. I want you by my side.”
He looked up at me, awaiting my reaction.
I needed a moment to process what he was saying. For
the past few hours, I was convinced he wanted to kill me. I
was in no way prepared for this.
“But you want me to stop being with the other two?” I
asked.
“I don’t share,” he replied simply.
When I first laid my eyes on Leo, I would have loved to
hear those words from him. But things had changed. My
feelings for Kane and Vince had steadily grown and I
enjoyed the security of having both of them. And at this
point, it seemed they needed me as much as I needed
them. There was also something about being the
counterpart to Leo himself that came with a lot of added
pressure. I would likely be a target. Even more of one than I
was now.
“If you were with me, you would always be protected,”
Leo said, as if reading my mind. “The guards would never let
anything happen to you. But most importantly, I wouldn’t.
I’d protect you with my life. We’d be impenetrable together.
Everything that belongs to me would belong to yours. This
whole city would be ours.”
I looked around at our surroundings. He was right. Who
else in the world could wrangle something like this? If La
Trinità were a triangle, he was the utmost point.
 “Why be a Princess when you could be a Queen?” He
then added.
Slick.
“If that doesn’t convince you, how about the idea of
sharing my bed?” He leaned over the table, his voice raspy.
“You’ll get to enjoy my huge cock whenever you like.
Morning until night. I’ll take great pleasure in making you
come again and again.”
I was quickly becoming wet with his words. As if his offer
wasn’t already tempting.
“Do you want a little taste? Come sit on my lap, baby
girl.”
Just a taste was fine by me.
I walked over to him and he pushed the table to the side
slightly. He patted his lap, gesturing for me to take my seat.
I did, my back to him. Once I was on him I could already feel
his hardness underneath me. And he was right. He was
huge. I could make out the enormous girth and length of his
huge cock.
And then he hitched up my skirt so my panties had direct
contact with his bulge. He then grabbed my hips and started
sliding me up and down on him slowly so that my pussy was
making continuous contact with his cock.
“Feel that?” He said in a whispered growl in my ear. “Feel
how hard I am for you. This could be yours forever.”
He reached his hand over my hips as he continued to
slide me on him and found my clit, rubbing me lightly as my
wetness grew.
“You’re so beautiful, Bella,” he whispered as he
continued to push my hips back and forth on him, his finger
stroking my clit. “Look how much you like it when your King
touches you. I can’t wait until I get to feel your pussy around
my cock.”
He was moving me against him faster, now groaning
slightly in my ear with each movement. I tried to drive the
speed, desperately rubbing myself on him as I whimpered,
his large fingers still playing with my clit. The pleasure was
becoming unbearable. I was so close to letting it take me
fully, to push me off the edge.
And then Leo stopped what he was doing and pulled me
off of him. I stood there completely frazzled and frustrated.
“That was just a little taster of what you’ll be getting with
me,” Leo said. “When you agree to be mine, then you’ll get
to know what it feels like to come on my cock. So will you
think about my offer?”
All I could do was nod.
“Great. Now shall we finish our food?”
I sat back in my seat, not feeling like eating pasta
anymore. Not when all I could concentrate on was my
throbbing center which was now begging to be touched.
When the dinner was over, Frank took me back home.
Where I took an extra-long shower and made use of the
high-water pressure.
 That night my mind raced with thoughts about the La
Trinità men. I was besotted by Kane’s depth and tenderness,
captivated by Vince’s fieriness and excitability. But I also
loved the confidence and security of Leo.
In a perfect world, I would have all three.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kane

I woke up in the morning to find Liliana sitting on my bed.

She wore nothing but a silk pajama shirt, the smooth tawny
brown skin of her crossed legs calling to me. I instinctively
reached out and stroked the bare skin of her thigh, causing
her to part her mouth slightly.
“To what do I owe this surprise?” I asked.
“I just felt like paying you a morning visit,” she said, a
small smile on her lips.
I liked that I was sharing her with Vince. I liked giving
Liliana what she wanted. And at that wedding Vince and I
decided that because we were close and shared everything,
sharing a woman just made sense. Not only did it quell the
rising animosity between us, but it also strengthened our
brotherhood.
But despite that, moments like this when it was just her
and I felt incredible.
 I pulled her closer to me and she curled against me, the
warmth of her body seeping into mine. And then our lips
met. The kisses were soft but enough to leave me slightly
breathless.
She pulled away and gestured for me to lay back. I
happily submitted.
The way that Liliana had made me do a complete one-
eighty wasn’t lost on me. I didn’t know how much power one
woman could hold over me. Not until I met her.
Liliana’s lips traveled down my neck. I could feel myself
growing harder. That was until her lips stopped there. On my
burn mark. There was no hiding it in the daylight. She
noticed me flinching and looked up at me with her deep,
brown eyes.
“How did it happen?”
“Liliana …”
“If it’s too hard to talk about, it’s okay. I’ll wait until
you’re ready.”
“It’s not that,” I replied honestly. “It’s you who I don’t
think is ready.”
Somehow, Liliana had found something in me that she
liked. And I wasn’t planning on jeopardizing that. And even
though she didn’t seem to mind me killing someone in front
of her in cold blood, everyone had their limits.
“I’m a big girl,” she said, then started kissing down my
chest again, this time making her way down to my briefs.
 “Fuck,” I said as her mouth grazed my cock through my
briefs. “Why talk when this is so much more fun?”
She pulled away. “We can have fun anytime. But first, I
want to hear what you have to say.”
So that was how she wanted to play it.
“Who did that to you? Was it the Terra del Sud?”
I almost laughed. They wouldn’t dare.
“Even worse, “ I said. “It was my parents.”
Concern grew in her eyes. She sat back on the bed next
to me.
“They did that to you?” She placed her hand on mine.
“A hot iron was among the many things they threw at
me,” I told her. “Luckily this was the only one that left a
mark. And even then I was fast enough not to get the full
blow.”
I let out a breath before delving in further.
“It started from when I was about three,” I explained. “Or
at least, that’s the earliest of it that I can remember. I guess
they didn’t want me. So I suppose it was easy to treat
someone cruelly who you didn’t want in the first place.”
It was weird to say it out loud.
‘‘How did you cope? Living in an environment like that?”
“I learned to lay low. Pretend I wasn’t there.” I didn’t say
that sometimes I still forget I don’t need to do that anymore.
“And waited patiently until I turned eighteen.”
“Is that when you knew you could leave?”
 “No. That’s when I knew I’d be strong enough to kill
them.”
The words hung in the air as Liliana processed what I
said. She didn’t remove her hand.
“That’s the only thing I spent my time doing when I one I
got a bit older. Practiced how to use a knife. Trained so I was
strong enough in case they tried to fight back.’
‘‘And did you manage to kill them?” She asked.
“Yes, it turned out to be a lot easier than I had thought. I
slit their throats in their sleep. They barely put up a fight.”
Despite the brutal actions I just described, Liliana’s
eyebrows were still furrowed in concern over me. “What did
you do from there?” She asked.
“That’s where Leo came in,” I told her. “I guess he heard
about what happened in the news and decided he wanted
me on his team. Leo already had significant power by then,
he was able to make my charges go away. If it wasn’t for
him, I’d still be rotting in prison now. Or worse.”
“I thought my parents were bad,” she said. “All they
cared about was me being the perfect girl, going to college
and living the perfect life. They didn’t care about what I
actually wanted.”
There was sadness in her eyes that I didn’t want there. I
pressed my lips to hers lightly, creating a smile before
pulling away.
“Parents are awful,” I declared. ‘Who needs them?”
She laughed.
 “Thanks for telling me your story,” she said, getting
closer again. “I’m so sorry for what happened to you. But
look at you now. You’re not that unwanted kid anymore. The
whole city wants a part of you. Me included.”
“So then can we now finish where we left off?”
She smirked. Then trailed her head down again towards
my crotch, this time pulling down my briefs. I leaned back
into the bed and moaned at the sensation of her wet mouth
on my cock. She was sucking it so good, her mouth bobbing
up and down on my throbbing cock.
It still felt weird to let myself fully embrace simply feeling
good. It felt vulnerable. But I began to give myself over to
the feeling of her velvety mouth on my cock as her hands
stroked around my inner thighs.
I had been so focused on pain throughout my life that it
was new for me to let myself succumb to nothing but
pleasure.
But Liliana was making the process easy.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Leo

It took a lot to make me happy.

Momentary satisfaction, that was easy. I felt satisfied
whenever I wrapped my hands around one of my enemies’
necks until they took their last breath. Or whenever I
released my seed onto the bodies of whatever broad I
picked up from the club. But none of those things came
close to measuring up to how I felt on this today.
The sun was out. The birds were chirping. Not things I
normally cared about. But when you finally find the missing
piece in your puzzle, life as a whole feels fucking beautiful.
The source of my happiness, of course, was Liliana. I
knew from the first time I lay my eyes on her that there was
something different about her. Something special. She
wasn’t like any of the plain broads I usually came across.
The ones who regularly threw themselves at me, attracted
to my power. Wanting to leech from it.
 No, Liliana carried her own sort of power. And it was me
who was putty in her hands.
It was the warmth behind her eyes. The confident way
she spoke her words. But also that she carried a refreshing
amount of nativity. Like she was ready for someone to show
her the world.
Of course, it was also her plump lips and cat-like eyes.
The curves of her body and the silkiness of her skin. The lust
I had towards her was crazy. Like nothing I had ever
experienced before.
Normally I fucked in the same way others would scratch
an itch. But with Liliana, I knew what real desire meant. All I
wanted was to place my cock in her beautiful mouth or her
tight pussy. Watch her as she moaned and writhed in
pleasure as she took me in.
Last night I came close to doing just that.
I finally gave her the offer to be mine. But she had gotten
too comfortable bouncing between Kane and Vince’s beds.
But I knew she was tempted. And then I finally gave her a
taste of my cock. Let her side up and down on it while I
touched her. She was practically begging for me, grinding
herself on me desperately, wanting more.
It took a lot for me not to rip off her wet panties and
thrust myself inside her. But the teasing felt more fun.
Besides, why give up the whole goods? When she decides
she wants to be mine, that’s when we’ll both find out what
heaven truly feels like. And waiting for the moment made it
even sweeter. Even if my cock had barely come down since
our encounter.
But our little foray wasn’t why I was so happy today. It
was because of what happened afterward. She told me she
would think about it. She was as good as mine.
A King knows when he finds his Queen. And the moment
of our union was edging so much closer.
The car pulled up in the parking lot and I made my way
into the underground entrance of the building. It was eerily
quiet inside. The dark stillness of the indoors a stark
difference from the sunshine and birdsong outside of the
building.
But when I got to the elevator was when I noticed that
something was really wrong.
There should have been a guard doing their rounds up
and down the hall, but there was no one in sight.
Dmitri was our main guard. I trusted him the most. But
when he wasn’t working, there were a couple of others who
took turns in taking over. But no one was here.
Rage started to build. Dmitri shouldn’t have left without
making sure someone else took over his post. And if his
replacement didn’t show up, he should have let me know.
The entrance needed to be manned at all times.
I tried to calm myself down. There was probably a good
explanation for this. And even with no security guards, there
were so many other security measures upstairs that it was
impossible for anyone to have gotten in. Still, I couldn’t
shake the bad feeling.
I tried not to dwell on it. I just needed to go upstairs,
make sure everyone was okay, and then call Dmitri and give
him a piece of my mind. I walked into the elevator and
reached into my pocket for the keycard. But then I heard a
voice call out from across the parking lot.
“Hey!”
It wasn’t a happy, good to see you ‘hey’. It was one full
of anger and venom.
I turned around to see who was trying to get my
attention in such a way. And when I did, I saw someone that
had no place being anywhere near my home.
And then he pulled out a gun.
“You fuckers killed my brother,” he spat, the words
meaningless to me.
Everything else happened in flashes.
A flash of searing pain in my chest side as I fell to the
ground. A flash of my reflection slumped on the floor
covered in blood in the elevator mirror. The door closing,
locking me in. The door opening again. Liliana’s face, her
eyes wide in horror, her mouth opening in a scream.
And then there were tears.
Don’t cry, I tried to say. But I don’t think my words were
audible, because she kept on crying. And that was the last
thing that I saw before everything went black.
OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Liliana

The depth of my feelings for Leo didn’t hit me until I saw the
light leave his eyes.
We had gotten a notification that the Chinese takeaway
had been left downstairs. Which was a nuisance,
considering how high up we were, but apparently it was for
security reasons. So I left the apartment in my pajamas to
retrieve the takeout and called the elevator to our floor.
When the elevator door opened, I struggled to
comprehend the horror of what I saw.
Leo was slumped inside covered in blood, looking lifeless.
I grasped at him desperately, checking for a heartbeat, for
any signs of breath. His body was still warm but his
heartbeat was weak and his breaths shallow. Seeing
someone who was the epitome of power reduced to a
bleeding lump on the floor was disjointing. Like everything
in the world was wrong.
 “Please be okay,” I begged through tears. “Please be
okay.” He mumbled something inaudible. And then he fell
unconscious.
I must have screamed because then both Vince and Kane
came rushing out.
“Call an ambulance, quick!” I shouted back at them.
“He’s been hurt.”
“I’ll take him inside, you call Reid,” Vince said to Kane as
he held Leo’s dead weight beside him, carrying him inside.
“Leo’s been shot,” Kane said down the phone. “Be at the
apartment. Now.” Then he hung up the phone.
I was completely confused about what was happening.
Leo shouldn’t be going inside the apartment. He needed to
be at the nearest hospital.
“Can’t you see what kind of state he’s in?” I pleaded to
Kane. “He needs to be in the Emergency Room.”
“Liliana, people like us can’t go to hospitals,” he said. “If
he stayed in a hospital in this state he would be like a sitting
duck. For all we know, that was part of the plan. Reid is our
private doctor. She knows what she’s doing. And she holds
our best interest. She’ll be here soon.”
For the first time, I hated how cold and calculated Kane
could be. How all of this was. Where was the humanity in
risking your so-called brother’s life because of mafia
politics?
But then I thought they were probably hating this as
much as I was.
 “Do you think Sud did this?” I asked as I followed them
into Leo’s room.
“Not a chance,” Vince responded. “There are rules. They
wouldn’t dare.”
Dr. Reid - a woman with graying blonde hair and glassy
blue eyes - arrived ten minutes later. Leo was still
unconscious. We all stood in Leo’s bedroom and watched as
she examined him and then treated his wound. Which
involved extracting a bullet out of his chest and disinfecting
the area.
“The good news is, it missed his heart,” she told us once
the bullet was taken out. “The bad news is I don’t know how
his body will react now that the bullet is out. It’s a watch-
and-wait game. But I’ll feed him antibiotics and painkillers
intravenously. He’ll probably stay unconscious for a while as
he fights this off, which is for the best. That way he won’t
feel any pain. Just keep an eye on him and call me if there
are any changes.”
Midnight came and went and there was still no change in
Leo’s condition. The only thing that kept me going was the
fact that he was still breathing. I watched the gentle up and
down motion of his chest like it was my own lifeline.
Soon I was the only one left in the room, which I only
realized when Kane came in to tell me I should get some
rest and that I could come back and check on Leo in the
morning. And that the two of them would take turns
checking up on him in the night.
 But as soon as I was in my room and my back hit my cold
bed I knew it was no good. There was no way I could sleep
without knowing if Leo would be okay or not. So I instead
dragged my blanket and pillow back to his room and made
myself comfortable on one of the armchairs in his room.
I dipped in and out of sleep in the chair opposite him
until I was woken up in the morning by a loud beeping. It
was the heart monitor the doctor had attached to Leo.
“His vitals aren’t looking great,” Dr. Reid told us after we
called her back to the apartment. “I’ve given him more
antibiotics and liquids.”
“Will he be okay?” I asked, my voice sounding sober in
the quiet room, punctuated by Leo’s vitals which continued
to beep.
“I can’t say,” she replied simply.
Vince slipped a comforting arm around me, but from his
expression, I knew that he needed consoling even more
than me.
“We’ll make sure he’s okay,” I whispered, even if I didn’t
fully believe my words.
But as I was trying to get my head around what the
doctor had said, Vince’s face was growing red with anger.
He then pulled away from me and charged towards the door.
“Where are you going?” Kane called after him.
“I’m going to find out who did this. And I’m going to
make them pay.”
 ***

I didn’t feel right doing nothing while I waited for Vince to

return. Even though the doctor had been feeding Leo liquids
and nutrients upon his visits, it didn’t feel like enough.
I went downstairs and grabbed a bottle of water. Before
giving Leo the water, I made sure his head was upright. And
when I did, it seemed like he responded to my small
movement, But maybe it was my imagination.
I fed him small sips of water which he swallowed. His
unconscious reflexes gave me hope that he was still in there
somewhere. As I continued to sit near him I even thought I
heard him murmur the odd word, but I couldn’t quite make
them out.
It took me a while before I noticed that the beeping had
stopped. His vitals were returning to normal.
Soon Kane slipped into the room.
“Get some rest, Liliana,” he said. “I mean it. I’ll take over
for the rest of the night.”
I nodded in agreement. As I got up Kane caught me by
the waist and imparted a kiss on my lips. But once I left and
looked back at him sitting in the room, his face looked
vacant. Broken.
Vince didn’t return home until the night. When he did, he
was bruised and bloody.
 “What happened?” I asked as he entered my room. “Are
you okay? Did you get whoever did it?”
“I didn’t,” he said regrettably. “None of my leads were
right. I looked into Davos, the guy Leo is hiring as a spy. I
always thought he was shady. And I thought it was weird he
didn’t see this coming. But he was accounted for. It wasn’t
Dmitri, either. He wasn’t even on shift when it happened
and the guard who replaced him turned up dead.”
“Then who hurt you?” I questioned.
“I’m not hurt,” he said unconvincingly. “The only people
who got hurt were the people who got in my way.”
I walked up to him to examine his face. He had a bruise
on his eye and a fat lip. But I couldn’t find the source of the
blood that stained him. It was someone else’s.
“I’m fine, really,” he repeated.
And then he pressed his lips against mine. As I returned
his kiss, he backed me against the bedroom wall, kissing me
like his life depended on it. He had beaten himself up
enough and now he was desperate to feel something good.
It was hard for me to not want to escape into him too. As
his body pushed into me I could feel his gun in his pocket.
My earlier concerns about Vince had completely dissipated -
I knew he would never hurt me. And in that moment I never
felt safer. But maybe I just didn’t have any fear left in my
blood anymore. What I did know was that I enjoyed having
this blood-sodden, gun-wielding man thrusting against me.
 Vince pulled down my pants and panties in one swoop.
Then suddenly his hands gripped my hips and he swivelled
me around so that I was facing the wall.
And then his hand made contact with my butt, leaving
the skin stringing as he pulled it back. And then he made
contact again. And again.
The slaps kept coming and I squealed as the sensation
was felt all the way around to my pussy. Vince was making
animalistic grunting noises as he slapped me harder and
harder. And then there was a pause as I heard the noise of
his belt coming undone.
As I anticipated his next move, I noticed the door of my
room was still slightly open. And then what we were doing
suddenly felt weird with Leo lying unconscious a few rooms
over and Kane looking out for him while I supposedly got
rest.
“Wait,” I said, turning around. “Maybe we shouldn’t.”
“You’re right,” Vince agreed. But then he followed with a
string of expletives as he pointed his frustration inwards
once again.
“Look, maybe get some rest,” I said to him. “I think that’s
what you really need right now.”
He looked at me blankly in response for a few seconds.
And then he just left. Leaving me alone in my room, feeling
like the tower I was in was crumbling.
Just when I thought things were stable between me and
Vince again, everything had to get turned on its head.
 Whoever did this, they hadn’t just hurt Leo. They had
hurt Vince. They had hurt all of us. Leo was still out cold,
barely holding on. Vince was torn up. And Kane was showing
signs of withdrawing again. The most powerful men I knew
were broken. And I couldn’t take it much longer.
And then I remembered there was somewhere else I was
wanted. Somewhere that wasn’t breaking at its seams.

OceanofPDF.com


As darkness envelops,
I thrive and I dwell,
For I found my joy,
Deep in the depths of Hale.

L.B

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Liliana

I swirled around the ice in the glass of water the bartender

had given me, the heat of the room melting it by the
second. After everything that had transpired over the last
couple of days, I needed something sobering.
I had never been to this bar before. Nor this side of town.
In fact, up until recently, I barely knew it existed. I had
slinked through the back alleys, past cat callers and
garbage-lined streets until I reached the drinking venue.
And now that I was here there was nothing left for me to do
but sit and wait.
It was a Monday, so the bar was pretty empty. Save for a
few lone men dotted around the place whose I could only
assume were regulars. Almost all of the men sporadically
cast their eyes in my direction. As a female sitting by herself
in a slinky black dress and red lipstick, I wouldn’t expect
anything less. But none of them was the man I had come to
see.
 I gulped down some of the ice water to try and diffuse
the heat of the room. As I placed my glass back on the table
of the booth I heard a voice from behind me.
“Baby, I think you’re in my seat.”
Finally, the person I had been waiting to see. I turned
around and came eye to eye with Dante.
“Liliana,” he said, as I turned to face him. “How rude of
me. Stay seated and let me come join you.”
I expected him to slide into the seat next to me. But
instead, he sat on the seat opposite. A smile on his face as
he took me in in front of him.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I heard that you guys know how to have fun down here,”
I replied.
As the words left my mouth I wondered what I was doing.
Was it a mistake coming here? He had said if I came
willingly, I wouldn’t be hurt.
As Dante’s face softened I did away with the doubt. If all
the others could go off the rails then why couldn’t I? Plus,
there was something assuring in Dante’s presence that I
had been missing. A quiet confidence.
“I know a lot of ways that we can have fun,” he said with
a smirk.
“Things have been a bit rough and I need a distraction,” I
offloaded to him. “And you seem like the right person for
that.”
I looked around the bar.
 “So do you spend a lot of time here?”
“Quite a lot,” he said. “Sometimes I drink. Catch up with
associates. Sometimes I just shoot some pool. Play some
darts.”
“We never play games like that,” I told him. I thought
back to the state Vince was in when I left him. I
remembered Kane’s vacant stare. “Honestly, La Trinità
aren’t as fun as you might think.”
“Come on,” Dante said with a wink. “I can teach you how
to play.”
I followed him to the dart board on the wall at the back of
the bar. I stood watching as he picked up a handful of darts
and got into position.
“The trick is to keep an eye on the prize.” He squinted in
concentration as if he was on the lookout with a gun. And
then he threw the dart with one swift movement. It hit the
center of the board. Bullseye.
“That’s impressive,” I said to him.
“Your turn.” He handed me a couple of darts and I tried
to replicate his winning move. But when I threw the dart it
missed the board entirely. I laughed awkwardly.
“I guess I’m no good at this.”
“You just haven’t been taught well, Liliana,” he let my
name roll off his tongue slowly. “Let me teach you.”
Soon he was so close that I could smell his cologne and
feel the heat from his breath. He placed one hand on my hip
and the other over his hand, which he was holding another
dart with.
“First, eye on the target. Then move forward with
confidence.”
He let go of my hold and I released the dart in the
manner he guided me. This time it hit the board, but was
still on the outer edges.
“You’re getting better,” he said. “If you stick with me, I
could help you improve on many things. Maybe next time
you’ll get the bullseye.”
I sensed a hidden subtext in his words. And the fact that
he hadn’t moved his body from me and that I could now feel
his length hardening against my upper thigh, left me no
doubt about what he was getting at. It felt wrong. It felt
dangerous. But it also felt exciting. Just what I needed after
the mess of a week I had been having.
Dante loosened his grip on my hip and instead moved his
hand down lower, resting it on my now wet panties
underneath my dress.
“Why don’t we see how much more fun we can have,” he
said in a gravelly voice in my ear. “My apartment’s nearby.”
I nodded in agreement.
We arrived at his apartment complex ten minutes later. It
wasn’t anywhere close to as fancy as La Trinità’s home. It
was on a street that had neon-lit convenience stores dotted
down it and the building itself was only a few stories. But he
did have a guard outside who greeted us with a nod as we
walked into the building.
Dante led me up to the second floor. Once outside the
apartment door, he typed in a code to unlock the door and
we both entered. Immediately the place was nicer on the
inside.
Dante has a lot of things. There were framed posters up
on the walls. Piles of magazines on tables. Knick-knacks on
shelves. I sat down on the couch and Dante took a seat next
to me. This time he left no space between the two of us.
“How about we finish where we left off?” He suggested.
Next thing I knew he was on me, kissing me hungrily. I
could feel the stubble of his chin and the faint taste of
cigarettes. I kissed him deeper as his hands roamed around
my body. He then pulled my dress over my head, leaving me
in nothing but my bra and underwear. He took a moment to
take me in.
“Trinità are crazy to let you out of the house,” he said. “If
it was me, you wouldn’t be let out of my sight.”
I wondered how much of what he was saying came from
a sexual attraction to me, and how much else of it was
enjoyment that he was about to fuck his rivals’ girl.
He kissed down my neck to my chest, sucking on my
pushed-up cleavage.
Then he took off his own shirt, before reaching for his
belt.
 It wasn’t long until his nice-sized cock came into view. He
gave it a few pumps with his hand and then continued to
suck and massage my breasts. Then he pulled down my bra
slightly so that my nipples came into view and started
sucking on the nubs. I leaned my head back into the
headrest of the couch at the sensation.
“You like that, don’t you baby? I bet none of La Trinità
could make you feel so good.”
When I tiled my head back down again, something
behind Dante caught my eye. Among all the knick-knacks
displayed on the shelf behind the couch was a bracelet. It
seemed girly, with colorful charms dangling from it. Out of
place among all of the macho paraphernalia in the
apartment.
Dante looked back behind him to see what had caught
my attention.
“Oh, don’t be jealous baby girl,” he cooed in a raspy
tone. “That belongs to someone I haven’t seen in a long
time. Unfortunately, she couldn’t handle it when things got
a bit rough.”
“What do you mean?” I asked,
“My hands were around her neck while I was fucking her.
Let’s just say I took her breath away.”
“You killed her.”
“Don’t worry, baby girl,” he said, moving his mouth back
down to my chest. “I’ve learnt my limits since then. The
police came sniffing around after that. But I was smarter. I
placed her body somewhere on the north side and framed
some homeless guy.”
His words were ringing in my eyes. Dead girl. Homeless
man. Bracelet.
He was talking about Leo’s cousin, Serena.
Dante was the one who had killed her. And it seemed like
he didn’t even know who she was related to. His actions had
bred his own enemy.
A sudden surge of anger shot through my veins. But this
new bout of adrenaline, this new motivation, was only
making it that much easier to do what I was planning to do
all along.
“I’m not worried,” I said. “You’re right, by the way, La
Trinità could never make me feel as good as you do. Please,
don’t make me stop feeling good.
“As you say, baby.”
Dante trailed his lips down to my abdomen, then to my
underwear. He started kissing against my panties. I ran my
fingers through his hair and then held his head in place as
he massaged my pussy with his tongue. My hold was so
tight on him that he could move nothing but his mouth.
“I knew you liked it freaky, baby,” he murmured into my
pussy. As one of my hands continued to hold him in place,
my other hand grabbed something from the side of my
underwear that I had been hiding there since the bar.
And then I pulled out the dart and dug it deep into
Dante’s throat.
 I moved the sharp point around, making sure it did the
amount of damage needed. As his hands clasped to his
neck, I recalled the murmur of Leo’s words after I fed him
water. Dante. It took me a while to register the two syllables
that came from Leo’s mouth. But once they did, they were
unmistakable.
Dante was the one who tried to kill Leo.
I knew there had to be a good reason for Dante’s name
of all people to be on Leo’s lips. So I did some research to
prove my suspicions and found that Carlo, that goon that
Vince had killed trying to save me, shared a surname with
Dante. They were brothers. Vince had killed Dante’s brother,
so he saw fit to try and kill one of his.
But no one gets away with hurting La Trinità.
Dante was now desperately grabbing his throat as blood
spurted out. I moved away to avoid the splatters of blood.
“You were right,” I said. “I finally did get that bullseye.”
Dante collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air. He
wouldn’t last much longer.
I put my dress back on and grabbed for the bracelet on
the shelf. And then I went out the apartment door as Dante
took his final breaths.
On the way out, the security guard looked at me
curiously, likely wondering why I was leaving so early.
“Just out to get the boss some cigarettes,” I told him. He
nodded.
 And then I disappeared into the night, making my way
back to La Trinità, a smirk planted on my face.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Liliana

“Where have you been?” Came Kane’s concerned words as I

was met with both him and Vince back at the apartment.
“Are you okay?”
“Is that your blood?” Vince asked as he came over to me,
searching my body and face for any signs of injury.
“I’m fine,” I replied. “It’s not my blood.”
“Then whose blood is it?” Kane questioned.
“It’s Dante’s,” I told them. “He’s dead. I killed him.”
“What?” Vince exclaimed. “There are rules, Liliana! You
can’t just kill the leader of a gang unprovoked. Do you know
what you could have just started?”
“It wasn’t unprovoked and it wasn’t me who started it,” I
replied, matching Vince’s snappy tone. “Dante was the one
who shot Leo. I heard Leo mumbling Dante’s name and
pieced it together. Turns out the guy Vince killed when
rescuing me was Dante’s brother. Dante wanted his
revenge.”
 Kane was still looking skeptical while Vince became quiet.
“Either way, that’s not it,” I continued. “He didn’t just try
to kill Leo. He was the one who killed Serena. He framed
that homeless guy, but it was him who did this.”
I felt a sudden sadness for the innocent man who had
been caught up in all this.
Vince and Kane were looking on in disbelief.
“How did you find that out?” Vince asked.
“He told me,” I said. “Also…”
I pulled out the charm bracelet.
“Leo told me about the bracelet. Dante had been keeping
it as some sort of sick souvenir.”
“How do you think Leo will take it when he finds out the
truth?” Kane asked. “That is, if he…”
Vince didn’t let Kane finish his sentence.
“He’ll be mad that Dante of all people did this to Serena,”
he said. “But he’ll be happy he’s dead.”
“Speaking of Leo, how is he?” I asked.
“He’s doing the same,” Kane responded glumly.
After everything that had gone down, I felt the urge to
see him. To be close to him.
I excused myself and walked up to where Leo was still
lying unconscious in his room. I sat on my usual seat
opposite him.
I hated that I couldn’t talk to him. Tell him that his rival,
the person who did this to him, was no longer a problem.
But instead, I watched the steady rise and fall of his chest
until my eyes grew heavy.
“Why are you all the way over there when you’re looking
like that?” Came a sudden voice, bringing me out of my
sleepy daze.
Leo’s voice. He was awake.
I rushed over to him.
“You’re awake! Are you okay? Do you need anything? I
need to go and tell…”
“Just wait a second,” he said, his voice slower and
huskier than usual. “Let me just spend some alone time with
my girl. I’m okay. Come sit down next to me.”
I perched next to him on the bed.
I examined Leo’s face. Now that his eyes were open, I
could see that he was getting better. He was still weary, but
the light in his eyes was back.
“How long has it been?” He asked me.
“You’ve been out for a couple of days,” I told him.
Leo raised his head off the pillow slightly and looked right
at me.
“I know you’ve been looking after me all this time,” he
said.
“Vince and Kane too,” I added.
“Us La Trinità men will always look out for each other. But
you. You were a pleasant surprise.”
I smiled at his words.
 “You know, when I was out, I was more aware of things
that you may think,” he explained. “Like you feeding me
water. You keeping me company. I don’t know if I would have
pulled through without you. Your presence gave me a reason
to fight through it all.”
I looked into his eyes as he said the sincere words.
“I’m so happy that you did,” I said.
“There’s something else I want to say to you, Liliana.”
“Go on,” I said, intrigued.
“After what happened to me, I don’t want to waste any
more time without you,” he deliberated a bit before
continuing. “Even if that means sharing you with Kane and
Vince.”
I raised my eyebrows. Who would have known Leo being
hurt would lead to this?
“Those two were there for you when I couldn’t be,” Leo
explained. “You need all of us. You’re not just my Queen,
you’re all of ours.”
“I won’t argue with the patient,” I said in return. He
laughed weakly.
“Come here.” Leo gestured for me to lie next to him. He
felt sturdy against me as I leaned into him. Before long, his
hands began searching my body and a heat built between
us.
“Not so fast,” I said, withdrawing myself from him.
“You’ve only just returned to the land of the living. We don’t
want your heart going out.”
 “That would be a much preferable way to meet my
death,” he said, closing the distance again, imparting kisses
on my neck.
“Have a little patience,” I said. “Plus maybe take a
shower first. You’ve been out for a while.”
“You’re not going to give me a sponge bath?”
I shot him a playfully stern look.
“Okay, okay,” he conceded, hands raised. “But as soon
as I’m better, the first thing I’m going to do is fuck you
senseless. I waited too long. So long that I nearly died first.”
Then his eyes then went dark.
“And the second thing I’m going to do is blow that
bastard Dante’s brains out,” he continued. “He’s the one
that did this to me.”
“About that,” I replied. “I may have already killed him.”
Leo nearly bolted upright.
“Hey, relax,” I said. “It’s done. He won’t be an issue for
us any longer.”
“Just when I thought you weren’t full of any more
surprises.”
He reached out and took hold of both my hands.
“You’re a real diamond in the rough, Liliana,” he kissed
my lips lightly. “My beautiful, loyal, brutal Queen.”
I didn’t stay in Leo’s room too long and instead left him
alone to rest. I was clearly too much of a distraction
I hadn’t mentioned Serena to him. He was already
getting so riled about Dante that I thought it was best to
wait until he was less fragile.
I also left out the small details about how I managed to
get close enough to Dante to kill him. But the details didn’t
matter. The job was done.

***

On the third day of Leo being awake, I slipped into his room
to find him sitting up on the bed looking bored. He hadn’t
been enjoying his stay-in-bed orders. But today I could see
that the color had returned to his face and the whites of his
eyes looked brighter.
“Just who I was hoping to see,” he said with a grin as I
entered the room.
“Do you need anything?” I asked.
“Only you,” he said.
I sat next to Leo on the bed. He looked and smelled fresh
and had even dashed himself with cologne. He put his lips
to mine and I got lost in him as I kissed him back. But as his
hands trailed my body, I pulled away despite myself.
“Shouldn’t you at least rest a couple more days?”
“How about we compromise,” he sighed. “I’ll lie back like
a good boy, and you can do all the work.”
It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Leo leaned back against
the bed, his head resting on the pillow.
I kissed him again, this time deeper and hungrier. And
then I straddled him. He groaned as our groins made
contact. I kept kissing him and rubbing up on him until I
couldn’t take it anymore. I reached down and undid his belt,
pulling down his pants and briefs. His huge cock was
standing fully to attention. I stepped out of my pajama
shorts and panties, too impatient to take my shirt off. And
then I mounted him once again, this time guiding his cock
inside of wetness.
“Yes Bella,” he groaned as I slowly started to move my
hips up and down on him. “Fuck, your pussy feels so good
wrapped around me.”
I lost myself in the feeling of how good it felt to drive his
cock in and out of me. As I picked up pace, Leo reached out
and slipped his hands underneath my shirt, fondling my
breasts. He looked into my eyes as I fucked him.
“You look so beautiful fucking me,” he said.
I started bouncing faster on his cock, eliciting deep
groans from him. I was edging us both closer to climax.
“Fuck, keep on fucking your King’s cock,” Leo groaned.
“I’m going to cum so hard inside of you baby.”
I fucked him harder and faster as his hands moved down
and held onto my hips. Then he moved one hand forward
and began to stroke my clit as I bounced up and down on
him. The pleasure was overwhelming. I looked into his eyes
as my orgasm started to take over.
“Yes, that’s it,” he growled. “Come on your King’s cock.”
I let the orgasm tear through me as I continued to slide
up and down his shaft. His orgasm shortly followed. He
came inside of me, groaning my name.
Afterward, Leo held me close as both our breathing
slowed down. After a few minutes of us lying down together
I suddenly remembered I still hadn’t told him about Serena.
“Are you okay?“ He asked, noticing the small change of
demeanor.
“I’m fine,” I replied. I sat up. “It’s not me. I…”
“I hope you’re not worrying about me,” he said, sitting up
to face me. “You just gave me the best medicine I’ve ever
had.”
“I’m glad,” I said with a smile. “But it’s not that. I need to
show you something. Hold on.”
I quickly cleaned myself up, redressed and then ran back
to my room. I came back a minute later with the bracelet.
Confusion painted Leo’s face as I showed it to him on my
outstretched palm.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
So I told him.
I explained how I got into Dante’s apartment and got a
confession from him before killing him. I just missed out the
sexy bits.
Leo was quiet for a while. Just when I was worried that he
was mad at me, he finally spoke.
“Do you know what this means to me, Liliana?” He said,
soberly. “Something never felt right about how Serena died.
There was always something missing. And knowing that that
lowlife fucker Dante murdered her. It hurts. But the fact that
you killed him. The man who killed my cousin and who tried
to kill me. Makes me know that I was right about you this
whole time.”
He looked into my eyes.
“You’re as precious as gold Liliana and I never want you
out of my life. Out of our lives. This is where you belong.”
I beamed at his words. I had never felt this secure, this
wanted.
“Now come back here, Bella.”
And I fell back into his arms.

OceanofPDF.com
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Liliana

As the days went by, Leo returned to being as healthy as

ever, with just a battle scar as an indication of what had
happened. And things around the La Trinità household were
returning to normal. Even better than normal. Both Vince
and Kane were over the moon that Leo was okay, despite
how cool they wanted to act about it. And I was enjoying
getting to finally spend time with Leo under less dramatic
circumstances. We still were looking out for a potential
retaliation from Sud, but things were eerily quiet on that
front.
One Sunday afternoon Leo and I were hanging out in the
living room, me curled against him as I scribbled in my
journal and him flipping through a newspaper. As I wrote
down drabbles about recent events - which proved as a
cathartic way to deal with all the changes - I was hit by a
sudden inclination.
 I turned my head to Leo. “Would it be okay if I went to
Serena’s room?” I asked him.
After everything that had happened, I felt closer to
Serena. And I wanted to visit the room again under better
circumstances than I had the first time.
“Of course,” he replied. “She’ll be happy to see you.”
With everything having come to light, Serena’s room
didn’t look creepy like it had before. I walked around and
enjoyed looking at all the little trinkets that had been
collected and displayed in the room. I stopped when I got to
Serena’s picture, admiring her sweeping black hair and
radiant smile as she looked up into the camera. In a way, it
hurt more looking at her now, now that I understood her real
fate. But the genuine happiness in her eyes that she carried
when she was still alive now shone through in the photo. I
hoped that this was how Leo remembered her.
And then I heard the faint chirping of the finch from
behind me. I turned around to see the yellow bird peeking
out at me from inside its cage.
As I walked up to the bird cage, I noticed fresh water and
half-eaten food pellets inside. I smiled as I imagined Leo
tending to the bird every day, keeping it watered and fed.
Looking after a pet probably gave him a sense of control
that he felt he lost after losing Serena. Even though he had
turned cold and ruthless after her death, this was a
testimony that there was still softness inside of him. But
even though I knew the bird was well looked after, I still
wished to see it out of the dark room.
And then I had an idea. I just hoped that Leo would agree
to it.

***

Leo and I stood on the terrace of the building. It was late

afternoon and the sun was low, golden light reflecting onto
the buildings that stretched out in the distance. Leo held the
bird cage in his hand as we walked to the enclosed space at
the back of the terrace, where vines lined a netted roof and
wooden benches were interposed between plants and
shrubbery.
Leo had schooled me that house birds couldn’t be
outside in the open without some sort of safety net, so the
covered roof garden was the perfect place for the bird to
have rein over.
“I want you to do it,” Leo said, handing me the key. So I
slipped the key inside the lock of the bird cage and opened
the cage door.
The finch - who I named Harry, after being appalled that
Leo hadn’t named him until now - was tentative at first. Still
reluctant to leave its cage even though the door was now
wide open. But it took one small step at a time until it was
fully out of its confines. Then the bird leaped out of the
cage, flitting its yellow and black feathered wings as it
circled the garden. We watched as the finch played around,
hopping between the shrubbery and flying up and down
beneath the netted ceiling.
After about a quarter of an hour, Harry grew tired after
his first outing and retired back to his cage; he was so
comfortable with Leo that he was happy to return to the
cage when carried by him.
“Are you happy now?” Leo asked me once the finch was
safely back inside the cage.
“Yes,” I said. “But let’s not put him back in that room.
Let’s keep him downstairs in the living room. Then he’ll
always have company.”
Leo laughed. “My Bella’s always looking out for others,
even when they’re not human,” he said. “You and Serena
would have gotten on like a house on fire.”
I smiled at his words as he imparted a kiss on my
forward.
“Yes, we can keep him downstairs,” he agreed.
“Are you up here?” Came a sudden voice. I turned around
to see Vince coming through the door to the terrace. Kane
shortly followed. Their expressions looked urgent.
“What is it?” Leo questioned.
“I just got a call from Davos,” Kane answered. “Terra del
Sud threw in the towel after what happened to Dante. The
remaining members are halfway to Italy as we speak.”
“As they should be,” Leo remarked. He turned to back
me. “We have Liliana to thank for this.”
 “She is one amazing woman,” Kane added.
“One in a million,” Vince said.
Warmth filled my body as I realized this was the first time
the four of us were all together since Leo agreed I could
belong to all of them. Heat traveled downwards when I tried
to picture what that would look like in practice.
“Should we order some celebratory Chinese food?” Vince
suggested.
We all agreed and made our way back inside the
building.
Half an hour after, after finding a new home for Harry on
one of the living room side tables and choosing our food
order, we got a notification that our takeout was downstairs.
No one moved.
“Liliana?” Vince prompted.
“Haven’t I done enough for you already?” I replied in jest.
“You can get it.”
Vince rolled his eyes teasingly and then went downstairs
to fetch the food. A minute later, he was back. Carrying the
bags of aromatic food in one hand and holding a white box
in the other.
“Did you get me something, Vince?” I gestured at the
box. But his expression had grown serious upon his return.
“It’s addressed to the whole apartment.” He placed down
the bags of food. Then he pulled out a pen knife from his
pocket and sliced open the box. Once the box was open I
gasped.
 There was a letter inside covered in bright red blood. The
bottom of the box was covered in plastic film to stop the
blood from leaking. Instead the droplets of blood pooled at
the bottom. Vince placed the package down on the table
and read the words on the soaked paper out loud.
“You kill our girl, we kill yours.
Hans Winter.”
Everyone looked toward me. Even if the message was
ominous, the last three words weren’t.
Leo instinctively put a firm hand on mine, while Kane
moved across the room closer to me. Vince stayed staring at
the letter in his hands, paying no attention to his bloodying
fingers.
“Who is Hans Winter?” I asked.
“Vince knows,” Leo responded. The three of us then
looked at Vince.
“That’s the father of my ex,” he said.
His ex-fiancée.
“But I didn’t kill her,” he continued. “I don’t know what
he’s talking about.”
“Whose blood is that?” I asked. “Do you think that’s
hers? Why would they do that?”
Kane pulled out his phone.
“What was her name again?” He asked Vince.
“Adelina Winter,” Vince replied glumly.
Kane tapped away on his phone, his expression
becoming bleaker as he did.
 “This article says she died by suicide,” he told us. “Her
father is quoted to say she was never the same since her
partner died. And she finally took her life yesterday.”
“And how is that my fault!” Vince retorted. “She was
trying to kill me. If she wasn’t such a bitch she would still be
alive.”
“Apparently her dad disagrees,” Leo remarked.
“The semantics aren’t important,” Kane said. “What’s
important is that they’re trying to come for Liliana.”
“Fat chance,” Leo said from beside me. “I won’t let
anyone touch her.”
“None of us will,” Vince added.
Kane sighed. “I think it’s time,” he said, looking at both
Vince and Leo for validation.
“You’re right,” Vince agreed.
“Right about what?” I questioned, searching each of their
faces.
“Princess, you did a great job with Dante,” Vince said.
“But you got lucky. Things could have turned out a lot
worse. Going forward you’ll need more than luck. You need
to be one of us. One of La Trinità.”
“Starting from tomorrow we’re going to train you how to
be one of us,” Leo said. “We’re going to train you how to
kill.”

OceanofPDF.com
 Keep Updated

I hope you enjoyed Keeping Her Captivated!

The follow-up novella will be out soon! To be updated on

details of the release as they come, subscribe to my
newsletter:

Scarlett’s newsletter

You can also keep up to date with me by following me on

social media:

Scarlett on TikTok

Scarlett on Instagram

OceanofPDF.com
 Also by Scarlett

Her Boss’s Demand A steamy, billionaire boss short story

OceanofPDF.com