Gia

My hands shook uncontrollably on my way to Dante’s bedroom. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the possibility that I could be pregnant. A small part of me believed it was true. The timing made sense. But I wasn’t ready to bring a child into a world where I was a prisoner. Angelo and I were engaged for a few months before I was taken from my home. We hadn’t even had the time to sit down and pick a date. Now, I was going to be a mother.

Accompanied by Anthony, the gorgeous devil who got a kick out of my misery, I carried the tray with both hands. The ceramic plate hit the glass of orange juice, making a clattering sound that caught Anthony’s attention.

“Dante hates weaknesses,” he told me. “Keep acting like you’re about to jump out of your skin, and you won’t be here much longer.”

Good.

I pushed back the nerves and smiled up at him. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.” He took the tray from my hands and continued walking down the hall next to me as if we hadn’t exchanged a word.

Anthony wasn’t helping me as a favor. He did it because he was afraid I would drop the tray on the white marble floor. Dante was a clean freak, every inch of his house polished and immaculate. Along with the other girls, I was responsible for cooking and cleaning. We were like high-end hookers who sucked his cock by night and doubled as his maids by day.

Because of how sick I’d been, Dante had yet to touch me. I was thankful for that. Lucky or Anthony always managed to find a reason I had to go back to my room. But we were all running out of excuses. At some point, I would be forced to have sex with a man who was not Angelo. I couldn’t bear the thought. Angelo was my world, and our baby would make us a family.

At the end of the long hall, Anthony handed the tray back to me and pushed open the double doors that opened up to Dante’s massive bedroom. The space was so large, with the same high ceilings and windows as the rest of the house. Except his bedroom looked more like an apartment, with a formal sitting room, oversized bathroom, and a four-poster bed built for a king.

“Ahh, perfect timing.” Dante smoothed a hand through his dark, wavy hair and sat up on the bed, locking onto me with his deep brown irises. Raven, is it?”

I nodded, approaching Dante with caution. “It’s whatever you want it to be.”

He laughed and then patted the mattress next to him, on the opposite side of the bed. “Get in with me, Raven.”

I did as I was told, and Anthony closed the doors behind him, leaving me alone with Dante. An awkward pause passed between us before Dante rolled onto his side, in dark gray boxer briefs that hugged him in all the right places. He propped his elbow on the pillow behind him and sat back just enough to look at me. Dante was gorgeous, his toned body and olive skin pure perfection.

But he wasn’t Angelo.

No one would ever compare to my blue-eyed boy.

“I want you to feed me,” Dante said, his voice low and seductive.

I picked up the fork and knife and began to cut his omelet, but Dante stopped me by gripping my wrist in his big hand. He was warm, his touch surprisingly soft for someone so frightening.

He rubbed the inside of my wrist, right over the vein, with his thumb. “Start with the fruit.”

I dropped the knife to the plate, about to poke a slice of pineapple with the fork, when Dante stopped me again. “With your fingers, Raven.”

I almost apologized for not knowing the correct order of feeding Dante. But I stopped myself from being so stupid. He had a way of making me feel safe, even though I was far from it. Without his suit and gun, he looked like any other man. Only better looking than most. His body was a work of art sculpted to perfection.

Still, no matter how long I was his prisoner, I could never see him as anything more than my jailer. Angelo was the love of my life. No one and nothing could change that fact. I had to adapt to my new environment. It was the only way to survive in this world. I would have to pretend to like being with Dante.

My stomach turned at the thought of him on top of me, inside me, punishing me with his cock. That was how Lucky had described sex with Dante, which didn’t sound much different from sex with Angelo. Except what I had with Angelo was love, no matter how rough.

I pinched a cube of pineapple between my fingers and held it in front of Dante’s mouth. He moved forward, sinking his teeth into the fruit. Instead of taking it from me, Dante took my entire finger into his mouth and sucked. Hard.

Startled, my eyes went wide with shock. I attempted to remove my finger, but he gripped my wrist tight and held my hand in place. Juice was running down my hand. He licked every bit of the juice from my skin, before releasing his hold on me.

“You taste good,” he growled. “I can’t wait to taste the rest of you.”

It wasn’t hard for me to see why most of the girls were here of their own free will. Dante had a magnetism about him that drew you in, made you want to find ways to get closer to him. His power and dominance were nothing like Don Morelli’s, but he had the same intensity burning behind his dark and menacing eyes. He had so much sex appeal he oozed it with every ounce of his being.

I swallowed the lump at the back of my throat. “Your eggs are getting cold.”

He smirked. “I’d rather eat you.”

I lowered my eyes to the plate and stabbed at a few pieces of the Western omelet with the fork. Dante cupped his hand over mine, forcing me to look up at him. His warmth sent a brush of heat up my arm. It wasn’t the same sensation I felt when I was with Angelo. It was weird to be so close to this handsome man who had cold eyes that sent chills through me.

“You’re a beautiful girl, Raven.” His voice was so smooth and sensual, it was as if it had its own melody. “I still haven’t decided what to do with you.”

“Let me go,” I begged. “Please, let me go. I have a family who must be worried sick about me.”

“I can’t do that,” he growled, his tone shaking through me. “You are mine. I own you now.”

“My fiancé would pay the price. So would my dad. Name it. They will give you whatever you want.”

Dante hesitated for a second before he said, “You belong to me, Raven. No one else. I don’t care who you were before we met.”

“Do you know who I am?”

He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does. You will start a war if you keep me here.”

Dante released his grip on me and sank back into the stack of pillows behind him. He slid his hands behind his head and glanced over at me. “War is good for business. Every five to ten years, the East Coast families fight over something. One year it’s drugs, another it’s guns or whores. War is good because it helps us make room for a new regime. That’s how I became the boss of my family.”

I dropped the fork onto the plate and sat up, tucking one leg under the other. “I thought you had an alliance with the Morelli family.”

“I do.”

“Then, why would you do this to me?”

He shook his head, amused. “You were a gift from a friend. I did nothing wrong.” With a menacing gaze, Dante leaned forward, close enough I could feel his breath on my cheek. “And you’d be wise to shut your mouth and learn your place, little whore.”

“Angelo will kill you for this,” I choked out through gritted teeth.

“I’d like to see him try,” he countered with venom behind his words.

I raised my hand to my cheek. It was as if he spit acid on my face with the sting his breath left behind on my skin. “Am I worth all this trouble? Do you like locking up pregnant girls against their will just to satisfy your sick pleasures?”

Dante cocked an eyebrow at me, confused. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at me.

We didn’t speak, the uncomfortable silence making me even more nervous. Did I fuck up by confessing my possible pregnancy? I didn’t even know for sure, though I had my suspicions. My body was telling me something for almost two weeks, but I was too busy trying to survive to acknowledge all the signs.

Dante hit a button on a black box next to him. “Send Lucky in here.”

A minute later, Anthony opened the double doors, revealing the long marble hallway. Lucky pranced into Dante’s bedroom in a white lacy bra and matching thong that rode up her ass. She smiled at Dante as if he was her entire world. I looked at Angelo the same way. Whether she realized it or not, Lucky was in love with Dante. Even if her idea of love was different from mine, I couldn’t understand why she’d want to share him with ten women.

Lucky came up to Dante’s side of the bed and waited for him to slide his hand up her thigh, stopping at the thin string of her underwear. “Everything okay, Boss?”

He snapped the material between his fingers, ripping it from her body. A crooked smile curled up the corners of his mouth. “I expected more from you, Lucky. You’re supposed to teach Raven that there are rules in this house.”

“I’ve been trying, Dante.” Her voice sounded weak, defensive. “She’s not like the other girls.”

With the one strap broken, all it took was a slight tug for Dante to strip Lucky of her underwear. The situation was awkward, to say the least. Dante played with Lucky, staring over at me while he fingered her. His cock tented his boxer briefs, his length growing with each moan he ripped from her throat.

Why was he making me watch?

Was this a test to see if I would run away?

To see if I would join them?

As much as I wanted to look away, I understood this was part of the game, so I didn’t lower my gaze once.

After he made Lucky come with his fingers, Dante pushed his boxers over his hips and kicked them in my direction. His eyes never left mine. Dante leaned back against the headboard and pulled Lucky on top of him. Facing me, Lucky slid onto his thick cock and rode Dante. He gripped her hips, with his eyes still fixed on me, and bounced her up and down, making a hissing sound as he thrust deeper inside her.

She moaned.

He growled.

Lucky closed her eyes.

Dante winked at me.

What a sick fuck.

Was I next?

There was no way in hell I was going to fuck him. He would’ve had to tie me down or drug me before that would happen.

For at least a half hour, I endured the show that Dante and Lucky put on for me. He was one sick motherfucker, too. Dante bent her over the bed for the finale, with both of them looking right at me as they came. Of course, he chose to pull out of her and come all over her back. It was as if he was writing his damn name on her, claiming her as his.

Still behind Lucky, Dante leaned over to hit the button on the box on his nightstand to call Anthony. He ordered Lucky to get in the shower with the slap of her ass. She rolled off the bed and did as he commanded, staggering toward the door to the bathroom in the far corner. Lucky looked like a girl who was fucked so well she couldn’t remember her name. Angelo had left me like that so many times. I’d beg him for more until I would pass out from the pleasure.

Anthony came into the room and stood by the door with his hands on his hips, awaiting Dante’s next instruction.

Dante pointed his long finger at me. “Get rid of her.”

Anthony removed his hands from his hips and buttoned his suit jacket. “What did you have in mind?”

“We’re going through with the original plan.” Dante wiped his cock with a tissue from his bedside table and dropped it on the bed as if this was normal. “She’s not going to work out.”

Anthony closed the distance between us within seconds, his big hand gripping my bicep so tight I wanted to scream. “Get up,” he ordered.

Before I could react, Anthony pulled me off the bed with violent force. My back hit his chest so hard pain shot down my spine. He dragged me out of the room, closing the door behind us, and escorted me down the hall by the arm.

“Whatever you said to Dante you will soon live to regret.”

“I didn’t say anything. I asked him to let me go.”

“You did more than that,” Anthony shot back.

He stopped in front of my bedroom, unlocked the door with one of the keys from the ring he kept in his pocket and threw me inside like a sack of garbage. I fell to the floor, scraping my knees in the process.

Hugging my legs to my chest, I glanced up at Anthony with tears in my bottom lids. They fought to slip over, but I kept them at bay. Anthony wasn’t worth my tears. Either was Dante.

I didn’t need Anthony to tell me I was fucked. His eyes said everything I needed to know. We exchanged a brief second of silence. Then, he shut the door and locked me inside my prison.