The Ruthless Don's Obsession: You Can't Run

I walked into the Thorn estate with another man's diamond on my finger, naive enough to think it could shield me from Marcus.

But the Don of the city's underworld didn't even blink.

He called my engagement ring a "cute trinket" and introduced me to his own fiancée, Chloe, right then and there.

"Love is a fairy tale for children, Ellie," he sneered. "And you are far too old for fairy tales."

I tried to leave with dignity, but the knife twisted deeper. I found my mother's silver locket-the one he swore to protect with his life-buried in the mud like trash.

He hadn't just rejected me; he had erased me.

Broken, I fled to Florence to marry a man I didn't love, just to escape the suffocation of the estate.

But I couldn't outrun the heartbreak. I collapsed in a foreign apartment, burning with fever, while my fiancé worried more about wedding seating charts than my life.

I thought I was going to die alone.

Until I woke up in a sterile clinic room.

My fiancé was gone.

Standing by my bed, looking like a vengeful god who had just burned down a city to get to me, was Marcus.

He trapped me against the mattress, his eyes dark with a terrifying mix of rage and possession.

"Did you really think you could run from me?" he growled.

"I returned the locket," I whispered, trembling. "We are even."

"Fuck the locket," he said. "You belong to me, Ellie. And I am not leaving without you."

Chapter 1

Ellie POV

I walked back into the Devil's playground wearing another man's promise on my finger, naive enough to think a cold diamond could protect me from the fire.

Four years.

That was how long I had spent in Italy, breathing air that didn't reek of gunpowder and expensive scotch.

I stood before the massive oak doors of the Thorn estate. My hand trembled, not from the biting cold, but from the weight of the ring David had slid onto my finger three days ago.

It was a shield. A declaration.

I was Ellie. Just Ellie. Not the terrified orphan Marcus Thorn had taken in. Not the bird he kept in a gilded cage.

I pushed the doors open.

The air inside was stagnant. It was a heavy silence that smelled of lemon polish, cedar, and buried secrets.

Maria was the first to see me. She dropped the linen napkins she was folding onto the mahogany table.

"Ellie?" she whispered.

I rushed to her. Her embrace was the only thing in this house that felt like home. She smelled of lavender and starch, a scent that instantly brought tears to my eyes.

"Look, Maria," I said, holding up my hand. The diamond caught the dim light of the foyer. "I'm engaged."

Her eyes widened. But instead of joy, I saw stark fear.

"Does he know?" she asked.

He.

There was only one He in this world. Marcus Thorn. The Don. The man who controlled the city's underworld with a whisper and shattered lives with a glance.

"Not yet," I said, my voice sounding stronger than I felt. "I'm going to tell him now."

I needed him to see me. Not as the child he saved, but as the woman who didn't need saving anymore.

I walked toward his study. The hallway felt longer than I remembered, stretching out like a dark throat. The portraits of dead Thorn ancestors seemed to glare at me from their gilded frames.

I reached for the handle.

"Miss Ellie."

I turned. It was his assistant, a man whose face was as blank as a fresh sheet of paper.

"Mr. Thorn is in a meeting. He cannot be disturbed."

"I'm his daughter," I said, though the word tasted like ash. In every way that mattered, he was my father. Or at least, that was the lie we told the public.

"He knows you are here," the assistant said, his tone clipped. "He said he will see you when he has time."

The rejection hit me square in the chest.

Four years away, and I was still just an inconvenience.

I wandered into the living room to wait, needing to escape the assistant's pitying gaze.

Two maids were dusting the mantle. They didn't see me standing in the shadows.

"I can't believe he's actually doing it," one whispered.

"A wedding."

"Miss Chloe is lucky," the other replied. "He bought her that villa in the south of France just because she mentioned she liked the wine there."

My blood ran cold.

Chloe.

The name was a knife twisting between my ribs.

I remembered when my father died. He handed me to Marcus. Marcus promised to protect me.

I remembered giving Marcus my mother's silver locket. He swore he would keep it safe in his study, where no one else could go.

He was my world. My gravity.

The study door opened.

Marcus walked out.

He hadn't aged. If anything, the years had sharpened him. He stood at six-three, a monument of lethal elegance. His suit cost more than most people made in a decade.

He looked at me.

His eyes were dark. Void of light.

"Marcus," I breathed.

I stepped forward, lifting my hand. I wanted to shove the ring in his face. I wanted a reaction. Anger. Joy. Anything.

"I'm getting married," I said.

He didn't blink.

He looked at the ring. Then he looked at my face.

"Cute," he said.

The word was a slap.

"Is this your new way of getting attention, Ellie? Buying yourself a trinket?"

"It's real," I choked out. "His name is David. He loves me."

Marcus let out a short, humorless laugh. It was a terrifying sound.

"Love is a fairy tale for children, Ellie. And you are far too old for fairy tales."

A woman walked out of the study behind him.

Chloe.

She was beautiful in a sharp, predatory way. She placed a manicured hand on Marcus's arm. He didn't shake it off.

"Oh, is this the little ward?" Chloe asked, her voice dripping with fake sweetness.

Marcus looked at her. The coldness in his eyes thawed, just a fraction.

"Ellie, meet Chloe. My fiancée."

The world stopped spinning.

"We are announcing it next week," Marcus continued, his voice flat. "It is a good match for the family."

He looked back at me.

"Don't embarrass me with your little games, Ellie. Go to your room."

I stood there. Frozen.

The maze I had been running in for years suddenly made sense. There was no exit. There was only him.

And he didn't care.

He turned his back on me.

In that second, something inside me snapped. It wasn't a loud break. It was the quiet sound of a foundation crumbling.

I wasn't his daughter. I wasn't his priority. I was a pet he had grown bored of.

I turned and walked toward the stairs.

I didn't cry.

I reached my old room. It looked exactly the same. Preserved. Like a museum exhibit for a dead girl.

I walked to the window. The sun was setting over the desert, painting the sand red.

"I am leaving," I whispered to the glass.

I wasn't just going back to Italy. I was severing the limb to save the body.

But as I looked at the vast, empty desert, I didn't know that walking away wouldn't be enough. You can't walk away from the devil when you've already sold him your soul.