Chapter 5 The First Burn

The air in the villa had grown stifling, thick with expectation and something darker like the calm before a storm, she had grown accustomed to the quiet power that surrounded him, the way his every word was a command. The way his presence demanded absolute submission. But today, the tension in the air was different more palpable, more dangerous.

It was a simple request at first, a test, he called it. His voice had been smooth, almost teasing when he gave it but the weight behind it was unmistaken. "tonight, you all serve at a meeting. You will observe, nothing more. Just serve drinks, keep your distance understand?"

"little bird I said no talking, just observe okay!!?"

It didn't take long for her to realize the true meaning of those words.

The meeting wasn't just any meeting, it was a gathering of the most dangerous men in the world the mafia, each one colder and ruthless than the last.

She had heard the stories and rumors that whispered through the corridors of the villa but nothing prepared her for what she was about to witness.

The room has a heavy scent of cigars and expensive whiskey thick in the air, power men set around a long table speaking in low tones.

But it wasn't the conversation that caught her attention rather it was the weight of violence that hung over them like the one she had never seen in a life before.

As she moved silently between the men, pouring drinks her heart raced in her chest. Her hands shook slightly as she placed a glass before one of them, but she didn't dare let it show every instinct screamed for her to flee to run from the room and never look back.

But it was then it happened A man at the far end of the table drunk and loud made a sudden move toward another, a slight, a comment that was too much to bear. The tension in the room broke like glass, she watched, frozen, as two men stood shoving each other violently. The noise the chaos it happened so fast. A flash of knives, of blood, of men grappling in silence, their eyes cold with death.

She stood there paralyzed the world around her spinning as the brutality unfolded before her eyes, and just as quickly , it was over. The men sat back down, like nothing had happened the tension settling back into the air like dust.

But one pair of eyes lingered on her the Don's, his gaze never left her as he observed the scene unfold. He hadn't made a sound, hadn't moved but his presence was undeniable like a shadow that stretched across the room. As the last of the blood was wiped away, his voice sliced through the stillness, low and commanding.

"Did you learn something, little one?" His words were a warning, an invitation.

The room grew colder, the faces around the table didn't look at her they didn't care because she was nothing to them. But the Don ...... the Don cared in his own way.

He stood slowly his eyes never leaving hers, " this world isn't for the soft," he said quietly, but the weight of his words carried more than just a warning. It was a challenge, a test.

She wasn't soft, she would prove it.

But as the night dragged on, and she made her way back to her room, her body trembling from what she had seen, her mind began to unravel. The image of the violence of the bloodshed haunted her.

She tried to shake it off, to bury it deep inside where it wouldn't surface again but it lingered.

And then came the dreams.

They weren't nightmare not exactly, they were darker, seductive even. In them, the Don was there his eyes like molten steel, his hands holding her captive in a way that was both terrifying and thrilling. She couldn't escape, he wouldn't let her. She didn't want to.

The images in her mind were tangled mess of power and desire of violence and intimacy, the fear she had felt that night seemed to bleed into something else, something dangerous, something she didn't understand.

But she knew this much, she wasn't the same person anymore. Something had changed, twisted inside her and it was just the beginning. She would never be soft again nt in this world not with him.

And as the night wore on, she wondered how far she would go to survive tis twisted game he was playing and whether she would want to stop.