Chapter 4 She Was His Now

He muttered the word like he was tasting blood and honey on his tongue.

"Anything."

He let it settle.

The rain crashed harder now. Piss and old blood clung to the walls. The concrete underneath her knees stank like the kind of place where even demons came to die.

She didn't breathe. Couldn't. Not with him still towering over her like a storm wearing skin.

His fingers hovered near her throat again, twitching..like they ached to feel her pulse stutter beneath them. Like they missed the frantic flutter of her life beneath his touch.

Her own hands were useless, trembling in her lap like broken wings. She wanted to crawl away. Wanted to scream.

But she had already said it.

Anything.

That word was no longer hers.

He straightened slowly, the knowing grace of a man who had already won.

Towering.

Watching.

Owning.

His eyes didn't move from her, not even as he slid the gun into the holster beneath his coat. The weapon vanished, but the threat didn't.

His gaze was ravenous. Starving. Curious in the worst way.

Then he moved.

Not with violence. Not with anger.

But with something worse.

Intimacy.

His fingers found her hair..soaked, matted, clinging to her face. He brushed it back with sickening gentleness, fingertips dragging across her cheek like he was savoring the texture of her fear.

"You're beautiful when you're broken," he whispered, voice low and aching with reverence.

Her body jerked.

He didn't stop.

His thumb traced the curve of her cheek like she was a thing to be studied. A thing to be ruined. A thing to be kept.

"I could've killed you. Should've." He smiled then. Not warmth. No humanity. A jagged, gleaming thing. "But then..."

He leaned down again.

Inches from her.

"...you said the magic word."

His breath spilled over her skin like sin, hot and slow and deliberate.

Anything.

He repeated it without sound this time. Let it hang between them like a chain.

Then he knelt again. Slower. More relaxed. Like he had time now. Like the game was his and he had all night to play it.

"You're coming with me," he said, softly. Like a lover. Like a god.

Her eyes went wide. "W-what?"

"You heard me, puttana." He grabbed her jaw, fingers bruising her skin. "You don't walk away from this. You want to live? Then you live on your knees. You belong to me now. I own you."

"No..no, please, I...I have a job, a home, I..."

His palm slammed into her chest.

"You gave yourself to me the second you begged," he growled, voice shaking with something feral. "Don't you fucking whimper now like you didn't mean it."

She sobbed.

Hot and wet and terrified.

He leaned down again, planting one hand beside her head. The other reached for her hoodie, yanking it tight around her neck until she gasped. Until her nails scratched the ground trying to claw away from the sudden lack of air.

And then came the blade.

Shimmering. Thin. Merciless.

Her lungs froze.

He saw it.

And smiled like the devil who just found a virgin.

"Relax," he whispered, dragging the sharp edge slowly along the fabric instead of her skin. "If I wanted to carve you open, I'd do it without warning."

Rip.

The hoodie split.

The thin shirt underneath clung to her soaked skin, outlining everything.

Her nipples peaked hard beneath the fabric from the cold. From fear. From humiliation.

She whimpered again, trying to cover herself with shaking hands.

He caught her wrists in one brutal grip and slammed them above her head.

Pinned.

He stared.

And growled.

"Goddamn." His voice dropped to a purr. "Even prettier than I imagined. And I haven't even unwrapped you yet."

She turned her face away.

He yanked her chin back.

"Look at me."

Her lip trembled.

His eyes held hers.

And what stared back wasn't man.

It was possession.

Claim.

Something older than hunger. Deeper than lust.

"You belong to me now," he whispered. "And I take care of what's mine."

He pressed his forehead to hers. The contact..soft, almost tender..made her body recoil with disgust. With fear. With unbearable confusion.

"From this moment on," he breathed, "you breathe when I say. You eat when I say. You fucking exist when I allow it."

Her voice broke. "Please..."

His smile widened.

"Good girl. Already begging. And I haven't even broken your cunt in yet."

She sobbed harder.

Her teeth rattled from it. From the cold. From the shame.

He watched her like a man admiring a masterpiece of ruin.

Then his voice changed.

Colder. Sharper.

"You're going to follow me out of this alley. Quiet. Obedient. No screaming. No running."

He yanked her hair hard enough to make her scream, then hissed into her ear.

"If you make a sound...I'll drag your corpse back here and fuck it until your blood runs dry."

Silence.

She didn't blink. Didn't move. Didn't breathe.

He stood.

His voice cracked like thunder. "Now. On your knees."

She stared up at him. Lips parted. "W-what?"

"I said get on your fucking knees."

She obeyed.

Slow.

Shaking.

She rose to her knees in the middle of the piss-soaked alley, the rain running down her face like baptism and burial all at once.

He watched her like a king watching his slave crawl for the first time.

Then he reached into his coat again.

And pulled out a collar.

Black leather. Thick. Unforgiving.

A silver tag hung from the center.

He dangled it in front of her.

"Hold your hair up, little pet."

She didn't move.

So he did it for her.

Fist in her hair.

Yanking her head back, exposing her neck.

The collar snapped into place with a click that sounded like a prison door slamming shut.

She gasped.

He brushed the metal with his thumb, admiring it.

"Perfect," he whispered.

Then he pulled the leash from his coat.

Attached it to the ring on her collar.

And yanked.

She stumbled forward onto all fours, the leash jerking tight against her throat. Rainwater soaked her knees.

He didn't look back.

He just walked.

Dragging her behind him like a stray dog finally claimed.

"Time to go," he called, voice calm and cruel. "You've got a lot to learn, little doctor. Time is not on our side"

Isadora could not just let him win. She thought pleading with him the more would make him understand her.

Would make him think twice. So she screamed out so loud that even the birds on the trees scattered by the sound of it.

"Please let me go!!! Argh!!!!!!!

Dominic tilted his head, those bottomless black eyes scanning her slowly. Drinking her in. From the piss-soaked denim clinging to her thighs.

"Let you go?" he murmured, almost tenderly.

He leaned in.

"I kill men for blinking at me wrong," he said,

"And you think I'm going to let you go?"

"I swear...please...I'm not gonna tell anyone...I didn't even see his face...I don't even know the person you killed...I have short term memory....i swear to God sometimes I forget my own name....I didn't know what I was looking at...just please..."

She tried to-move backward. Slipping in her own piss. Her palms scraping through gravel. Her knees dragging through mud and blood, slick and cold.

"I just want to go home," she whispered. "Please don't take me. I don't want to go with you."

"I'll forget everything. Every fucking thing. I swear to God. I'll go home, I'll never speak of this again, please. I'm not built for this. I'm not like you. I don't belong in this....."

He grabbed her face mid-plea, cutting her off with bruising fingers.

His grip was merciless. His thumb dug into her cheek. His palm flattened against her jaw, forcing her mouth open with a gasp.

"Not like me?" he hissed, breath a demon's heat against her lips. "You think this world gives a shit what you're built for?"

She sobbed, her hands clawing at his wrist, her nails desperately scratching him.

"You think you get to choose whether you belong in it or not?"

He leaned in until their foreheads touched. Until his voice vibrated in her bones.

"You walked into my world, little doctor. You chose the wrong fucking alley. Heard the wrong scream. And now you want to beg your way out?"

She nodded wildly, tears soaking her face.

"Yes...yes...I'll do anything...just not this. Don't take me with you. Please...I just want to go home. I'm not a threat to you. Just let me live. Let me fucking live."

That last word ripped from her throat in a scream.

Dominic let go.

She crumpled into the ground.

And he stood there.

Smiling.

Watching her fall apart like it was entertainment.

"You think this is about sparing you?" he asked, voice cold and unhurried. "You think I didn't already make that decision the second you screamed?"

He stepped toward her.

She tried to back away on her elbows, slipping again.

He crouched beside her like a predator admiring its catch.

"You don't get to beg anymore," he murmured, inches from her trembling lips. "You don't get to choose what happens next."

He snatched her wrist and yanked her violently to her feet.

She screamed again, legs collapsing beneath her weight.

"No...no, please, PLEASE...I don't want to go with you!"

"You are," he growled, dragging her against his chest, his breath hot and vile against her ear. "And you're going to learn exactly what it means to belong to me."

His hand closed around the back of her neck, shoving her face against his soaked shirt.

"And if I hear you beg to be let go one more fucking time again....

He wrenched her head back by the hair. Her gasp punched the air.

"...I will fuck you right here in this alley. With your tears on my cock and the rain soaking your screams and then burst your brains out and throw you down the bridge! So keep your fucking mouth shut!"

Her breath caught. Froze.

Time stopped around them.

And then he let her go.

She collapsed against him, sobbing.

And he held her like a thief clutching stolen treasure.

"Mine now," he whispered into her hair, voice heavy with possession. "And when I'm done with you, even God won't recognize what's left."

And she followed them without complaining. She didn't cry anymore. She had no tears left to cry in her eyes. She was already exhausted.

Because what other choice did she have?

She had said it.

Anything.

And now, she would learn what everything truly meant.