Sold By My Ex, Claimed By The Devil Mafia King

ANYA'S POV

"He's losing so much blood. We need someone to save him!"

"We need blood stat!"

I blink awake, and suddenly I'm transported from the hospital room to Louise's Diner. I'm dozing at work again. I must be so tired, I dreamt of when Micah needed blood, and I was the only one who could donate to him.

We've been through a lot – Micah and I. We met at a foster home, and now we're working hard to run away from our shitty life in Chicago to Greece. Rather, I'm working so hard...Micah is yet to get a job. And although my job at Louie's dinner barely pays to cover my foster mother's hospital bills, and taking care of Micah and me, I take all the extra shifts I can.

"Girl, you need to go home. You look like you died in 2006 and nobody told you," Talia says, leaning against the breakroom doorway with a soda can pressed to her cheek. "Goodnight, Anya. For the hundredth time - you work too damn hard."

I shrug."Someone's gotta pick up the extra shifts."

"Yeah, but why does it always gotta be you?"She watches me for a beat before adding,"Seriously. Three doubles this week? Are you trying to pass out on the grill line?"

I manage a half-laugh as I shove my apron into the laundry bin. "If I don't, who will?"

She raises an eyebrow. "I don't know, literally anyone else? It don't always gotta be you. I'm the one who owns this place, and even I don't take as many shifts as you do."

I shake my head, but her words stick. They always do. Talia's like that - soft voice, sharp mind, the kind of woman who's seen everything and survived.

As I reach for my bag, she adds, quieter, "You going home to someone who's worth all this?"

That stops me for half a second. I think of Micah - his shaggy brown hair and green eyes form in my mind, but I don't know why I don't say yes to her question. Talia doesn't push, she just nods, like she already knows the answer anyway.

Just then my phone buzzes, and it's a text from Micah. I tug it from my pocket with frozen fingers and a half-smile already forming. But the smile freezes when I see the text.

Micah: Don't bother waking me. I'm exhausted. Locked the bedroom door.

I frown because this is odd. I read the message once, then again, before I text him back.

Me: But I brought food... your favorite.

No reply. Just the delivered checkmark taunting me. I ignore the feeling in my chest, but just tuck the phone away and zip my hoodie higher, trying to convince myself he's just tired. That I'm being paranoid. That everything is fine.

It has to be fine.

I walk fast, my steps echoing off empty sidewalks. By the time I reach our building, my fingers are numb and my toes ache. The stairwell reeks of weed and stale piss as always. I pass Mrs. Dillard's cat sleeping like royalty on the banister and haul myself up the stairs two at a time.

But when I reach the apartment door, my heart stutters. Not because I'm in love with Micah - it's not like that. But he's been with me through everything, through the kind of moments that either break people apart or fuse them together in ways they can't explain. I don't know if what we have is love, or just survival, but whatever it is, it's always felt like home.

The paper bag in my hand is still warm, grease soaking slightly through the bottom. I bought the extra tzatziki because he loves it. Chicken souvlaki, too. I had to skip lunch to afford it, but it didn't matter. I hope the smile on his face will be worth it.

I twist the knob and step inside the small apartment we share.

"Micah?" I call out, soft and unsure.

My voice gets swallowed by the stale heat of the apartment. At first, I see nothing out of place, but then the smell hits me, it smells like takeout and something else-metallic, almost. Like blood. No. Not blood - Sweat, skin, sex.

It smells like sex.

And asoon as my brain places the smell, it floods my senses.

Micah's door is slightly ajar. That's the first crack, the first little thing that doesn't feel right. He never leaves the door open. Especially since I told him I would like for us to wait until marriage. Plus, the neighborhood we live in is unsafe.

I take two steps inside, and I hear it before I see it. The sound that changes everything.

A moan.High-pitched and needy, followed by a low grunt. I freeze, my eyes locking on the closed bedroom door at the end of the hall. It's cracked just enough. I thought he said he locked it.

My body knows before my brain does. I move like I'm in a dream, slow and heavy, every step like walking through molasses.

I reach the door, and push it ajar and that's when I see the sight I'm not expecting – I see her first, she's naked, her pale thighs are wrapped around Micah's hips like they've done it a thousand times. Her red hair is messy and wild, her nails digging into his shoulders like she owns him.

Micah.

My Micah.

He doesn't look like a monster. That's the worst part.

My eyes look over his narrow, boyish frame he never quite grew into. He looks kind of guy who wore graphic tees in college and never stopped. Look at his soft brown hair, a few strands falling over his forehead. Green eyes, too clear, too bright for what he's doing. Freckles across the bridge of his nose. The kind of face that makes people say, "He'd never do that..."

But he is.

Right in front of me.

I don't scream. I don't cry. I just stand there.

His hands are wrapped around her throat, his body moving like it's never moved for me. Harder. Rougher. Even with me watching, he doesn't stop, he keeps moving in and out of her, like his release is more important than breaking my heart.

"Shit," he mutters. That's all he says. No panic. No apology. No Anya, wait, I can explain.

Just one word. Detached, like I'm the wrong one for being here. Like I'm some stranger off the street. Like I haven't given him everything.

I suddenly can't breathe.

I can't feel my hands. My knees lock. My chest hollows out like someone dug into me with a knife and scooped everything out.

The bag drops from my hand. It hits the floor with a soft thud, the kind of sound no one notices. But it feels like the loudest thing in the world.

I turn and run.

Out of the apartment. Down the stairs. Into the street.

I don't know where I'm going. I just need to get away.

I pass neon signs and honking cars, a man yelling into his phone, a woman dragging a toddler behind her. Life is still happening. For everyone else. But not me.

Everything feels unreal. Like I've stepped out of my body and left the real Anya standing there in that apartment with her dreams bleeding out on the floor.

We were going to go to Greece. Save up and backpack across the islands. We said we'd make it. We said we'd never end up like the people who raised us.

Micah was my home. My constant. My family when I didn't have one. We left foster care together and promised to take care of each other. We had a dream.

I think of my foster mother in the hospital– Anna. She's the only foster parent that wasn't mean to me, the closest thing to a family to me besides Micah, but she's unconscious in the hospital and has been that way for months.

And now-

Now I have no one.

My feet carry me through streets, but I keep walking. It's only when I'm a few streets away that I realize where my legs are taking me-I'm walking towards the hospital. Usually, when I don't know where to go, I head to the hospital to check on Anna's health and just sit with her in silence.

I'm taking a shortcut through an alley when I hear footsteps behind me. Suddenly, I realize I'm not alone. As though my heart can sense the incoming danger, it starts beating a thousand times per minute.

A dark voice comes from behind me, dark and sinister. "Hello Anya."

ANYA'S POV

"Hello, Anya."

I turn around to see two big men behind me. I can't pick out which one of them called my name. I look between their big, imposing figures, and I don't think they're here to sell me Girl Scout cookies.

My heart starts beating like a drum. The alley is completely deserted except for us, no witnesses.

I take a step back, heart pounding like it's trying to punch through my ribs.

How do they know my name?

"Don't be scared." One of them says, raising his hands like that makes this normal. "We just want to talk."

Talk?

People don't talk in alleys like this.

People don't smile like that unless they already know how this ends.

"Boss just wants a word, the other one adds. He reaches into his coat.

That's it. That's all I need.

Nope.

I turn and run.

Adrenaline kicks in hard. I bolt, lungs burning, sneakers slipping on the greasy pavement. I scream like my life depends on it - because it might.

"HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

I know I can't fight these men, and whatever they want – most likely money, I don't have it. So I do the next best thing, and I run.

I run screaming. "Helllpppppp!"

The cold night air punches me in the lungs as I tear down the stairs and out onto the street. My vision blurs with tears; rage, heartbreak, they all mix until I can't tell which is which. I don't stop. I don't look back. I run like death is chasing me. Maybe it is.

Three blocks later, I'm panting on a street corner, arms wrapped around myself, my body shivering in the wind, and my heart pounding like it wants out of my chest. I don't even know where I'm going. I just keep moving.

Then headlights slice through the night. At first, I think it's a cab, and my heart leaps with hope. I can get in and get away.

Then I see the blacked-out windows.

The sleek, silent way it rolls to a stop beside me.

I freeze.

The back door opens.

The two men from earlier step out. Black clothes. Black gloves. Blank faces.

Damn, they're really persistent, all I have on me are tips from working at Louise's tonight, and I don't think its enough motivation for them to be so adamant at getting me.

But I don't say any of that, instead, andrenaline surges through my veins and without thinking, I run again.

But it doesn't matter because the men are more prepared this time. I'm not quick enough, and hands grab me-one around my mouth, the other pinning my arms.

I thrash, kick, bite, fight like hell.

"Let me gooooooo!!!" I yell, kicking and screaming. But I'm much smaller in size, and tired from working all day, but they're not.

While I fight aginst their hands, one of them mutters something in Italian I can't understand, and the other answers with a grunt.

Then pain explodes in the side of my head. Bright and sharp.

Everything spins.

My legs give out.

As I slip into darkness, I hear one thing-low, clipped, urgent."Careful. Master will not like it if she's hurt."

Then the darkness swallows me.

I can't tell how long I was out for, but when I wake up, I'm in a different environment. The first thing I notice is the silk sheets, it feels heavenly on my skin. I look around, at first and notice I'm in an opulent bedroom.

I guess there are worse things than waking up tied to a bed in a stranger's mansion.

For instance, I could be dead. Or worse-still with Micah, who never hit me but always made me feel like I was two seconds away from being slapped. Emotionally, spiritually, financially.

Still. Being alive doesn't mean I'm safe.

And this room?

It screams expensive prison. The air smells like cedarwood and power. I sit up, and that's when I notice the figure leaning against the far wall-his arms crossed, his face carved from stone.

My heart starts beating twice the rhythm again, because I know that man.

Rylan D'Amato.

He's the same man I saw two years ago in a back alley with blood on his hands.

The man the whispers call the devil in a designer suit.

My chest tightens as I push myself against the headboard, my head pounding with something dull and lingering. Drugs, maybe. I can't remember how I got here. Only flashes. Louise's. Micah. The black SUV.

Oh Micah.

At the thought of his name, a tear slips down the edge of my eyes, his betrayal stings so much. An image flashes in my mind of him naked with that girl, and the tears run down my cheeks.

How could he?

But I wipe the tear furiously, and that's when the man in the shadow moves.

"You're awake." His voice hits like a shot of espresso laced with poison. Smooth, dark, with enough bite to make me flinch.

"You drugged me," I rasp, my voice hoarse but not broken.

He mutters a sharp curse in Italian under his breath, then lifts his gaze to mine. Something flashes is his eyes, is he... apologetic?

"Pardon," he says, voice smooth like velvet. "My men sometimes interpret my orders... creatively."

He steps into the light, and God help me, he's beautiful. Not the soft kind of beautiful. No. He's all hard edges and unrelenting grace.

I have to look up to take in his height. He's tall... really tall. Broad shoulders in a charcoal suit, a crisp white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, revealing tanned skin. Black hair combed back. Dark stubble shadows his jaw. His eyes are a piercing steel-gray-emotionless. Every inch of him is controlled, deliberate. From his wrist to his neck, I can see hints of Tattoos. He could be on the cover of GQ if he didn't look like he could end lives with a flick of his wrist.

He looks like a king.

No.

He looks like the kind of man who rules kingdoms through bloodshed.

"Where am I?" I ask.

Rylan smirks, and somehow it's worse than if he'd shouted. "Home," he says.

Whose home?"

He raises a brow. "Guess."

I freeze. "You kidnapped me...and brought me to your home."

He nods once, without apology. "Technically. But let's not get hung up on semantics."

I stare at him. "You're insane."

"You're mine." His tone is matter-of-fact. Like we're discussing the weather.

"What? No." I rise from the bed, legs shaky but fueled by adrenaline. "I don't know what the hell kind of power trip you're on, but I'm leaving."

His smile doesn't reach his eyes when he says, "Try."

I walk fast. My feet hit the cold marble floor, and I make it halfway across the room before the door swings open-two large men in black step in-the men from the alley.

I stumble back.

"They won't touch you unless I tell them to." Rylan's voice wraps around me like a noose. "But you won't make it far. You're in the middle of nowhere, and this house is locked tighter than a Vatican vault."

I whirl on him, chest heaving. "Why?"

His gaze drops to my lips, then lower, like he's memorizing every inch of me. "Because you were given to me. And now you belong to me."

"No." I shake my head. "I saw you kill and didn't tell anyone. That doesn't mean-"

"That's exactly why you're here." He closes the distance between us until I'm breathing in danger and spice. "You saw me. And you didn't run to the police. You didn't scream. That made me curious and so I had to find out more about you."

"You've been watching me," I say softly. It's more of a realization than a question. I know I've had the feeling of being watched, but no solid proof.

"For a while." He's so close now, I can see the flecks of steel in his dark eyes. "The way you smile at strangers. The way you cry in bathrooms because you think no one notices. The way you let that boy lie to you, over and over again, because you'd rather be used than be alone."

My breath catches.

"I've been watching you, and I know you're the kind of girl who fights back even when she's scared."

I tremble. "You can't keep me here."

His hand comes up. Fingers graze my jaw, deceptively gentle. "I'm offering you a deal."

I should slap him. I should scream. But I can't move.

"You want freedom? He murmurs. "Then earn it."

My mouth is dry, my heart is a drum in my chest, I can't believe I'm negotiating my freedom with a man who abducted me. But I lick my lips and ask."How?"

He leans in until his lips hover over mine, not touching, just promising.

"Be my wife."

The words slam into me.

"What-"

"Marry me. Tonight."

I blink in surprise, amazement, and disbelief. "Why the hell would you want to marry me?"

His smile is pure sin. "Because you're mine and I need a queen."

I can't breathe, it feels like the room is spinning. Yet, Rylan stands there in his impeccable suit like he just said the most reasonable thing in the world. "You're crazy."

His lips brush my ear. "This is the only way out. Play the game, Anya. Or die trying."

I don't answer.

I can't.

He doesn't blink. Doesn't waver when he says. "Either way, you belong to me now, Anya Cole."

RYLAN'S POV

Du-dum. Du-dum. Du-dum.

That's what my heart sounded like the moment I saw her two years ago.

I've never felt my heart beat - Not when I got shot in the chest in Baghdad, not when I strangled my first traitor, not even when I found my father's body in the middle of a fire.

No. My heart chose her. It chose the moment she stumbled in on me, seeing me finishing a job to beat very loudly for her.

Anya Cole, my heartbeat.

That night, she was standing in a pool of blood that wasn't hers, her mouth open in shock as she took in the scene.

Gunfire rang like church bells, and smoke curled through the alley. It was a job gone sideways. Bodies crumpled around me like discarded meat, but yet there she was. Frozen. A wisp of a girl who was lucky or unlucky to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, swallowed by an oversized hoodie, wide doe eyes locked on mine like I was the monster under her bed.

Maybe I am.

She didn't scream. Didn't beg. Just trembled and blinked at me.

Usually, I don't leave witnesses from any job. But that night? I lowered the gun. Not because the man in front of me was begging to spare her life. "Take her, he said, but don't kill her, please." And from that moment, Anya Cole became mine.

Who was that man? The man was her father, one of my most trusted men. But why did I accept his plea at that moment when she stumbled on the bloodshed we'd created? At first, I told myself she might be useful. A possible asset. Someone I could leverage.

But I knew I was lying to myself.

She made my heart beat. And no one has done that in years. So I made her mine.

I watched her for months. No-years.

A shadow at the edge of her life. Always from a distance. I told myself it was a strategy, or I was keeping tabs on a potential threat.

Bullshit.

It was obsession. I was obsessed with Anya Cole, pure, feral obsession.

I watched her pour coffee at that diner, her smile soft to every customer even when her eyes looked like she was fighting a battle. I saw her laugh with old ladies, then cry on rooftops when she thought no one was watching. I saw her light a birthday candle alone. I saw her struggle to take care of her foster mom in the hospital, and struggle to take care of herself and everyone around her.

Including that bastard Micah...

When he started screwing that redhead, I saw. Because I see everything. And when he left Anya waiting outside in the snow for two hours while he played pool in some dive bar, I saw that too. It took everything in me not to crush his throat that night.

But I waited. I played the long game.

She was almost twenty-one. The age her father set in stone in his final breath that I could take her. I'd kept the terms. And now that she's almost 21, I can't bare to see her struggle anymore. Especially not with that stronzo (asshole), Micah.

A week ago, I met Micah outside a strip club he didn't know I owned. He staggered out, smelling like weed and a reckless night.

"Whoa, I don't want any trouble," he said, hands raised like I was a cop instead of the man who ran this city's underworld.

"I want to talk to you about Anya Cole," was all I'd said to him.

He noticed my Rolex, rose gold, custom made, a One-of-a-kind piece, and his greedy throat swallowed.

"You want the girl? Ten grand," he blurted. "Take her. Hell, take her now. She'll be twenty - one in a few weeks. Consider it an early birthday gift."

"Done."

He laughed like he had won something. What he didn't know is that Anya was never his to give. She was always mine.

But I'll never tell her she was sold.

Only that she was given.

Now, in the quiet of my bedroom, I hear her breathing before I see her. Fast and sharp. Like she's trying to quiet herself and failing. I just told her she's mine and she bolted from the bed.

Now, she's standing by the window, silhouetted against the morning sun.

Her dark brown, long and wavy hair is a mess, tangled from sleep, and most likely the trip here, and her face is flushed from either fear or fury. Her big, expressive hazel eyes broadcast every feeling she tries to hide. A dusting of freckles over her nose, bitten lips that betray her nervous energy. There's a raw, wild beauty to her which makes it hard to look away.

"I'm not some gift," she snaps, whirling on me. "You can't keep me."

My gaze drops to her bare legs, then back up to the fire in her eyes.

"Yet here you are... In my house. In my bed." I step closer. She doesn't back away. Brave little dove.

"I have a life, a boyfriend-" As she says that, she clamps her mouth shut. I bet she's wondering if she still has a boyfriend after she saw him with another woman.

"Your boyfriend never had you. He was a placeholder."

She falls back onto the mattress, golden hair spiraling like she's some pissed-off cherub.

"You are insane, this is insane." she says into the ceiling.

"And yet you're still in my house."

"Because you kidnapped me."

"Because you belong here."

"Oh my God. You're delusional."

"You keep saying that like it's a bad thing."

She throws a pillow at my face. It lands with a dull puff. I let it hit.

"Why me?" she demands. "You could have any heiress, any model-hell, any living human with lips and a pulse."

"I don't want any of them. I want you. Because you're mine."

I step closer. Her throat bobs as she swallows.

"I know you're scared," I say. "But I will never hurt you."

She scoffs. "Except emotionally. And mentally. Possibly existentially."

"That's your choice. Fight me. Hate me. Spit fire every day-I'll love every second of it. But you won't leave."

"You're seriously out of your goddamn mind."

"Possibly."

"You need to let me go. I can't even process this. I have to be at work, my foster mom is in the hospital.. I – "

"Anya, I know this might be hard to take in. But you have no choice. Plus, you're mine now, so you never have to worry about things like working at a diner, or your foster mother's health bill."

I reach into my jacket. Her eyes narrow, body tensing as I pull out a velvet box.

She freezes as she watches me like an eagle. "What's that?"She eyes the box like it's a human head.

"A ring."

"You're proposing?"

"No. I'm informing you."

Her face is priceless. "You're informing me?"

"We're getting married. Tonight."

She opens the box slowly, eyes wide.

"This thing looks like it could fund a coup."

"It could. It has."

"What if I say no?"

"Then you choose death. That's the alternative. You're either mine or not at all."

At that, she goes quiet. Too quiet.

Her eyes flick left and right and I know she's up to something. She's scheming. But she doesn't know I'm always one step ahead.

"I need a moment... I... I need to process all this." She whispers.

"Take it."

I turn for one second – my mistake. I don't hear anything for a moment, and when I turn around, nothing is there. No one is there.

"Merda!" Shit!

She's gone!