BETRAYED BY THE MAFIAN DON

Alessia's POV

The night I broke every rule and gave myself to a stranger… Was the same night my entire world burned.

Blood, Bodies, Silence

I didn’t know it then, not when I was tangled in hotel sheets or drowning in a stranger’s heat and rebellion. Not when I laughed too loud or drank too much or let myself moan names I should have destroyed.

But as I tasted freedom for the first time… My family was being slaughtered.

My home was a massacre in motion.

And I… I was too busy chasing ruin.

Twelve Hours Earlier

If Papa found out where I was, someone would bleed.

Probably me, or the bartender, or my best friend, or the boy who looked at me twice.

That’s how the Moretti family worked. No second warnings. Just scars.

The bass inside the club pounded like war drums, deep, feral, and raged. Strobe lights carved the air into flashes of silver and shadow. Bodies moved like they were starving. Lust. High heat. All of it. I shouldn’t have been here.

"Alessia!" Lila's voice cut through the madness as she grabbed my wrist. Her eyes were wild, with black eyeliner smudged like war paint. "You're smiling! I can see you are finally having fun.”

Fun? I was far from that. But tonight I could pretend. Pretend I wasn’t the daughter of Italy’s most feared Mafia lord, nor the heiress locked in her father’s mansion.

I was just a girl in a stolen dress with fear crawling under her skin.

Lila grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the bar like this was the start of a rom-com and not the kind of mistake I’d regret for the rest of my life.

“Two shots of whatever burns!” she yelled to the bartender.

"I don’t drink," I muttered, sliding onto a cracked barstool like I’d done it a thousand times. Lie.

"You do tonight." She shoved a shot glass into my hand. "To freedom."

I hesitated, then I drank.

It scorched its way down my throat like liquid fire.

“Holy shit,” I rasped, blinking back tears. “That was—”

“Terrible?” She laughed. “Welcome to being human.”

I smiled. A real one this time. Small, sharp. Fragile.

For a moment, I could pretend I wasn't afraid. No guards. No rules. No, Papa. Just music and heat and the sweet, terrifying taste of choice.

But I felt it. The ghosts of his orders pressing into my skin like invisible cuffs. "No drinking. No clubs. No cameras. And absolutely no men."

Papa doesn’t bluff. He once ordered for a man’s finger to be cut off because his watch ticked so loud during brunch, or was it when my cousin Cassie tried sneaking out once? Papa’s men dragged her home by her hair. The boy she was with? No one has seen him since then.

She laughed. “You’re free for one night. Loosen up. No last names. No rules. Just us.”

She winked and disappeared into the crowd, swallowed up by sweat and music.

I glanced at the exit again, somehow it became a part of me now.

Old habits. Fear doesn’t go away just because the music is loud.

“You okay?” the bartender asked, watching me.

“Yeah.” I lied again. “Can I get another?”

He nodded. I tapped my fingers against the bar like I wasn’t unraveling. My eyes actively scanned the room and everyone in it.

Then I saw him.

Dark suit. Open collar. Rolex. And a stare like a loaded weapon.

He wasn’t watching the people dancing.

He was watching me.

Heat crawled up my spine.

He looked like sin made flesh. Like he’d burned down better lives than mine for fun.

I turned away, but I felt him moving.

Closer and closer.

My breath hitched.

He stopped beside me, his presence consuming, like gravity shifted around him. He smelled of expensive, dark cologne and something colder. Blood, maybe. Power.

“You look like you're pretending not to be scared,” he said.

I flinched.

"What?"

“You don’t belong here.”

“Neither do you.”

His eyes narrowed, unreadable. “You’ve been watching the exits. You flinch when the door opens, and… you haven’t taken your eyes off me.”

I curled my fingers around the glass.

“Do you always psychoanalyze strangers in nightclubs?”

“No,” he said. “Just you.”

I swallowed. The music kept pounding, but the world felt muffled. All I could hear was my own pulse.

“I’m not scared,” I lied.

His lips curled. Not quite a smile. “You’re terrified.”

I hated that he could see through me so easily.

He leaned closer. “Go home, princess. Before someone really ruins you.”

I could’ve walked away. Should’ve.

But then I said the thing that changed everything.

“What if I want to be ruined?”

He froze. His jaw tightened like I’d drawn blood.

Then slowly, he turned back to me. His eyes, dark, hungry, and dangerous, dragged over me like a threat and a promise.

“You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

“Maybe not,” I whispered. “But I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to be told what to do. Not tonight.”

A silence stretched between us, taut and electric.

Then he nodded, once, toward the back door. “Come.”

Every part of me screamed NO!!!.

But I followed.

Maybe it wasn’t the alcohol. Maybe I just wanted someone to look at me like I wasn’t a pawn on Papa’s chessboard.

11:53 p.m. The drive was a blur. My phone buzzed. I sent Lila my location just in case.

The hotel was high-end. Private. The kind of place Papa’s men would never think to look. Moonlight spilled across glass and chrome. Everything was sleek. Silent. Expensive.

He removed his jacket. Unbuttoned his cuffs, then paused.

“You can still leave.”

I should’ve.

But I didn’t.

“I’m staying,” I whispered.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t speak. He just claimed me.

That night, I gave myself to a stranger who wore danger like designer. And for once, for the first time, I wasn’t Papa’s obedient little chess piece.

I was just… me.

The Next Morning

I woke up to silence. The bed was cold.

He was gone.

Panic clawed up my throat. I sat up fast. My head throbbed. The sheets smelled like him—like smoke and spice and something that made me ache.

I stumbled out of bed, clutching the blanket to my chest. I grabbed my phone.

6:02 a.m.

Shit.

Less than an hour before the guards switch positions.

Panic bloomed in my chest. I stood, clutching the sheet around me. My legs were shaky. My body was sore in places I didn’t want to think about.

Then I saw it.

A folded napkin on the nightstand. Neat. Deliberate.

My stomach twisted as I picked it up.

Two words, scrawled in rushed, almost mocking handwriting: "Thanks for the ruin."

That was it.

No name. No number. No “Let’s talk.” No “Call me.” Just a goodbye dressed up as a punchline.

My throat tightened. My fingers clenched. Just two words, like I was a whore.

Tears burned the back of my throat but I didn’t cry. Not for him. Not for a night I never should’ve had.

And still beneath the shame, beneath the fury was something worse.

A tiny part of me… wanted him to come back.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid..

I crushed the napkin in my fist, tightened my jaw because I wasn’t that girl.

I didn’t do one-night stands., nor getting ruined and left like some charity case.

But for the first time someone treated me like trash.

But admist this chaos, my family was already slaughtered.