Chapter 6 Monster!
Valeria’s POV
Pak!
A sharp, searing pain tore through my arm. The cry ripped out of me before I could stop it. My legs buckled. The ground rushed up. Darkness swallowed me whole.
I don’t know how long I was gone. Seconds? Hours? When I stirred, I felt an arm, strong and unyielding, threading through my hair with unsettling tenderness. My body stiffened as those fingers drifted lower, brushing over my chest, circling my nipple with a slowness.
My breath hitched. I bit down on a moan, shame burning hot under my skin. The sensation was twisted, ticklish, wrong, and yet my body betrayed me, trembling, reacting to every deliberate stroke.
A hot breath grazed my neck. Then lips. A kiss soft, lingering, and then the voice.
“You’re mine.”
The words sliced through a flog.
My eyes flew open. I gasped, sweat dripping down my forehead, my heart slamming in my chest. A nightmare. Just a nightmare.but the pain in my shoulder was real. Agonizing. And so was the voice that followed.
“You finally wake up, Valeria. I was beginning to think you’d prefer to sleep forever.”I jerked toward the sound.
Luciano.
He sat in the corner of the room like a king on his throne, one leg crossed over the other, his blue eyes locked on me with a predator’s gaze.
My stomach churned. This wasn’t the place I remembered. Nothing here was familiar.
“How the hell did I get here?” My voice cracked. I scanned my body frantically, searching for proof of the dream, for the ghost of his touch. Nothing.
Luciano’s lips curled into a sneer. He rose slowly, every step deliberate, his presence suffocating.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Valeria. You’re not my type.” His gaze slid over me like a blade. “I prefer my women filthy. Wild. Raw.” A smirk followed.“You were shot, I brought you here, That’s all.”
I opened my mouth to curse him, but he snapped his fingers. The door creaked open. A young man entered, pushing a stroller. On it, a red box, Luciano leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper that scraped against my nerves.
“I have something special for you. Trust me, you’ll love it.”
I recoiled, fury flashing in my eyes. He only smiled wider, savoring my defeat.
The box clicked open. One lock. Two. Each sound tightened the coil of dread in my chest until I could hardly breathe.And them the lid lifted.
My stomach lurched. A scream clawed up my throat, but all that came out was a strangled gasp. Inside lay a severed head, blood still dripping from its neck.
Simon.
My father’s right hand. His most trusted assassin. His executioner, now executed.
I gagged, clutching the sheets, the bile rising as Luciano’s voice filled the silence like poison.
“This man tried to kill you days ago.” He tilted his head. “I thought of sending your father a gift, something fitting for a future father-in-law. It took me a while to decide but this will do nicely.”
My vision blurred red. “You won’t dare.” My voice was cold, shredded with rage.
Luciano’s smile cut deeper than a knife. “Oh, I already have. His hands and legs are on their way to your father as we speak.”
My chest tightened, panic clashing with fury. My father, he would never forgive this. He would unleash hell itself. He would unleash it on me.
Was that Luciano’s plan? To have me torn apart by my own blood?Why the hell did I ever take a bullet for him? I hated him, hated the air he breathed, hated the way his voice still echoed from my dream, the way my body still burned where I had imagined his touch.
I shook my head violently, desperate to rip the thoughts away, but they clung like barbed wire.
And then came the darker truth.
If Simon was gone, if Luciano had crossed my father this way, then surely my father had already placed a bounty on me. On his own daughter.
I shut my eyes tightly. For one fleeting moment, I thought of my mother, trapped in that house, living under my father’s wrath. My chest ached with guilt, grief, fury.
I looked again at the box, at Simon’s lifeless eyes staring back at me, frozen in terror. The agony he must have endured before the blade took his head.I clenched my fists. And still, a bitter voice whispered inside me:
He deserved it.
I had to move now. The thought of Father getting his hands on Simon’s parts slammed into me like a fist. A searing bolt of pain lanced through my left arm, but I shoved it down and spun out of bed, my feet hitting the floor before my brain finished deciding. I lunged for the door, my heartbeat drum in my throat.
Luciano’s hand caught my wrist like iron.
“Do you think you can stop them? Don’t be stupid, Valeria.” He pulled his phone out with a slow, casual menace and turned it so the screen burned into my eyes. A message glared: Delivered. His smirk was a blade. He waved the phone at me.
My rage exploded. My hand moved before I could think. The phone slammed into the wall with a sick, glassy crack; the sound echoed like a gunshot.
“What have you done? You’re going to get me killed,” I hissed, gnawing in rage, turning away to hide the pain i felt.
“You don’t get it.” Luciano’s voice was even, dangerously quiet. “You’re not permitted to die, unless I say so. Got it?” A cold smile slowed across his face like oil.
Something vicious snapped inside me. “Maybe I should just kill you right here and forget your contract. Wouldn’t that be nice, Luciano?” I stepped closer until I could see the small lines at the corners of his eyes. “I hate you,” I spat, each word a shard I aimed at him. Then I turned and stalked out, leaving him standing in the wreckage of my fury.
Tears burned at the edges of my vision; I swallowed them down. He was the enemy,he could never be let inside my weakness. Still, beneath the shaking, a colder thing planted itself: when the contract ended, I would end him. The vow settled like a stone in my chest.
By the time I reached my room my legs felt like lead. I slammed the door so hard the frame shuddered and locked it on reflex. Then I sank to the floor and let the sobs come bitter, clawing because the thing I feared most was not the contract or Luciano’s smile. It was my Father, and the image of him with Simon’s parts made me shiver in fright.