Page 52 of Ruined By the Mafia Kings (Alpha Mafia Kings #1)

“Why wouldn’t you?” I challenged. “I’m just the unlucky breeding vessel De Luca assigned to you. A convenient hole during your captivity. Don’t pretend I’m special just because I’m the only omega in your current zip code.”

The silence that followed my outburst was heavy, charged with something I couldn’t quite name.

“You think that’s all you are to us?” Mr. Storm finally asked, his voice carrying a rare edge of emotion. “Convenient?”

“What else would I be?” I shot back, ignoring the way my heart raced at the implication that I might be more.

“Everything,” he said simply.

My breath caught in my throat, the raw honesty in that one word slipping past my defenses with devastating effectiveness.

“Don’t,” I whispered, pressing my forehead against the door. “Don’t say things like that. It’s not fair.”

“Why?” Mr. Enigma asked gently. “Because it makes it harder to pretend you don’t feel the same way?”

“Because it’s a lie,” I insisted, though even to my own ears it sounded like I was trying to convince myself. “It has to be. You’re mafia alphas. I’m a nobody omega with a debt-ridden father and a talent for sarcasm. In what universe does that lead to anything but disaster?”

“In this one,” Mr. Iceflare replied without hesitation. “The real one. Where you’re not ‘nobody’ but Ty Hart—the most stubborn, infuriating, captivating omega I’ve ever encountered.”

“The one who stands up to us even when terrified,” Mr. Enigma added. “Who uses humor as armor but shows glimpses of something softer underneath.”

“Who sees us,” Mr. Storm finished quietly. “Not just what we are. Who we are.”

I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the way their words resonated with something deep inside me. “This is emotional manipulation,” I said, but the accusation sounded weak even to my own ears. “You’re just saying what you think will get me to open the door.”

“Then don’t open it,” Mr. Iceflare said, surprising me. “Stay there if it makes you feel safer. But listen to us. Hear what we’re trying to tell you.”

I heard his chain shift as he moved, the sound coming from lower down now, like he’d sat or knelt.

“I’ve never begged for anything in my life,” he continued, his voice lower, more intimate. “But I’m begging now. Don’t shut us out, little mouse. Not when we’ve only just found you.”

A sound escaped me, something between a laugh and a sob. “Found me? I was literally delivered to you as a breeding omega. It’s not like you discovered me through a dating app.”

“The circumstances of our meeting don’t change what’s happened since,” Mr. Enigma argued. “What’s still happening, whether you hide behind that door or not.”

My body was betraying me, responding to their voices with eagerness. My nipples hardened against the thin fabric of my shirt. The fever-like symptoms were intensifying—skin hot, heart racing, a hollow ache in my core that had nothing to do with heat and everything to do with their absence.

“This isn’t normal,” I said, more to myself than to them. “This intensity, this connection—it’s too fast, too much.”

“Says who?” Mr. Enigma challenged. “What rulebook are you following that dictates how quickly people can form connections? How deeply they can feel?”

“Common sense,” I retorted. “Self-preservation. The basic human instinct not to get emotionally attached to people who’ve threatened to hunt me down and make me pay for my sins.”

“We were wrong,” Mr. Iceflare said, the admission clearly costing him. “About you. About your role in our captivity. We know you had no choice.”

“How convenient that you’ve changed your minds now that I’m useful to you,” I said bitterly. “Now that I’m the warm body getting you through your captivity.”

“Is that really what you think?” Mr. Enigma asked, genuine hurt in his voice. “After everything we’ve shared? The moments when it was more than just physical relief?”

I remembered those moments—Mr. Iceflare’s thumb stroking my cheekbone as he looked at me with something like wonder; Mr. Enigma holding my face as he kissed me like I was something precious; Mr. Storm’s hand over my heart, his quiet presence making me feel safer than I had in years.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I admitted, the honesty feeling strange on my tongue after so many days of defensive sarcasm. “This whole situation is so far beyond my experience that I don’t have a frame of reference. I don’t know what’s real and what’s just… circumstantial adaptation.”

“Then let us show you,” Mr. Iceflare said, his voice dropping to that register that seemed to bypass my brain and speak directly to my omega hindbrain. “Open the door, little mouse. Let us prove what we’re saying is real.”

I rested my forehead against the door, torn between the desperate need to believe them and the equally powerful urge to protect myself from inevitable heartbreak.

“I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m scared.”

“Of us?” Mr. Storm asked simply.

“No,” I admitted before I could stop myself. “Of me. Of what I’m feeling. Of what happens when you’re free and realize these feelings were just a product of captivity.”

“That won’t happen,” Mr. Enigma promised. “What we feel for you isn’t going to disappear with these chains.”

I laughed bitterly. “You can’t know that. None of us can. This entire situation is so far from normal that we have no idea how we’ll feel once it’s over.”

“Then trust your instincts,” Mr. Iceflare urged. “What is your omega telling you about us? About our connection?”

That was the problem—my instincts were screaming that these alphas were mine, that the connection between us was real and rare and worth fighting for.

But my rational mind, the part that had kept me alive and independent for years, was equally insistent that this was a trap, a biological trick, a road to destruction.

I pushed myself to my feet. My skin felt too tight, my temperature rising to uncomfortable levels. The physical symptoms of separation were intensifying, but it was the emotional turmoil that was truly unbearable.

“I need to think,” I said, though thinking was becoming increasingly difficult as my body rebelled against the alphas’ absence. “I need time.”

“We understand,” Mr. Enigma said, though I could hear the strain in his voice. “We’ll be here when you’re ready.”

I heard their chains shift as they moved away, giving me the space I’d requested even as my treacherous body cried out for their return.

For the next hour, I paced my quarters restlessly.

My brain kept making lists while my body staged its own rebellion.

Pro: staying away protects my heart. Con: my skin feels unbearably painful.

Pro: emotional distance means eventual survival.

Con: I might not survive the next ten minutes if this fever gets any worse.

My body temperature had risen to concerning levels, my skin so sensitive that even the softest t-shirt felt painful. My omega biology was staging a protest against my better judgment. “Give us alphas or give us death!” my cells seemed to be chanting.

“This is ridiculous,” I said, pressing my forehead against the cool wall. “I’m literally having withdrawal symptoms from alpha exposure. Someone should write a medical journal article about this. ‘ The Pathetic Omega and the Three Bears: A Case Study in Terrible Decision-Making .’”

The absurdity of my situation wasn’t lost on me. I’d spent days trying to maintain emotional distance while physically intimate with them. Now I was maintaining physical distance while emotionally yearning for them. The irony would have been amusing if it wasn’t so painful.

Peters’ words about my father echoed in my mind persistently. The bruises on Dad’s arms, the implied threat that his care would worsen if I didn’t cooperate. De Luca was running out of patience, and my father would pay the price for my resistance.

I pressed my palm against the connecting door, feeling the solid barrier between me and the alphas. It wasn’t just wood; it was the last defense against the emotional tsunami waiting to drown me on the other side.

“Congratulations, Ty,” I whispered to myself. “You’ve reached a new level of pathetic. You’re literally petting a door because there are alphas on the other side of it. What’s next? Writing their names in your diary with little hearts?”

But as I stood there, I knew it wasn’t just my father’s safety driving me anymore. Something fundamental had shifted inside me, something I couldn’t explain away with sarcasm or defensive humor.

I was going back to them not just because I had to, but because I wanted to. Because the thought of another minute without them felt unbearable.

“This is going to end badly,” I told my reflection in the small mirror on the wall. My face looked feverish, eyes too bright, cheeks flushed. “Just so we’re clear on that point. This is emotional skydiving without a parachute.”

My reflection offered no counterarguments. Traitor.

With fingers that trembled nervously, I turned the handle and pulled.

The sight before me hit me with emotional force, knocking the air from my lungs and the snark from my brain.

All three alphas were positioned at the furthest extent of their chains, the metal links pulled so taut they vibrated with tension.

They looked like they’d been there the entire time, straining against their restraints to get as close to me as physically possible.

Mr. Iceflare stood in the center, his ice-blue eyes locked on mine with an intensity that made my knees weak.

The chain at his wrist looked ready to snap from the pressure.

To his right, Mr. Enigma knelt with vulnerability, his usually playful expression replaced by something so naked and yearning that my heart constricted in my chest. On the left, Mr. Storm stood with the stillness of a predator about to pounce, his stormy eyes tracking every twitch and micro-expression on my face with intense focus.

They weren’t just waiting. They were hungering. For me. The realization was both terrifying and intoxicating.