Page 3 of The Devil’s Touch (Obsession #1)

S ilvana

“I told you everything was going to be fine.” I murmured, stroking her hair.

Her face looked pale, her lips slightly chapped, and her eyes shut. It tugged at my heart that she didn’t look like her normal, vibrant self. But what mattered more was that she was finally going to be okay.

“You are all I have left.” I exhaled, pushing back the tears that built up at the back of my eyes.

The past few weeks since I found out that Adele, my little sister, needed heart bypass surgery, had been hell.

I spent most of the time spiraling because I didn’t know where I was supposed to come up with thirty thousand dollars.

Worse, I had to show up at work because I wasn’t allowed to miss five consecutive days.

Marco didn’t care if your house was on fire.

You had no reason to leave his business unattended or you’d spend a long time paying for it.

It had been nearly a week since the surgery, and she was recuperating, but she had not woken up yet. Nearly a week since I stole from Domenico Romano and never looked back. Nearly a week since I stopped showing up at the club.

At first, I had believed that I wouldn’t even get past the club security before he’d find out, but I made it to the jewelry store with ease and pawned it off so easily, I had no cause for alarm and the storekeeper didn’t give me any weird looks.

I waited for someone to show up out of the blue—to stalk me or probably pull a gun on me in an alley like in the books—for stealing from the Domenico Romano but nothing like that happened. It was like the world—he—had moved on from my trying to outsmart him.

It was a good thing, right? It meant that I had gotten away with something that should have ended up with me getting my head on a spike.

I got away with the impossible—stealing from a ruthless, vindictive bastard.

But then, it wasn’t like stealing was something I did regularly.

I was desperate and couldn’t let my sister die.

Logically, he should be able to let it go because he had way more money than that.

For the first two days, I was a paranoid mess. I wore hoodies to cover my face. I barely went anywhere, and even when I came to the hospital, I spent most of my time looking over my shoulder incessantly. I had the strongest feeling that someone was out to get me and I barely slept.

But now, I was slowly learning to let go, even though I still couldn’t shake off the feeling that my cozy little life was likely to shatter some time soon.

If he wanted to kill me, I’d have been dead the first night I stole from him.

That was how I often consoled myself.

Adele and I only had each other ever since our parents died when I was eighteen.

Although they loved us, they never had much to begin with.

I couldn’t get into college because I had to work multiple jobs to keep food on our table and clothes on our back.

I had to be a parent and look after my little sister.

At twenty-two, I soon realized that I needed something more—stripping was the only better income I could get.

Besides, when men often tried to fuck you whenever you needed a job, you tend to grow exhausted.

I had been stripping for three years now, and while it might cover the bills and sponsor Adele’s academic life, it barely covered other things. I promised myself that I was going to make sure that Adele didn’t end up like myself.

Even if it meant stealing and hiding from a Don.

I leaned in, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, unable to fight back a smile. My sister was okay now, and everything else could slowly fall back in place.

I couldn’t stay home alone tonight. Not like I was scared or something, but I just felt more comfortable sleeping at the hospital. I knew I still had to head back home to pick up some things that I’d be needing.

I spared her one last glance and headed out of her ward.

****

S omething felt off the minute I got to the front porch.

It wasn’t like a gut feeling of someone watching me from the shadows or that there was a strange car in the neighborhood following me.

This was just a pure, twisted feeling that was nagging like a pit in my gut.

I wanted to shrink back and leave, but my resolve to prove to myself that I wasn’t crazy won.

My hands trembled as I reached for my keys in my bag. I sucked in a deep breath, pushing it into the keyhole and unlocking the door. Everything was just as dark as I had left it since I left home a few days ago. That was what made this more sinister.

My blood became ice cold, freezing me from the inside out. The hair on my nape flared like some reaction to an allergy. My breathing slowed as my eyes wandered the dark, looking for something that seemed off.

I clutched my keys and was going to navigate my way forward when the lights swiftly came on.

I gasped.

There was a man standing beside the switch, glaring intently at me like he wanted to rip me apart. Scratch that, it wasn’t one person. There were men in my living room, and the one sprawled on my sofa was one I knew too well.

Domenico Romano.

He was still, watching me with those icy blue eyes. I could see his fingers digging into my sofa—an act that I could finally tell was his way of trying to control himself. His jaw flexed, a terrible look crossing his eyes.

Oh, my God...

I staggered backwards, wanting to back against my door but one of his men grabbed onto my arm harshly, tossing me forward.

“Argh!” I screamed.

“Stay put or I’ll choke you to death.” He glared. I wanted to spit in his face so badly.

“Enough,” he ordered, his voice thick with an emotion I couldn’t explain. My eyes strayed back to him, catching the two brooding men who stood in strategic positions around him.

One had his eyes locked on me intently, gazing at me in disdain, while I could barely read the expression on the face of the other. The latter reminded me of him, even though they didn’t look alike.

“Don’t put your hands on her if I don’t tell you to,” Domenico warned.

“Yes, Don.”

“Come here.” His eyes drifted to mine, harsh and commanding.

My toes curled. My heart pounded erratically against my chest, threatening to rip out of my ribcage. I approached, feeling significantly small and exposed in my sweatpants and crop top.

I had barely gotten to Domenico when he grabbed my arm swiftly, yanking me onto his lap. I gasped, my eyes widening.

“If it isn’t my little thief,” he gritted out, locking me in place harshly with my waist.

My breath quivered. “I-I’m sorry.”

“Shut up,” he said through clenched teeth. “Did you really think you could steal from me, Mia Cara?” Lean fingers skimmed my bare skin, eliciting a frustrating hiss from me.

“I said I was sorry!” I made the mistake of yelling at him. Surprise crossed his features, just immediately as I heard his men cocking their guns at me. I stiffened against him, my lips parting. “I-I didn’t mean that... I’m sorry...”

Like on the night I met him, Domenico’s lips twitched in a sadistically amusing smile. “I knew you had it in you.”

“I wasn’t trying to rob you. I promise,” I whispered, shaking my hair.

“But you did, Mia Cara.”

“Yes—think of it as me borrowing it. I-I had to do that. I-I needed the money, okay? I’m sorry.” Tears trickled down my face. I wanted to wipe it off and hide my face from him. I hated that I was crying before him. It made me feel weak.

He seized my jaw in his grasp roughly, digging his fingers into it. A musky scent filled my nose as my soul was expelled from my body. My eyes saw the depths of those blue eyes, and I found nothing. Just rage. And it scared me.

Which meant he could literally kill me.

He swiped his tongue against the skin of my face, licking my tears. “Perfect,” he murmured.

Then, I felt rough fingers enclose around my throat. I wanted to hop off his lap, but he seized me with his punishing grip. Domenico wrapped his hand around my throat and choked me without remorse. My eyes blurred with unshed tears, widening when a low moan escaped my mouth.

He was hard as a rock beneath me, poking me, and drenching my panties. I couldn’t squeeze my thighs together. All I felt was raw torture—one I loved in the twisted, sickest ways.

“Did you really think you could hide anywhere on the face of the earth and I wouldn’t find you?” His voice was deceptively soft as he stroked my fading pulse.

My eyes were drifting shut. My lungs were thinning out and burning at the same time. My nipples hardened to a rock, poking through the material of my body-con crop top which wrapped against my upper body.

“Do... Domenico,” I rasped.

His eyes darkened. It wasn’t fury. It was dominance, a deranged satisfaction that made me know that he loved that I called his name.

“You played yourself, Mia Cara. How did you think we were able to steal from me? I was already awake the second you left my arms. I could have blown your fucking brains out, but I let you go. You stupid girl ... did you even know what you stole?” he seethed.

“I can’t—breathe.” I wheezed.

He didn’t care.

“I wouldn’t have cared much about the watch, but you took this—” he flashed the same ring I stole from him in my face. My eyes widened in horror. How did he get it back? “You stole my ancestral ring.” He choked me harder.

“This is my city, Mia Cara. You don’t get away with taking what’s mine. I reached out to my contacts the minute you left, telling them to let you have a pass if you tried to pawn the jewelry off to them,” he spat.

Violent coughs erupted from my throat once he released my neck. I glared at him, massaging my neck and struggling to hide my unshed tears.

“You are a monster!” I screamed. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. My throat burned afterwards.

“And you stole from a monster.” He tugged me into him, so I was sitting directly atop his crotch.

My pussy tingled in remembrance of how it was wrecked by him that night. I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head. The way he owned me unapologetically and fucked me until I was sore. An itch crawled up my skin and I almost gave into it and grinded against his cock.

His face met my perky breasts and my luscious cleavage that was on display in the top. He groaned, trailing his fingers up my clothed legs. I fought back a moan. My traitorous boobs betrayed me. My nipples hardened in the blink of an eye. He dragged his face against them and I jerked in reaction.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

The bastard loved the control he had over me.

Then, he bit a nipple and the moan I was struggling to fight slipped out. His cold blue eyes met mine, thick with amusement.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” I pleaded.

“Oh, I will,” he countered, “and you’ll love every second of it like my good little slut that you are.”

I had no idea why my pussy throbbed at his words.

“I’ll pay everything I owe,” I promised. “I’ll return it to you. I had to use it for my sick sister.”

“Ah, yes.” He swiped his thumb against my lips. “Your sick sister who’s going to be very dead if you don’t do as I say.”

My lips parted in horror, tears building up in my eyes. I fisted his shirt weakly, trembling with fear. “Domenico, please. I’ll do anything you ask. Please, don’t hurt my sister. Just leave her out of it. Punish me. I stole from you.”

“Suck,” he shoved his fingers into my mouth, and I sucked on them with tears trickling down my face. He didn’t stop fucking my mouth. The more he did, the more my panties got dampened, driving me to tears.

I hate him.

“You are going to pay back every cent you fucking stole from me,” he declared. “You want to know how?”

I nodded, my breath hanging in my throat.

“You are going to work for me. Not just as my stripper at the club. You are going to pay me back with this sinful body. You are going to be my sex slave, Mia Cara.”