Page 9 of Until You Break

EMILIO

The click behind me was sharp as a gun cocking.

I turned, pressing my back to the door as if to keep it shut, shoulders heavy, jaw aching from clenched teeth, breath dragging with the pent-up weight of the night.

I let my eyes sweep the room. The bedroom wasn’t what I’d expected.

It was too large. Glass walls cut into the night, curtains drawn back to show the city like a captive painting.

A chandelier of black crystal dripped shadow over silk sheets.

Too pale to look used, too soft for anyone real.

I breathed cedar and smoke, linen so clean it stung. Cool marble bit under my feet before giving way to a rug dense enough to swallow sound. Everything gleamed, glass, steel and obsidian, scrubbed of fingerprints, waiting for mine.

I turned, but the door was seamless again. The lock slid back into place on its own. My chest clenched. It wasn’t just a door anymore. It was a verdict.

I leaned into it anyway, forehead pressed to polished wood, my pulse refusing to calm.

All I could think was shower. My shoulders ached, sweat chilled on my back, every nerve still strung tight.

I needed to wash Damiano off. His words, his touch, the weight of his presence crawling over my skin.

The bathroom doorway glowed like an invitation, promising a kind of welcome I didn’t trust.

I stripped in jerky motions, as if I could peel off everything he’d put on me. Cold tile bit my bare feet, honest cold, unarguable.

I twisted the tap until water hissed and steamed. The mirror blurred before I could see myself. Heat struck my chest, turning it pink in a single breath.

I stepped under it like punishment. The spray lashed too hot against my shoulder. I pressed my forehead to the tile and counted between the thuds in my chest.

In.

Hold.

Wait for the ache.

Let go.

It wasn’t relief. It was surrender with my name on it.

I slid down until I was sitting on the floor, knees to my chest. My thumb pressed into the bruise on my thigh until it darkened. My nails carved crescents into my arm, shallow at first, then deeper, until skin split. Blood beaded, bright, thin, vanishing almost as fast as it came under the spray.

I dug harder, chasing pain like it was the only honest thing left.

At least pain didn’t lie. At least it came when I called.

The ache turned clean in a way the filth in my throat hadn’t.

I watched the red swirl away, swallowed by the drain the same way Damiano had swallowed every part of me.

It wasn’t enough. I did it again, sharper, needing to see something real, something that belonged to me.

When I stood, my legs obeyed too fast, my head lagging a beat. I hid the sway by catching the wall. My body betrayed me, twitching where he had touched, remembering too much, resisting nothing.

The towel was too soft. I wrapped it anyway, tucking it hard over the new mark. Bedroom air cooled raw skin.

I thought the worst part of the day had already passed.

Being paraded through gilded halls, strangers staring like I was an exhibit.

Being seated beside him as if the chair itself had been chosen to brand me.

Papà’s eyes cutting across the room, sharp, furious, while I sat tethered at Damiano’s side. Not son. Prize. Claimed. Displayed. Taken in front of the man who’d spent my whole life refusing to see me.

Married. To Damiano Bellandi.

The shame still clung, heavier than steam. It felt like the walls carried it too, pressing on me until even silence turned unbearable.

Then the outside world tore through it—sharp, distant, a tire squeal knifing into the quiet like bone snapping under skin, shattering the cocoon of my thoughts.

I froze.

Another scream of rubber, closer this time, jagged as torn metal. Then an engine’s roar, guttural, furious.

Shouts followed, men’s voices, rough and urgent, ricocheting up from the street.

The third was a crash, a gut-shaking slam of metal that rattled the windows and sent dust shivering from the ceiling.

My chest seized. I stepped toward the glass, breath caught halfway to a scream.

The door snapped open without a knock. Wood slammed against the wall, final, loud, swallowing the chaos outside. The lock that had sealed me in gave way only for him, like even the house understood who it belonged to.

Damiano filled the doorway, the dark behind him folding away as if it had been waiting.

His shirt from dinner clung to his forearms, collar open over the line of his throat.

His hair swept back, glossy where the light caught.

His scent reached me before his voice, clean linen edged with smoke, something sharper under it that belonged only to him.

Steam still clung to his collar, proof he’d washed the night off while leaving it smeared all over me.

“I see the entertainment’s arrived,” he said, closing the door with a click that sounded like a verdict. “Loud for a family that prefers whispers.”

Confusion snapped through me. “Entertainment? You think that’s entertainment?”

His gaze slid toward the window, then back to me, a smile curling like smoke. “Don’t look so shocked, piccolino. You didn’t think they’d let me keep you quiet, did you?”

His gaze dipped to the towel, then back to my face.

Another squeal outside, harsher this time. A man’s shout, rough and urgent.

Damiano crossed the space without hurry. “Who are they, kitten?”

“I don’t—” My throat closed.

“Try again.”

I looked toward the window. He was in front of me in two strides, his hand closing warm and unyielding at the back of my neck.

“Eyes on me,” he said, breath carrying smoke and cedar. The command wrapped in something that made my body obey before I could think.

Engine smoke threaded in through the glass. Boots hit pavement outside, fast and heavy.

“They’re here for me,” I breathed.

He leaned until his breath brushed my cheek, steady in the chaos. “They’re nothing. You’re mine.”

His grip tightened. “Your father sent loud messengers.”

My chest seized. “My brother—”

“Your brother drove badly. He’ll live. Don’t confuse a tantrum with a rescue.”

Fingers slid into my hair, curling slow. “Let’s see how well you focus when the world is breaking.”

The next crash shook the floor. My balance broke as he pulled, knees hitting carpet hard.

“Damiano…”

His thumb smoothed my jaw, deceptively soft. “Don’t look away from me. Not when the walls shake.”

Another gunshot split the air.

“You’re insane.”

“And you’re stalling.”

The scrape of a buckle cut through the chaos.

My chest heaved, breath sharp, too fast. The sound of leather sliding free, the slow metallic bite of the zipper, each noise deliberate, like he was orchestrating a verdict.

He moved with certainty, as if introducing me to what I’d been pretending didn’t exist until now.

My throat closed when he freed himself, thick, veined, heavy. My body recoiled even as heat coiled low, wrong and desperate. The sight alone was a sentence passed.

His other hand tipped my chin until my neck strained. “Part those lips. Taste it, kitten. I want to hear what it does to you.”

I clenched my mouth, shaking my head until my neck ached. Terror surged up my throat, harsher than breath. “No, you can’t—” The words cracked, thin and furious, more rasp than voice. My chest heaved, ribs locked, teeth grinding against refusal.

His smile was slow, inevitable. For a dizzy second, raw fear tangled with something worse. The light caught his mouth, his eyes, too composed, too sharp, and heat flared low in me I didn’t understand, setting my insides alight even as I tried to deny it.

The yank in my hair sharpened, pain sparking over my scalp until my lips tore open on a gasp I couldn’t stop.

“That’s it,” he murmured, stepping closer, swallowing the sound of my resistance.

The blunt head of him pressed to my lips, hot, heavy, foreign. I twisted, tried to wrench away, but his grip clamped me still. My muffled protest scraped against him, lost before it left my mouth.

“Good,” he said, pushing forward, voice calm while mine broke into choked sounds. “Fight if you like. It only makes it tighter when I take what I want.”

My nails raked at his thigh, useless. Dread jammed my chest, choking me as much as his cock. I jerked my head, tried to spit him out, anything, but his hand only locked harder in my hair.

“First time, piccolino?” His voice slid like the flat of a knife.

I went still.

“That hesitation’s an answer,” he said, savoring it. “Good. I like taking what no one else has touched.”

The pull in my hair guided me forward, steady and certain. My mouth opened without permission.

He pushed in, thick, stretching my jaw until it ached. The taste hit immediately, salt, musk, something raw at the back of my tongue.

“Good. Hold me there. Feel what you’ve given away.”

The weight of him filled my mouth, the second push brushing my throat.

I gagged, chest seizing.

“That’s the edge,” he said, voice even as glass. “Stay with it.”

His free hand wrapped my throat, thumb pressing over my pulse.

Outside, metal screamed. Boots pounded closer.

I made a sound, half protest, half breathless.

“You feel that?” His tone was low, unshaken. “That’s you, stretching for me, inch by inch. No one else gets this.”

Another gunshot. I tensed.

He shoved deeper until my nose was against him, the heavy length filling my throat completely. Tears blurred my vision, my nails dug into his thighs.

“Breathe through it,” he said, calm as smoke. “You can. I’ll let you.”

He held me there, hips rolling slow, cock heavy against my tongue, each second dragging until my chest screamed.

His command pushed me lower until my tongue dragged along the thick underside, slicking him with spit.

He forced the head against my lips again, making me lap at the salt-slick tip before driving deeper.

My throat clenched, eyes streaming, spit flooding my lips as the pressure built.