Chapter 3 First Lesson.
Aria’s POV
The moment his voice crackled through the intercom, something inside me shifted. It wasn’t just fear. It wasn’t even dread. It was heat, coiling, restless and dangerous. Enzo’s voice wasn’t a command. It was a fuse.
I stared up at the speaker embedded in the ceiling, heart pounding like war drums. My lips still ached from his kiss. It shouldn’t have lingered, but it did, like fingerprints pressed into the softest part of me. I could still feel the way he gripped my face. Like he owned it and my nipples still trembled from the bruising edge of his control. Every inch of me remembered him. The taste, sound and the unbearable humiliation of how much I’d wanted it.
No... How much I still wanted it. I sat up slowly, the silk sheet slipping down my bare skin. No robe. No dress. No trace of last night’s gown. Just my body and the ghost of Enzo Moretti’s mouth on mine. Like he owns everything.
The bedroom was quiet, but I could feel him in the walls. I wasn’t chained anymore, and that somehow terrified me more. It meant he trusted I wouldn’t run. Or maybe… that I wouldn’t want to.
The hallway beyond my bedroom stretched into gold-lit silence. My bare feet padded over polished floors, and I felt the house watching me. Cameras, maybe. Hidden eyes tucked behind antique frames and shadowy corners. Enzo’s ghost lingered in the scent of expensive cologne and sun-warmed stone, clinging to every surface like sin never repented for.
At the bottom of the sweeping marble staircase, he waited. Black on black, slacks, shirt, even the mug of espresso in his hand looked like something he’d ripped out of a funeral and made beautiful. He didn’t glance up right away. He didn’t need to. The second I stepped into view, he exhaled softly, as if my presence was expected… necessary.
“You took your time,” he murmured, sipping without looking up.
“I was debating whether to burn the place down,” I replied, voice flat but tight. The truth lingered beneath it. I wasn’t as unaffected as I pretended.
His gaze lifted, slow and heavy. “And?” “You’re lucky the matchbox wasn’t in the closet.”
His eyes slid over me like silk over bare skin, unforgiving and obvious.
“You wear disobedience well,” he said, voice silk-wrapped steel. “I didn’t dress for you.” “Lie better, woman.”
He turned and started walking down a hallway lined with paintings of old Sicilian bloodlines, men with cold eyes and cruelty in their bones. I didn’t move. Not at first.
Then he paused, looked over his shoulder, and said my name like it was a sin he planned to commit again.
“Aria.” I followed. The corridor opened into a dining room carved from money and power. Mahogany table, velvet curtains, enough silver to blind. But the real weight in the room wasn’t the decor. It was the man sitting across from the head chair.
He was older, with slicked-back hair and eyes that gleamed like a vulture’s. His fingers glittered with gold rings, his suit cut to precision, but none of it could hide the rot underneath.
“Ah,” he said, in thick-accented Sicilian. “So this is the princess.” I didn’t answer. I didn’t move or even breathe. Enzo walked past me and took the head seat without ceremony. His fingers curled lightly around the rim of his espresso cup.
“She’s mine now,” he said simply, as if he were stating a business transaction. I stayed standing. The vulture's gaze slithered over me like oil. “She’s beautiful,” he said, licking his lips. “And fiery, like I heard. Just like her mother.”
Enzo’s jaw didn’t move, but the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. “Leave her mother out of your mouth, Sergio.”
Sergio chuckled, raising his glass in false apology. “Peace. I meant no disrespect.”
I didn’t sit until Enzo spoke again. “Aria, Sit down.”
His voice left no room for resistance. I obeyed, spine taut, fists clenched in my lap. The dinner was nothing more than a performance, men speaking of ports, bloodlines, weapons, and control, while I sat beside Enzo like a silent trophy. Not seen or displayed.
Sergio's hand slid across the table, fingers brushing mine deliberately. I snapped. I stood so fast the chair shrieked against the marble. The crystal goblet beside me trembled.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I hissed, each word edged in poison.
Sergio grinned, slow and slick. “The bitch bites.” Enzo didn’t rise with fury. He stood in silence, which was somehow more terrifying. His eyes were pure ice as they locked on the other man.
“She’s not for you.” “I wasn’t aware she was for anyone.” “She is.” He turned his gaze on me. “Follow me.”
I didn’t move. His voice dropped an octave. “Now.”
The air between us burned. My thighs clenched as fury tangled with a darker pulse low in my belly. I followed him without a word, hating every step my body took on its own accord.
He led me into a private room I hadn’t seen before, one that screamed secrets. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the sea. Velvet chaise lounge with black mirrored walls. A crystal chandelier swayed slightly overhead. It smelled like lust and danger.
The door clicked shut behind us and locked. He turned to face me, hands loose at his sides, but his eyes, God, his eyes, pinned me like a knife. “What did I tell you about obedience?” he asked, quiet but lethal. “He touched me,” I said, arms crossed.
“I had it under control.” “No,” I snapped. “You didn’t.”
The silence cracked like lightning. “You are going to be punished,” he asked softly. I was mute. “And I will bend you over that chaise and teach you who you belong to.”
My breath hitched. My body betrayed me. My nipples tightened against the silk. Heat crawled beneath my skin.
“You don’t own me.”
“Not yet.”
He stepped forward while I backed up until my spine kissed the mirrored wall. His hand lifted and brushed the strap of my dress down my shoulder, revealing bare skin he didn’t touch.
His fingers grazed my collarbone before curling under my chin, lifting my gaze.
“I’m not going to hurt you, but I'm going to make you understand me.”
Immediately, he turned me around, pressing his chest flush against my back. One hand gripped my hip, the other tangled in my hair. He twisted until my head tilted, exposing my throat.
“Tell me why you’re here,” he said. “Because you dragged me.” On hearing that, he immediately gave me a hot slap. His hand struck my thigh, not cruel, but claiming. I gasped.
“Try again,” he ordered. “Because you think I’m yours.” Another slap, harder this time. My knees buckled. “Try again, Aria.”
I bit my lip until it bled. “Because I make you feel something,” I whispered.
He froze. The tension in the air shifted. Then his hand slid between my thighs down to my honey pot, bare and waiting.
And when his fingers found the soft, wet ache of me, I moaned so loud, but I hated myself for it. “Say it,” he demanded.
“You don’t own me.” His fingers curled just right, and I cried out.
“Repeat it.” “I don’t... belong to you...”
His thumb circled my clit, relentless and my orgasm ripped through me like a scream swallowed in velvet. I convulsed against him, body trembling, unraveling in his hands and then he dropped to his knees behind me.
His mouth sealed over my heat and he began again.
Enzo buried his mouth between my thighs with ruthless precision, tongue moving like he already knew every pulse, every weakness, every way to unravel me from the inside out.
He devoured me like I was his last meal, his grip bruising my hips as if anchoring me to the moment and pulling sounds from my throat that I didn’t know I could make. Just about getting to my second orgasm, he stopped and left me hanging in my feelings.
I was so mad at him. But he only smirked at me and left the room.
By the time I stumbled back into my room, my lips were swollen, my thighs ached with every step, and my skin glistened with sweat. Shame clung to me like a second skin. I collapsed onto the bed without undressing, curling in on myself, my heart still racing with the aftershocks of everything I’d allowed.
What the hell was happening to me? Why did I want him? Why did it feel like he wanted more than just my body?
I lay there in silence, staring blankly at the ceiling, chasing answers in the stillness. That’s when I noticed it, just a flicker of red light in the corner of the chandelier above me, faint and blinking.
My chest tightened. I blinked, hoping I was imagining things. But there it was, a camera, a tiny red light, barely visible unless you knew where to look. My blood turned to ice. Had he recorded everything?
The pleasure, pain and the way I gave in like I was already his. I stood slowly, legs trembling with exhaustion and disbelief, and stared up at the light as it blinked steadily, calm, patient and damning.
Then it stopped, just like that, as if it had never been there at all, like a ghost in the glass. A question lingered at the base of my throat, thick and cold: What is Enzo really up to?
