Chapter 4 Fire in her throat.

Aria's POV.

I thought the shame would settle by morning. But guess what? It didn’t. It was still there, thick and sweet in my throat, like I had swallowed sin and liked the taste.

I couldn't stop replaying it. Starting from the belt down to his fingers. My body betrayed me, begging him. And worse than all of that? The CCTV camera. Did he record it? And was I some sick performance now?

I sat at the vanity in the rose-hued guest suite, bare-skinned beneath a thin black slip, brushing my hair with trembling hands. Outside the window, the Amalfi Coast bled into sunrise. Pink-gold sky, birds cawing, sea crashing onto rock like fury. A view made for lovers, not prisoners and not equally for pets.

A soft knock sounded, but I didn’t answer. Immediately, the door opened anyway. He never asked if he could come in. Enzo stepped in dressed for blood, a jet-black shirt, fitted slacks, and an aura that demanded silence. His eyes didn’t bother with hello.

“Get dressed.” I turned slowly toward him. “For what?” He didn’t blink. “Tonight, I show them what happens to men who touch what’s mine.” Them? My pulse tripped. “You are parading me again?” “No.” He walked over and set a flat black box down on the bed. “You’re going to kneel.”

My breath caught. When I opened the box. It wasn’t lingerie. It was a collar, black velvet, gold buckle and a thin leash coiled neatly beside it. There was a tiny gold tag that shimmered in the light. AR, my initials.

I looked up at him, nausea crawling up my spine. “You’re insane.” “I’m in charge,” he said. “Put it on.” I didn’t move. He crossed the room, gripped my chin and lifted it until our eyes locked.

“You said you weren’t his. Not Luca’s. Not your father’s. You want to prove it?” His voice was low and hypnotic.

“Wear it and walk with me. You must choose to obey.” I clenched my jaw. “That’s not obedience. That’s degradation.”

“No.” His fingers stroked my jaw. “That’s transformation.” I hated how the words settled under my skin like wildfire.

“I want to watch you set the room on fire without speaking a single word,” he murmured. “And you will, Aria. Because you were born for thrones and knives. You just don’t know it yet.”

I grabbed the collar, fury masking the tremble in my hands. I buckled it around my neck myself.

He smiled, slow and pleased. “That’s my girl.” The nightclub wasn’t just a club. It was his lair.

Dim chandeliers bathed the room in gold and red. Dark velvet walls. Cigarette smoke curls like ghosts. Dozens of men with sharp suits and dead eyes stood watching as Enzo and I descended the spiral staircase.

He hadn’t chained me, but the leash was enough. I held my chin high. Daring them to look and daring them to touch. Every step echoed like a challenge.

Enzo led me through the crowd like a panther dragging its kill, not with violence, but with ownership. When we reached the center of the floor, he let the leash fall.

“Dance,” he ordered. I froze. “With whom?” He just smiled. “Let them ask.” I scanned the crowd and it occurred to me that I'm not familiar with the faces there. A blur of cologne, power, lust. Then one stepped forward. Younger than the others. A soldier, maybe. Tattooed neck and a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

He reached out to me while I let him touch me. His hands slid to my waist. He moved with slick confidence, but I knew the type, starving for a chance to climb. We swayed, bodies close. Immediately, his fingers slipped lower. My eyes met Enzo’s across the room.

I found him watching us. At that point, he wasn’t smiling anymore. I leaned into the soldier’s ear. “You are not afraid of dying, are you?” He laughed, cocky. “Only if it’s slow.” That's the wrong answer.

I pressed closer, knowing what I was doing, to let Enzo feel it and to make him burn. The soldier’s hand grazed my ass and then he was gone... Gone like gone. He was ripped away like smoke. Enzo had him by the throat.

The music cut off, the glass shattered and everyone froze. “No one touches her,” Enzo growled. “Not unless they want to lose their fucking hands.” The soldier struggled and gasped. Enzo dropped him and let him fall like trash.

Then he turned to me. “Upstairs. Now.” I obeyed him. The office door slammed behind us, but I didn’t flinch. He stormed past me, fists clenched and pacing like a caged animal.

“You like humiliating me?” “You wanted a show,” I spat. “ So, I gave you one,” I uttered. He moved so fast that I barely had time to blink. One hand slammed against the door beside my head while the other gripped my jaw, hard.

His voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “You are not a toy.” “Then stop treating me like one,” he said, “Then stop acting like you’re not mine.”

We were breathing on each other, chest to chest and mouth-to-mouth. He spun me around and yanked the leash up until my back arched. The sound of my gasp echoed between us.

“You want to flirt with danger?” he growled. “Here it is.” He dragged the slip over my head, rough and unapologetic, not even a foreplay and he didn't ask too..

His hands shoved me forward over the desk, knocking papers and crystal aside. “Stay there.” I braced my palms as pulses were exploding through every inch of my body. Then something cold and soft brushed my back. That was feathers. I gasped.

He trailed them along my spine, slow and deliberate, while his free hand spread my legs apart for my honey pot to be more clearly visible and accessible for his next action.

“Do you know what it fucking does to me?” he whispered. “To see you submit like this and still fight me?” I bit my lip. “Tell me to fucking stop,” he said. I didn’t.

“Say it, Aria.” I stayed silent while battling with my emotions. Just then, you forcefully opened my legs and then he entered my honey pot, fast, deep and thick. I cried out, with my legs shaking, it wasn’t gentle and also it wasn’t brutal, it was fucking… precise, controlled and devouring.

Like he was trying to fuck the rebellion out of me and I hated that, one part of me wanted it. His hips slammed into mine, again and again, while the feather kept dancing over my skin like a ghost.

“You don’t fucking get to flirt with other men,” he grunted. “You don’t get to act like you are not mine.” “You… don’t own me…” I stammered.

“Then stop begging for it,” he said. “I’m not fucking...” “Liar,” he uttered. He gripped my waist harder while slamming deeper. I moaned loud enough to shame myself. My fingers clawed the desk.

Every thrust drove me closer to a breaking point, but I didn’t want to reach it. “You’re shaking,” he murmured against my neck. “Fuck… you…” “Already fucking you, baby.” The orgasm ripped through me without mercy. I arched, crying out as my body pulsed around him and my mind blanked.

He followed with a low, guttural growl while burying himself deeper in me with one final thrust. We stayed like that for a moment, sweaty, breathless, wrecked. Then he pulled out slowly, slid my slip back down over my shoulders like he was covering something sacred.

He turned me to face him and held my chin again. “You wear the fire well,” he said softly. I slapped him hard. He blinked and then smiled. “You’re fucking going to fall in love with me, Aria. Thrust me on that.” “Not a chance,” I said. He leaned in and kissed the corner of my mouth.

“You already are.”

Later that night, after a shower and silence with far too much wine, I collapsed onto the bed in my suite. The collar was still on. I didn’t take it off and I don’t know why. I stared at the ceiling, letting the storm inside me roar.

Then I noticed something on the nightstand. A velvet ring box. I reached and opened it. Inside was my father’s pinky ring, bloody, glinting and unmistakable with a note in it. “Sleep tight, principessa. You will need more strength tomorrow...Enzo.” Immediately, that got me wondering.