Semua Bab Your Little Plaything? I'll Be Your Nightmare: Bab 1 - Bab 10

Leo's voice was heavier than I'd ever heard it."The Costello brothers are bad news. Both of them. I'll start with the younger one, Dante. On the surface, he's the family's Underboss, handling all the 'clean' businesses and Whirl Street investments. But in reality, he's the one running their overseas money laundering. He's darker than anyone realizes."The older brother, Luciano, is worse. Officially, he's the Capo in Crownpoint, in charge of the docks and smuggling. Behind the scenes, he's brutal. A few years ago, to take over territory, he personally dumped a rival family's Don into the Hatton River."Leo paused. "This is the most important part. They're not twins, but they look so similar that they might as well be. They've switched identities before. Back in school, Dante took exams for Luciano, and Luciano went out to fight Dante's battles. For them, trading places is as easy as brushing their teeth."Every word he said hit me like a sledgehammer, but that wasn't the end."Th

The screeching of the brakes tore through the Crownpoint night. Because of the sudden stop, my body lurched forward, then my seatbelt yanked me back."Dante" turned and stared straight at me, a storm barely contained in his eyes. "Did you get a good look at them?"His intensity scared me. I shrank back a little and nodded. "Y-Yeah… That woman was smoking, like a runway model.""Where were they?" His voice was icy and hard, like it had been tempered in frost."Right… Right at the cafe across from Belgrave & Goodwyn."He went quiet. The atmosphere in the car seemed to freeze, pressing down on my chest until I could barely breathe.That woman was someone I'd had Leo find. She was a Rodenian arms dealer who'd done a few deals with Luciano. I'd asked Leo to arrange that "chance encounter" and then take photos.In the pictures, the woman was smiling seductively, her body leaning slightly toward "Luciano". Their posture was intimate, and her hand was almost on his thigh. "Luciano" hadn

I jolted. I hadn't expected Luciano to be so blunt. Was he… trying to turn me?"Why should I help you?" I finally found my voice, though it trembled a little."Because," he murmured against my ear, teeth grazing my earlobe, his voice both seductive and cruel, "you don't have a choice. I'm the only one who can tear up that three-million-dollar contract of servitude for you."He paused, a playful, dangerous note slipping into his tone. "And don't you want to see what your elegant, perfect Underboss looks like when I've got him under my heel?"His words were the devil's whisper, laced with fatal temptation.I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. When I opened them again, the haze was gone. My gaze was clear and steady."Fine," I heard myself say. "I'll help you."…After forming this "alliance" with Luciano, life seemed to slip back into its old routine.During the day, Dante stayed by my side as always. The bruising on his cheek had faded. He'd put his glasses back on and r

It was a month before I saw Dante again.He'd lost a lot of weight, and the light in his eyes had dimmed. However, he still wore a perfectly tailored suit and clung to that last bit of dignity.When he saw Luciano walk in with a group of men who had pledged loyalty to him, he didn't look surprised. There was only a kind of ashen calm on his face.Maybe he'd seen this day coming for a long time.When Luciano's attorney announced that Luciano now controlled more than 50% of the family's businesses and armed forces, the room exploded.Dante's mother, the pampered Donna who'd always lived in comfort, fainted on the spot. Dante caught her as she fell. Then, he lifted his head, his gaze cutting through the crowd and landing directly on me.There was a storm in his eyes. Hate, pain, and defiance swirled in them, along with a trace of… a kind of despair I couldn't quite understand.Then, he smiled. He looked straight at me and mouthed a few words, "We die together."I gave him a small

Luciano took full control of the Costello family. He gave me everything other women could only dream of—a mansion on Longshore Isle, the newest sports car, and more jewelry than I could ever count.He even burned that three-million-dollar contract right in front of me.All of Crownpoint knew that the newly crowned, poker-faced Don of the Costello family had a woman he kept at the center of his world.That woman was me, Chiara Bellini.But only I knew that all of this was just another, more luxurious cage. The flames in Luciano's eyes burned brighter with each passing day when he looked at me, and the possessiveness intensified.In the middle of the night, he would run his hands over my face again and again, just to make sure I was really there.Once, because I glanced at Leo for a second too long, he made sure one of Leo's family's cargo ships had an "accident" and sank out on the open sea.Compared to Dante, he knew far better how to use tenderness to weave an inescapable web.