I was a slum kid who fell for Damon Vitale, New York’s most feared Godfather.

For five years, I was his. I took nine bullets for him.

He’d kiss my scars as I bled out for him. Hold me close. Clasp the queen’s necklace around my throat.

Then, once I healed, he’d fuck me senseless, with a passion that felt like forever.

I thought we’d spend our lives together. I thought he would marry me.

But on our 999th night together, he told me he was engaged. To Bianca, a mafia princess from a rival family.

I swallowed my tears. He just grabbed my chin, blew smoke in my face, and laughed.

"You didn't really think you could marry me, did you, Nora? Let's be clear. We fuck. That's it. You're not a partner. You're a piece of art I collect. A pet I own."

A pet. That’s all he ever wanted for me.

Instead, I picked up a burner phone.

[I'm taking your offer. Three days. Get me the hell out of New York.]

I’ve slept with the most feared man in New York for five years. 999 times. But tonight, he tells me I'm just a tool. And my next task is to pick out a welcome gift for his fiancée.

Half an hour ago, Damon showed up at my apartment.

Just like every other night for the past five years, he showered, then came to me with that familiar hunger, slamming me against the floor-to-ceiling window, the lights of Manhattan a blur below.

"I want you, Nora."

I lost myself in his hungry kisses and rough thrusts.

He still smelled like blood, even after his shower. I knew he’d just put down a traitor in the family.

I didn't care.

He was a monster, the king of New York’s underworld. And he was my only religion.

In the dim light, his fingers found the raised scar on my shoulder.

I got it saving him from flying glass in an explosion.

"Does it still hurt?" he whispered, kissing the scar.

"Not anymore, Damon… For you, it was worth it…" I gasped his name between broken breaths.

I used to think this was a fairytale. I was a nobody, an orphan with her nose in a book. He made me his confidante. His weapon. His prize.

If I could just marry him… I’d be in heaven.

Just as I thought that, he pulled out of me with a final shudder.

"I came to tell you there's a family dinner next week," he said, blowing a smoke ring. His eyes watched me through the haze.

My heart skipped a beat.

Was this his invitation?

Maybe he was finally ready. He fucked me with a different kind of hunger tonight, raw and all-consuming tonight.

"I'll be ready, Damon." I went to get his shirt. "Do you need me to brief you on the West Coast shipments? Or…"

"No."

He cut me off. His voice was ice.

"Bianca will be there. It's our engagement party."

Bianca.

The mafia princess whose family controlled the shipping lanes.

I froze. The shirt slipped from my fingers and fell to the floor. "Engaged? I thought that was just a rumor…"

"It's not a rumor. It's business," Damon said with a shrug. "And you're my most capable asset. I need you to prepare a gift for Bianca. She likes Van Gogh. Pick out an original from your gallery for her."

He wanted me to pick a gift for the woman who was stealing my life?

Tears burned the back of my eyes. I couldn't stop my voice from rising. "Damon, I thought these five years… I thought we were more than—"

"More than what?" he interrupted, that familiar mocking look in his eyes. "An asset? No, Nora, you're my perfect creation. I taught you everything. How to be elegant, how to be strong, how to handle my dirty work. But you forgot the most important lesson. A creation doesn't dream. It obeys."

The blood drained from my face.

"As for the last five years…" He paused for a second that felt like a lifetime.

"Think of it as maintenance. A weapon has to be kept sharp to be useful, right? Whether I'm using it in my office… or in my bed."

I pulled the rug around my naked body, trying to find a shred of dignity.

"And what if I say no?"

Damon walked over and knelt down.

His fingers clamped onto my chin, his thumb stroking my lips.

The touch that used to make me tremble now just made me sick.

"Be a good girl." His voice was colder than the floor beneath me. "Don't forget who dragged you out of the gutter."

He stood up and left, leaving me alone on the floor.

I heard his footsteps fade, then the click of the bedroom door.

I stumbled into the bathroom, crying. The woman in the mirror was a wild-eyed mess.

The hot water washed away Damon’s warmth, but it couldn't wash away the shame and despair.

Five years.

For five years, I thought I was his woman. Turns out, I was just a weapon he kept sharp.

I pulled an encrypted phone from a hidden panel in the wall.

Three years ago, at a Sotheby's auction, Damon sent me to deal with a Russian who was becoming a problem.

The man's name was Leo Volkov. When I pressed a gun to his back, he didn't flinch. He just laughed quietly and slipped this phone into my hand.

He’d whispered, "A beautiful bird in a golden cage always dreams of flying. When your master breaks your wings, call me. I'll give you the sky."

I thought he was crazy. Now, he was my only hope.

My trembling fingers typed out a message:

[I'm taking your offer. Three days. Get me the hell out of New York.]

The next morning, I went to the gallery.

Not to pick a gift for Bianca, of course. I was there to finish one last job.

Restoring the only piece of my mother I had left. A portrait of her.

Damon had pulled strings to get it back for me from a failing pawnshop two months ago.

The smell of turpentine hit me like a hook, dragging me back five years.

I was just a poor art student then, an orphan working shifts at a coffee shop to pay tuition.

I painted in my spare time, dreaming of my own gallery show.

Then one day, a rich bitch from school poured a scalding latte all over my final project.

"Oops," she sneered. "Something this pathetic was never going to hang in a gallery. I was just helping you take out the trash."

I tried to fight back, but her friends cornered me, and a slap stung my face.

That's when Damon appeared.

He wasn't the monster he is today. Back then, he wore an expensive, handmade suit. A god who’d stumbled into the wrong part of town.

He was just passing by, talking about an art exhibition, but he stopped.

He didn't touch her. He just looked at her. A single, chilling glance. The next day, her family vanished from New York.

I thought he was my knight.

He gave me a job at his gallery, a chance to be around the kind of art I’d only ever dreamed of in the slums.

Then, three months later, I was working a late shift when a few guys from a rival family cornered me.

They thought I was just some girl he was screwing, a way to humiliate the new boss on the block.

Damon came.

This time, he was no gentleman.

He was a demon straight from hell. No words, no negotiation. Just violence.

I watched him snap the leader's arm with his bare hands. After a bloody fight, we escaped.

That night, he threw me, still shaking, into his sports car.

He pushed the car to 120 mph.

The roar of the engine drowned out my screams.

"Scared?" he asked. The car was parked on a cliff edge. One hand was on the wheel, the other was stroking my lips.

"Damon… please stop…"

"No. You need to remember this feeling." His eyes were wild, manic. The adrenaline from the near-death fight had lit a fire in him.

He took me right there, on the edge of a cliff, the car still humming with speed. It wasn't love. It was a conquest, suspended between death and a pleasure so sharp it felt like pain.

"You're mine, Nora," he said, biting my neck as he came.

Ding.

The sound of the shop's bell snapped me back to the present.

I looked up. A woman was standing in the doorway.

Bianca Torrino.

She wore a white Valentino dress, a pearl necklace gleaming under the lights.

She wasn't here to buy art. I could see it in her eyes.

She was here to mark her territory.

"So this is Damon's little painter?" she said, looking me up and down like I was a piece of furniture. "I hear you're good at fixing old things."

She walked over to my mother's portrait.

"It’s a shame old things are so worthless," she said with a smirk. "I hear this pathetic painting is all you have left. The only link to your pathetic past."

My fists clenched.

"Don't look at me like that," Bianca said, pulling out her phone with a vicious smile. "This is his idea."

She made a video call.

The screen lit up with Damon's face. He was sitting in the Torrino family mansion. I could even see Bianca's father in the background.

"Nora," Damon's voice crackled through the speaker, cold and dead. "Show your future queen some loyalty. Destroy the painting. Do it yourself."

My blood ran cold.

"Don't make me repeat myself," he said, swirling the whiskey in his glass. His tone was the one he used to command his dogs. "Or I'll have my men burn it down. Along with the gallery."

I stared at the face of the man I’d loved for five years.

For business. For a deal. He was going to make me snuff out the last light in my world with my own hands.

"What? Cat got your tongue?" Bianca taunted. "Looks like Damon's 'creation' isn't so obedient after all."

I took a deep breath, swallowed my tears, and smiled.

I looked at Damon through the screen. "Fine," I said, my voice even. "As you wish."

With Bianca’s triumphant gaze and Damon’s cold stare watching me, I picked up a palette knife.

A tool meant for creation, now an executioner's blade.

I slashed the blade across my mother's face.

Once. Twice. Three times.

With every cut, I wasn't just tearing the canvas. I was severing the last thread of love I had for him.

Bianca hung up, satisfied. She scoffed and turned to leave. "Make sure you clean this up. I don't want Damon's places to have this kind of filth lying around."

The sound of her heels faded away.

I was alone. I didn't cry. I just knelt in the ruins of my past, picking up the pieces. One by one. Like I was burying a body. Just like I did with my mother.

My phone vibrated.

[Come to the Safe House tonight. I'm hurt. I need you.]

I stared at the message, at the casual command, "I need you."

The old me would have dropped everything, run to his side, ready to take another bullet for him.

But now, looking at my hands covered in red paint, the man who had made my heart race for five years felt like a complete stranger.

He wasn't hurt.

He just needed to make sure his dog was still on its leash.

I stood up and threw the paint-soaked rag in the trash.

"I'll be there, Damon," I whispered to the empty room.

This is the last time I'll ever patch you up.

The safe house was in an old building in lower Manhattan.

My fingerprint opened the lock.

Damon was sitting on the sofa.

Unexpectedly, he was really injured.

His left shoulder wrapped in a makeshift bandage. Blood was already soaking through the white gauze.

"Who was it this time?" I asked, pulling out the medical kit.

"Some punk from the Kozlov family," he grunted. "Thought he could make a move on my turf."

I cut away his shirt.

The bullet had grazed his shoulder blade. Not deep, but it needed stitches.

Damon's muscles tensed as the needle pierced his skin.

Pain always made him more dangerous, like a wounded animal.

Twelve stitches later, I was about to wrap the wound when he yanked me into his lap, crushing my mouth with his. Every thrust was a claim. Mine. Mine. Mine.

But all I felt was tired.

When he was finished, he held me, his chin resting on my shoulder.

His fingers toyed with the Heart of Sicily on my ring finger.

It was an ancient, blood-red garnet ring, the symbol of the Vitale family matriarch.

Two years ago, after I took a bullet aimed at his heart, he got down on one knee and put it on my finger himself.

"Nora, you protected my heart," he'd said. "Now, let it protect you."

I thought it meant he was accepting me. That I could finally be by his side for good.

"Bianca showing up today was her own idea, but you handled it well," he finally said. "Tomorrow night, at the dinner, she'll be sitting next to me."

"I know." I closed my eyes.

He paused. His fingers slid off the ring, and his tone turned to ice. "And take that ring off. Put it back in my study."

My heart stopped. "Why?"

"Bianca won't like seeing it on you."

He let me go and stood up, looking down at me. "That ring represents the Vitale family. It belongs to the future queen of this family. Not you."

The next night, the Vitale estate was lit up like a palace.

I didn't take it off.

The Heart of Sicily was still on my ring finger. A final, silent act of defiance.

Dressed in a simple black evening gown, I stood in the corner of the dining hall.

I used to sit at Damon's right hand, respected by the family's old guard.

Tonight, that seat belonged to Bianca.

"To the future Mrs. Vitale!" old Marcello raised his glass.

Bianca smiled elegantly.

"Thank you all for your blessings," she cooed. "I will do my best to live up to the Vitale name."

"But the shipping business after the wedding is the real prize," Antonio, one of the capos, said around his cigar. "The Torrino family controls forty percent of the East Coast ports."

"Exactly. This deal will double our power."

"You can keep the girl," old Salvatore said, glancing at me with contempt. "She's useful. A pretty little thing to handle the dirty work."

A low chuckle rippled through the room.

My cheeks burned, but my face remained a mask.

All eyes turned to Damon, waiting for his response.

"You're too kind," he chuckled. "She's just a pet. She won't get in Bianca's way."

That's when the old men's eyes darted to the ring on my finger.

Bianca moved closer to Damon.

She stroked his hand and purred, "Darling, I've heard the Vitale family has an heirloom, passed down for a hundred years. The 'Heart of Sicily.' They say only the true queen can wear it. Will I have the honor of seeing it tonight?"

Damon’s gaze flickered between me and Bianca.

Then, he stood up and walked over to me.

He didn't say a word. He just held out his hand, his eyes telling me to take it off myself.

My hand was shaking. The ring felt like it had grown into my flesh. It wouldn't budge.

I looked at him, one last silent plea in my eyes.

Damon's patience ran out.

He grabbed my hand and ripped the ring from my finger.

It was a tight fit. It tore the skin from my knuckle, leaving an angry, bleeding line.

He didn't even look at the wound. He just took the ring, walked back to his seat, and wiped my blood off it with his napkin. Like I was dirt.

Then he solemnly placed the Heart of Sicily on Bianca's finger.

"Now, it belongs to its true owner."

Bianca held up her hand, shooting me a look of pure triumph.

I clutched my bleeding finger, watching the ring sparkle on another woman's hand.

My five years of faith, the medal I'd earned with my life, had become a complete joke.

I didn't cry. I didn't break down.

Amid the celebration, I picked up a glass of champagne and walked slowly toward Damon.

As everyone watched in stunned silence, I raised my glass and smiled. My voice was calm.

"Congratulations, Godfather. And to you, Miss Bianca. Congratulations on your… meaningful hand-me-down."

I downed the champagne in one gulp, set the empty glass gently on the table, and turned to leave.

As I reached the door, Marco, Damon's actual assistant, stopped me. "Miss Nora," he said quietly. "The Godfather wants you to drive him and Miss Bianca back to the Torrino estate after the dinner."

I looked up at Marco, my face blank.

"Which car?"

"Your red Maserati."

I nodded.

A good pet knows when it's being punished.

You won't even remember this tomorrow, Damon. But I will. And after I deliver your final gift, I'll be gone forever.