Owned by the devil I didn't choose

Celeste DeRosa arrived the next morning.

She was exactly as the file described: tall, graceful, flawless. Her smile was polite, her eyes warm, her uniform crisp and clean. To anyone else, she would've seemed like the perfect maid.

But I knew better.

I watched her from the moment she entered. Watched how her eyes didn't linger on Dante like most women's did—but instead on the layout of the penthouse. She took in the cameras. The spacing between doors. The number of guards.

Predator. Not prey.

I didn't welcome her. I didn't greet her.

Instead, I stood by the staircase with my arms crossed, silent as death.

"You must be Aria," she said cheerfully, her tone sweet enough to rot teeth. "It's such an honor to meet you. Mr. Moretti spoke highly of you."

Liar.

Dante didn't speak highly of anyone.

I nodded once, slowly. "You'll be cleaning the west wing. The hallway cameras there are... temperamental. Be careful not to break anything."

Her eyes flickered—just for a second.

She got the message.

The cameras were watching. And so was I.

---

For hours, I trailed her movements from the shadows. She moved efficiently, gracefully, almost too confidently. She didn't ask where supplies were kept. She didn't knock over a single item. She didn't flinch when a guard passed her in the hallway.

She was trained.

I kept my distance. Let her think I was harmless.

But every moment, I was memorizing her tells—the slight twitch in her left eye when she saw the vault room door. The way her fingers trailed the edge of Dante's desk as if looking for hidden compartments. The careful way she avoided stepping near the panic room hallway.

She knew where everything was.

Which meant she'd been briefed in detail.

That made her even more dangerous.

---

By late afternoon, I stepped into the main lounge and found her dusting near the liquor cabinet.

"You've been busy," I said.

Celeste looked up

The lights were dim in the hallway when I left the lounge, my bare feet silent against the cold marble. The silence in this place wasn't peaceful—it was heavy, always listening, always waiting for the next move.

I wasn't sure where I was going. I just knew I needed to move. To breathe.

To feel something other than the weight of what had just happened.

I'd nearly died. I'd drawn blood. I'd seen a life taken with no warning, no emotion, no hesitation.

And yet, what terrified me the most wasn't Dante's bullet or Celeste's knife.

It was the part of me that felt…alive.

More alive than I had ever been.

I ended up on the balcony, overlooking the city that glittered like a lie beneath a velvet sky. The wind played with my hair, and for a moment, I let my eyes close.

I didn't cry.

I didn't scream.

I just let the world feel small below me, because for the first time—I didn't feel small within it.

---

And then, as if summoned by my silence, I felt him behind me.

Dante.

I didn't turn around. "Do you kill everyone who fails you?"

"No," he said quietly. "Only the ones who try to take what's mine."

"You said I passed," I whispered. "But I didn't win. I didn't even finish it."

"You didn't need to," he replied. "I only needed to see you wouldn't fold. And you didn't."

I turned to face him. "What happens now?"

His eyes didn't waver.

"Now," he said, stepping closer, "you start learning how to fight back before they ever touch you."

I stared at Dante in the moonlight, searching his face for something human. A flicker of remorse. A shadow of guilt.

But there was nothing.

Only control.

Only certainty.

"How many people have you killed?" I asked, my voice hoarse.

He didn't blink. "Directly? Seventeen. Indirectly? Hundreds."

I expected to feel horror. But all I felt was… numb. Because somehow, deep inside, I already knew he was a monster. The kind that didn't hide in shadows. The kind that ruled them.

"You're not afraid of hell?" I asked.

He stepped closer until his breath brushed my lips.

"I don't fear hell, Aria," he whispered. "I run it."

I should've recoiled. But I didn't.

I just stood there, breathless—because for the first time, I wasn't sure if I wanted to run… or step deeper into the fire.

I turned my back to him and leaned against the balcony rail, gripping it until my knuckles turned white.

"You act like you're saving me," I murmured. "But you're just... reshaping me."

Dante's voice came from behind me, calm, low. "I'm not here to save you, Aria. I'm here to show you what you're capable of."

"And what if I don't want to become capable of anything?" I asked, eyes locked on the blurred skyline. "What if I just wanted to be left alone?"

He stepped beside me, not touching, just close enough for the heat of him to roll off his skin. "Then you'd already be dead. Or sold. Or screaming in some basement owned by men who don't care if you survive the night."

His words weren't cruel. They were honest. Brutally honest.

That was the part that cut deepest.

"I didn't choose this life," I whispered.

"No," he agreed. "But you're in it now. And if you don't learn to control it—someone else will."

I looked up at him then, truly looked.

And for the first time, I didn't just see my captor.

I saw my mirror.

Inside, the penthouse felt colder than it had hours ago. The halls whispered with ghosts. The lounge still smelled faintly of blood, no matter how well it had been scrubbed. No matter how expensive the rug now laid over the stain.

I wandered back into the War Room, pulled the file on Celeste from the desk, and stared at it for a long moment.

Then I tore it down the middle.

It was silent—soft, even—but the act felt louder than a scream.

I wasn't that girl anymore. The girl who sat and watched, waited, hoped someone else would come to save her. That girl was gone.

Dead on the floor beside Celeste.

Dante had killed her.

And I wasn't sure yet if I hated him for it… or if I was grateful.

---

Later, in the quiet of my room, I stared at myself in the mirror again. Hair loose. Lips pale. A small bruise blooming along my collarbone.

The collar still glittered like a crown I never asked for.

But when I tilted my head, when I really looked, I didn't just see a prisoner anymore.

I saw a girl no longer afraid to draw blood.

And in the depths of my reflection—just barely—I saw something else beginning to form.

A future.

Dark. Sharp. And entirely mine.