Her POV
Sometimes I think I see the world in codes. Patterns. Commands. Logic.

While everyone else talks about dreams, I just write mine in languages most people have never even heard of.

The screen in front of me flickered, green and gold lines dancing like digital constellations. My fingers typed one last command, the firewall surrendered with a soft beep. “Fatto!” I whispered, grinning. Done. Another perfect test.

My PC was my kingdom, my best friend, my battlefield, my secret empire.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? I’m only eighteen, and yet I can slip into places online where even billionaires hide their secrets. Not to steal…no, never. Just to fix what others can’t.
I call it ethical hacking.
My parents call it magic.

“Tesoro! Breakfast is getting cold!” There’s Mamma, her voice all honey and warmth, even when she’s pretending to be angry.

“One second, Mamma!” I called back, quickly closing the screen.

The smell of espresso wrapped around me the moment I stepped into the kitchen. Sunlight poured through the lace curtains, golden and soft, and there was Papa, pretending to read his newspaper while secretly watching me.

“Buongiorno, mia stella,” he greeted, smiling in that proud way that always melted me.

“Buongiorno, Papà,” I said, kissing his cheek before sitting down.

I didn’t know what I’d done in a past life to deserve parents like them. They called me Stella, their star and maybe that’s what I was to them: the light in our little house on the edge of Florence.

“Are you ready for your test today?” Mamma asked, setting a plate of heart-shaped pancakes in front of me. She always did that when she was nervous for me.

I nodded, chewing, smiling. “More than ready. I’ve been waiting for this scholarship exam for months.”

It wasn’t just an exam, it was my shot at my dream university. The kind of place where people like me built futures out of code and ambition. My parents had always given me everything they could, even beyond their means. But that university’s tuition fee? It was impossible, something they can’t afford even while working three different jobs a day.

 That’s why this scholarship mattered. I needed it at any cost, not just for me, but for them.

So I can secure my admission, build a future for myself, and one day give my parents all the happiness in the world.

Papa chuckled behind his mug. “My daughter doesn’t lose.”

“Papà!” I rolled my eyes, but secretly..I liked that he believed it.

After breakfast, I slung my bag over my shoulder, kissed Mamma’s cheek, and headed toward the door.

“Wish me luck!”

“Always, principessa mia!” Papa called from behind, his voice bright with pride.

The day was perfect. Warm sun. Orange blossoms in the air. The city is alive and kind. I hummed to myself on the way to the train station, already dreaming of the future.

I never get tired of trains. There’s something comforting about the motion, the steady rhythm, the way the world slides past like a film reel you can’t pause. Today, the carriage smelled of espresso and wool coats. My bag was heavy with everything that mattered, my laptop, my notes, and my hopes.

The exam was in a city three hours away, a scholarship interview and practical assessment for a computer programme I’d been dreaming about since I first taught myself to code. It wasn’t just a place on a piece of paper; it was the one path that could turn my curiosity into a life that mattered: real study, a future that belonged to my mind and not to pennies from little weekend gigs.

I practiced my breathing on the way there. In. Hold. Out. Code, algorithm, logic like prayers. The hall smelled of polished floors and anticipation. I sat among kids with neat shirts and older students with tired eyes. When they asked questions I didn’t know the answer to, I smiled and turned them into a problem I could solve. When they stuck me in front of a system and watched, I let my fingers speak.

They called it an assessment. I called it home.

By the time I walked out, the sun was slipping into the late afternoon. My chest was a warm, buzzing place. I had done what I needed to do better than I’d dared to hope. The woman at the desk smiled in a way that meant good things. The professor who graded my code gave a small nod, and my hands, which usually trembled when I was nervous, felt steady.

On my way back to the station I bought a small pastry and called mamma. “How did it go?” she asked before I could say hello, and I could hear the worry hiding behind her words.

“Good, mamma,” I said, and meant it with my whole heart. “I think… I think I did enough. Keep your fingers crossed.”

“Tutto il mio cuore,” she said. Her voice had a song in it. “We will celebrate when you come home.”

The train took me back through hills that looked like folded velvet. I watched the town grow nearer until the old church spire slid into view and my heart gave a silly little jump. I was going to be the one they bragged about at the market. I was going to bring home a scholarship letter. Papa would puff up with pride, mamma would make a mountain of food, and the house would smell of cinnamon and triumph.

I walked up our lane with the sun at my back, whistling a tune mamma taught me, and unlocked the gate before I even realized my hands were shaking with excitement.

But something felt… off.

The front gate was open.
So was the door.

At first, I thought Mamma had left the windows ajar. But then I heard it…voices. Low. Male. Too many to belong here. The sound of something heavy shifting, a glass clinking, and the kind of silence that didn’t feel empty, it felt threatening.

I stepped inside slowly. My bag slipped from my shoulder. The air was colder, heavier. The scent of home, coffee, cinnamon, clean linen was gone. Replaced by something sharp, chemical.

“Mamma? Papà?” My voice cracked, fragile and thin.

And then I saw them.

Men.
Tall. Broad. Dressed in black suits that looked carved into their bodies. Silent, still, and radiating power. The kind of men who didn’t need to speak to be dangerous. They stood like shadows that had learned how to breathe.

My parents sat together on the couch, hands clutched so tightly I thought their bones might crack. Mamma’s eyes were red. Papa’s jaw trembled.

“What’s… what’s going on?” I whispered.

My parents looked at me but no one answered.

Until he moved.

He was taller than the rest, commanding, magnetic, terrifying in his calm. The others looked like soldiers; he looked like war itself. His suit was black, perfectly fitted, the faint scar by his left eye catching the light. He was handsome in the way thunder is beautiful, majestic, but deadly.

When his steel-grey eyes met mine, my whole body went still.

Something primal, cold, crawled up my spine. My breath caught. I didn’t know him. And yet… the way he looked at me.it wasn’t curiosity…. It was claim.

“Princesha,” he said. The word was soft, almost tender but it burned like fire.

Princess.

My blood turned to ice.

I wanted to speak, to ask who he was, but my voice refused to obey.

He took one step closer, and every other man seemed to vanish.

I blinked, heart racing but gathering all my courage, I asked. “Who… who are you?” I stammered.

“My name is Luan Kovači,” he said, his accent thick, each word smooth and dangerous. “You don’t know me. But I know you.”

“So?”

A slow, confident smile curved his lips. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “Since last week.”

“W-what are you talking about?” I took a step back as he took a step forward, my shoulder hitting the wall.

He didn’t stop. His voice was silk wrapped in steel. “Last week, at Lake como…you were there, near the lake. I saw you.” His eyes gleamed, hungry and possessive. “Just once. But once was enough.”

I felt the floor tilt beneath me. I was there for a school picnic and when he saw me I didn't even notice.

His jaw flexed. “And since that moment, I’ve been searching for you like a man possessed.”

My lips parted in disbelief. “You…what?”

He stepped closer, close enough for me to smell his cologne, something sharp and clean, like smoke and pine. “And now,” he murmured, “I’m here. For you.”

“For… me?” words mumbled out of my lips in shock and horror.

He nodded slowly. “To take you with me.”

I blinked. The words didn’t make sense. “Take me? Where?”

He tilted his head slightly, studying me like a puzzle he’d already solved. “To make you mine.”

I gasped. My mind was still trying to make sense of his words. I looked at my parents who were sitting there helplessly and it broke something inside me because my father was my hero.

“You’re insane,” I whispered, but my voice trembled.

“No,” he said simply, his tone dark and absolute. “Just certain.”

He paused, eyes locking onto mine, and when he spoke again, the air itself seemed to bow.

“I am Luan Kovači. The Albanian Mafia King.”

Each word hit like a bullet.

“I get what I want. And now…” he stepped closer until our breaths touched, “I want you.”

My knees weakened. “Why me?” I whispered, my voice breaking.

He smirked faintly. “Because you looked at the sun that day, I have never seen someone so beautifully innocent and full of fire at the same time. Because when I saw you laugh, I forgot the world existed. Because I’ve killed men for less than the way you looked at the water, Princesha.”

He leaned closer, his breath hot against my ear. “And now, I’ll kill anyone who stands between us.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. I could barely breathe.

“No…you…can't do that…it's just a mistake..,” I choked out.

He smiled, dark and patient. “I don’t make mistakes. I make decisions.”

Every instinct inside me screamed run.

The air was too thick, the men too still, and that man…Luan Kovači was too sure. His eyes devoured every flicker of fear on my face as if it fed something inside him.

I took a shaky step to the side.
Then another.
His gaze tracked me, calm, deliberate, the way a predator watches a trembling thing that doesn’t know it’s already cornered.

My heel hit the leg of the coffee table. The sound cracked through the silence.
I turned, fast, heart hammering, aiming for the door…any door….my breath a broken prayer.

But I never made it.

A hand shot out, catching my wrist mid-motion. Hard, unyielding.

His touch was fire and iron together. I twisted, pulled, fought but his grip didn’t even tremble.
He dragged me back with terrifying ease until I crashed against his chest, the solid wall of him stealing the last of my strength.

“Don’t,” he murmured, voice a low growl against my ear. “Don’t even think about running, Princesha.”

I struggled, kicking at his shin, slamming my free hand against his arm. “Let me go!” The words tore out of me like a sob.

My father struggled in his men's hold to help me, to save me and my mother crying out for help but nothing worked.

He laughed softly, darkly his breath ghosting over my neck and it felt so disgusting. 

“You think you can outrun me?” he asked, amusement curling in his tone. “There isn’t a corner of this country I can’t reach because I fucking own it. There isn’t a lock you could hide behind that I can’t break.”

“Why are you doing this?” I gasped, still fighting. “You don’t even know me!”

“Oh, but I do,” he whispered. His voice slipped lower, intimate, terrifying. “I know the way your eyes catch light when you smile. I know you chew the inside of your cheek when you’re nervous. I know you carry a small scar on your wrist, right here.”

His thumb brushed over the faint mark from where I’d once cut myself on glass, years ago. My body froze.

He smiled against my temple, satisfied by my stillness.
“I learn everything about what’s mine.”

His words hit harder than his grip. What’s mine.
Possession. Not affection. Only filthy desire. Ownership.

I jerked my wrist again, but he only tightened his hold, his fingers splaying around my pulse. “You’ll bruise me,” I whimpered, hating how small my voice sounded.

He looked down at the place his hand encircled me, then back at my face. “Good,” he said quietly. “Then you’ll remember who held you first.”

My breath caught. My parents cried out, but the sound was far away, blurred by the roaring in my ears.

His eyes were too close, too sharp, and the faintest curve of his mouth promised both ruin and devotion.

“I don’t want you,” I whispered, my words shaking.

He leaned in until his forehead brushed mine, his tone dark silk. “You will.”

And then he released me suddenly, completely…just to watch me stumble back.
The smallest smile flickered across his face, dangerous and deliberate.

“I could destroy everything you love,” he said. “Or I could keep it safe, untouched, wrapped in gold. That choice belongs to you, Princesha. If you want to see your parents alive because either way I am taking you with me. Willingly or forced. Over their dead bodies or leaving them safe behind.”

I shook my head, tears burning my eyes. “You’re a monster.”

“I have been called worse and I’m a man who keeps what he claims,” he corrected, eyes gleaming like cold metal. “And I have already claimed you.”

He reached out again, brushing the back of his knuckles along my cheek, a mockery of tenderness. I wanted to slap him, scream, anything but fear locked my body in place.

His threat and the gun on my parents' heads made me freeze at my place.

His voice dropped to a whisper that sliced through me. “Tomorrow, you’ll leave with me. You’ll learn the world through my eyes. You’ll forget this house, this street, this small life.”

He tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet the full storm of his gaze. “And one day, you’ll thank me.”

I shook my head violently, the first sob breaking free. “Never.”

He smiled, slow and devastating. “Oh, Princesha, I never wait for permission.”

He bent closer, lips near my ear, every syllable deliberate and final.

“You will be my queen.”

The words struck like chains snapping shut.

And just like that, the room vanished, the men, the air, even the sound of my own heartbeat ... .until there was only him…and the echo of a promise I didn’t want but couldn’t escape.