Her Pov
He stepped back, but the ghost of his touch still crawled over my skin like fire that refused to die.

And his voice, that voice still echoed in my ears, low and final, promising that he would come for me.

“See you tomorrow, Princesha,” he had said.

Just before turning toward the door, his men falling in line behind him like shadows that obeyed only him.

Now he was gone.

I remained where he’d held me, pinned by the afterimage of his warmth and the echo of his voice. The house felt suddenly enormous and empty at once, the photographs on the wall like strangers who’d watched my life unfold and now looked away. My legs trembled; the floor beneath my feet seemed to tilt and slide.

The very house where I’d spent my entire life, the same walls that once felt like protection, felt suddenly like a cage closing in.

The ceiling pressed down. The air felt thick, heavy, poisoned by his presence.

The room that had always smelled of cinnamon and warmth now carried only the ghost of him…..his cologne, his threat, his claim.

The sound of cars fading into the distance was the only thing that told me he was really gone.

But I couldn’t move. I stood frozen in the same spot where he’d touched me, trembling, breathing too fast, my fingers still clutching the hem of my sleeve as if that could erase the memory of him.

Then I heard footsteps, hurried…familiar.

“Stella!”

Mamma and Papà ran toward me, and the moment their arms wrapped around me, I broke.

They held me so tight I could feel their hearts pounding through their chests.

Mamma was sobbing deep, broken sounds that tore through the silence.

Papà’s breath came in short, uneven bursts; I’d never seen fear in his eyes before, but tonight it lived there, wild and helpless.

They didn’t speak for a moment, just held me, as if afraid I would vanish if they let go.

For the first time in my life, I felt their embrace not as comfort… but as desperation.

I could feel their fear in my bones, in the way Papà’s arms tightened around me, as if by holding me close he could stop the inevitable.

I could hear Mamma’s whispered prayers against my hair….half Italian, half broken sobs, calling for God, for mercy, for time to turn back.

The house was so quiet that their cries seemed to echo against the walls.

Those same walls that had heard my laughter, the tap of my keyboard, my music, my dreams, now listened to the sound of our fear.

And deep down, beneath the panic, a single, terrible realization burned through me:

He would come back.

And next time… he wouldn’t leave without me.

“Stella…oh, Stella,” she kept crying, rocking us both, as if she could hold the future together by sheer force.

Papa’s hands were on my face then, his palms rough and shaking as he forced himself to look at me. His eyes, usually the place I found courage, were hollow and frantic. He kissed my forehead like someone making a vow he wasn’t sure he could keep.

“We’ll go,” he whispered, voice rough with something like resolve and bone-deep fear. “We’ll run. We’ll go far. We will hide you…. hide ourselves. I won’t let that monster take you.”

Relief and terror collided in me. For a blessed two heartbeats, I believed him. I believed in escape.

But the night was already thicker than any promise. We packed a few necessary things and left the house where we shared dreams and love.

We moved fast, murmured plans, shoes pulled on, my bag shoved into my hands with trembling urgency. Papa’s hands were clumsy with the rush, but his eyes were steady for the first time since Luan’s men had arrived. Mamma kept pressing kisses to my hair, murmuring half-prayers, half-instructions. We left the house without turning on the light, slipping into the lane like thieves.

We walked with the small-town hush of people who think the night will protect them. The lane was a quilt of dark hedges and shuttered windows. The station two miles away glowed like a promise, train lights, the hum of life going on as if our world hadn’t tilted on its axis.

We almost made it.

Then the night folded in on us.

The moment we reached the platform, the sight before us turned my blood to ice.

Luan was already there, waiting.

He stood beneath the pale station lights like the night itself had dressed him in black. That smirk…slow, knowing, poisonous curved across his lips as if he had been standing there for hours, confident that we would come.

He didn’t look surprised.

He looked amused.

He knew.

He had always known.

“Run!” Papà hissed beside me, his voice trembling with desperation.

But before our feet could even move, before we could turn and vanish into the shadows, his men emerged, silent, efficient, shadows peeling away from the darkness itself. They surrounded us in seconds, their formation tight, their expressions unreadable.

We froze. Mamma gasped, clutching my arm. Papà stepped in front of me, but the air had already shifted, thick and dangerous, like the calm before a storm.

And then he moved.

Luan.

His coat caught the wind as he strode toward us, the kind of stride that didn’t belong to a man, it belonged to a ruler reclaiming what was his. His steel-grey eyes found me immediately, locking me in place. For a heartbeat, I forgot to breathe.

He stopped just a few feet away, and that faint smirk turned cruel.

“You thought you could run from me?” His voice was quiet, too quiet, like thunder before it breaks.

Papà tried to push me behind him, shouting, “Stay away from her!”

But before he could take another step, before any of us could even blink Luan was in front of me.

He grabbed me by the arm, his fingers like iron, and yanked me forward. My body collided with his chest, hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.

I gasped, trying to twist free.

“Let me go!”

He didn’t listen. His other hand tangled into my hair, fisting it brutally, forcing my head back so I had no choice but to meet his eyes.

The heat of his breath hit my cheek as he growled, “You run from me again, and I’ll make sure you never have the chance to walk away from me. Ever.”

“MAMMA!” I screamed, tears burning my eyes. My bag slipped from my hand, hitting the platform with a hollow thud. My laptop shattering like another soul.

My mother tried to run toward me, but two of his men stepped forward, blocking her path.

“Let her go! Please….she’s just a child!” Mamma sobbed, struggling against the guards.

Papà roared, “Don’t touch her!”

But no one dared move. No one but him.

Luan turned his head slightly, his cold eyes flicking toward my father. “If you wanted to protect her, you should have never let her run,” he said, his tone almost conversational, chilling in its composure.

Then his focus snapped back to me. His hand still in my hair, his chest rising steadily as he leaned closer. “I told you I’d come for you, Princesha. And yet here you are… running into my arms anyway.”

I struggled, pulling against his hold, my scalp burning from his grip. “You’re hurting me!” I shouted. Traitor tears streaming down my cheeks.

He smiled, dark and deliberate as he started dragging me by my hair towards the middle of the platform. “Good. Then you’ll remember that I’m the only one who gets to touch you.”

His words made my stomach twist in fear. My parents were shouting, pleading but they were just noise in the background. My whole world had narrowed to him, his hand in my hair, his voice in my ear.

“I wanted to make you mine with respect,” he said, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “I wanted to give you a name, a place beside me. A crown. But you…” his grip tightened. “....you chose defiance.”

He forced me to look at him, his face inches from mine, his tone shifting into something that almost sounded like regret.

“If what I felt was mere obsession, I would have taken you that day by the lake. I could have. No one would’ve stopped me.” He leaned in, his lips brushing dangerously close to my ear. “But I didn’t. Because I wanted you with honor. Because I wanted you to want to be mine.”

Then, softly, he added, “And now… you’ve left me no choice.”

He let go of my hair only to reach inside his coat and pull out a piece of paper. It gleamed under the platform lights…official seals, signatures, something heavy and final.

“This,” he said, lifting the page between two fingers, “was supposed to be a public ceremony. A celebration. You..my wife, standing beside me. Your parents honored guests. But no more.” His jaw tightened. “Now you’ll sign this in the dark….because that’s where those who betray my trust belong.”

Mamma screamed. “No! Don’t make her do this!”

Papà struggled against the guards, fury burning through his voice. “You bastard! You think you can force her?”

Luan didn’t look at either of them. His gaze stayed on me.

“Sign it,” he said, calm and deadly. “And they live.”

“No,” Papà shouted. “Don’t listen to him, cara mia. Don’t you dare!”

Luan’s expression didn’t change but his patience did.

In one swift movement, he pulled a gun from his coat. The sound of metal sliding against leather made my stomach drop. He didn’t even point it at my father, he just turned, fired once into the ground.

Maybe that's what I thought.

The sound cracked through the air like lightning. The next second, my father cried out in pain and dropped to one knee, clutching his leg.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe. The world was only noise…my father’s cry, my mother’s scream, the echo of the gunshot ricocheting off metal and stone.

“Papà!” I screamed as I looked down and saw red spreading across the platform, staining the tiles near his leg. The blood didn’t look real. It looked like something that belonged to a nightmare.

“Papà…” The word broke inside me. I fell to my knees, reaching toward him, but before my fingers could touch the ground Luan’s grip yanked me back up. His hand twisted in my hair again, forcing me to stay upright.

“Stay where you are,” he warned, his voice too calm for the chaos around us. “You’ve already tested my patience once tonight. Don’t try again.”

My heart pounded so hard I thought it would burst. I could smell the smoke from his gun, the faint tang of blood in the air. Mamma was on the ground beside Papà, pressing her scarf to his wound, sobbing and whispering prayers. He was breathing, thank God but the pain in his face carved itself into my soul.

He looked up at me, eyes glassy with agony but still full of that same stubborn love. “Don’t you dare, mia,” he rasped, shaking his head. “Don’t you give him that.”

I wanted to obey. I wanted to scream no until my voice broke. But then Luan’s hand moved again, brushing the gun’s barrel with deliberate ease. His gaze met mine, cold and certain.

“Decide,” he said. “Their life or your pride…. either way you will be mine. Willingly or over their dead bodies.”

Something inside me cracked.
I wasn’t strong enough for this choice, no one could be.

My knees gave way, and I sank onto the platform, trembling so hard the paper in front of me blurred. Tears fell freely, blotting the words I could barely see. I could still hear Papà saying don’t, still feel Mamma’s screams, but they seemed far away, swallowed by the hum of the train in the distance.

I picked up the pen that fall somewhere on the ground. My hand shook uncontrollably.
When I pressed it to the page, the ink spread like blood.
I wrote my name as if I were signing away my soul to devil.

The moment the last stroke was done, Luan took the paper from my hands.
He didn’t even glance at my parents, just folded it once, neatly, and slid it inside his coat.

“Good girl,” he murmured.

He turned to his men with a flick of his wrist. “Get him to a hospital. Now. He’s no use to me dead.”

Mamma sobbed in relief, clutching Papà’s face as two men lifted him carefully. She cried, voice cracking as one guard dragged her along with them.

Luan didn’t acknowledge her. His focus never left me.

When I tried to move toward them, he caught my arm, stopping me short.  “Not you,” he said, low but sharp.

“Please,” I begged, “let me see him…just once…please.”

His expression didn’t change. “No.”
One word. Final. Absolute.

He stepped closer, his breath brushing my temple as he whispered, “You made your choice, Princesha. Now live with it.”

I watched helplessly as my father was carried toward the waiting car.
My mother turned to look at me, her tear-streaked face breaking me all over again.
“Tesoro!” she cried. “We’ll find you, tesoro, we’ll…”

The rest was swallowed by the slam of the car door as they drove away into the night.

Silence followed. The kind that isn’t empty, but heavy, thick with everything that’s been lost. I stood there, shaking, staring at the spot where they’d been until Luan’s voice sliced through the stillness.

“It’s time.”

He pulled me toward his car, his grip firm but no longer angry.

I didn’t fight. I couldn’t. Something in me had gone quiet, like a light had been switched off.

The car door opened by his driver, and I slid inside. The leather was cold, the air filled with that same scent of smoke and pine that would haunt me forever.
He joined me, settling into the seat beside me, and for a long moment there was only the sound of the engine starting.

As we drove away, I looked out the window.

The streets I’d grown up on passed in slow motion, each one familiar, each one fading. The bakery where Mamma used to buy bread. The church bell tower that marked every Sunday morning. The narrow alley where I learned to ride my bike.
All of it slipping away behind glass and shadow.

It hit me then, like a quiet, terrible truth.

My story here was over. My dreams of getting admission into my dream university. Everything.

The city that raised me would never again call me its own.

Luan’s voice broke through the hum of the tires. “Don’t look back,” he said.

I didn’t turn, but I felt his gaze on me, unwavering, claiming.

“From this moment,” he said, his tone low and final, “you are no longer some ordinary girl. You are mine. Mrs. Kovači.”

The words hung between us, sharp and heavy, sealing the night like a lock clicking shut.

He looked forward again, unbothered, while I sat beside him silent, hollow, my fingers digging into the seat just to remind myself I was still here.

Outside, Florence blurred into darkness.
Inside, I felt the weight of a destiny I hadn’t chosen settle over me like chains I couldn’t see.

The car was quiet until his voice finally broke the silence low, steady, and terrifyingly sure. 

“You can cry for them tonight,” he said, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, tone calm as death. “You can hate me, curse me, dream of running. Do it all. But you can't.”

His head turned slightly, and his eyes caught mine in the faint glow of the passing streetlights cold, endless steel.

“But when the sun rises, you’ll wake up where you belong. In my world. In my house. In my bed if I choose.”

He leaned closer, voice dipping to a whisper that burned like a promise.

“Because you’re not running anymore, Princesha. You’re mine now. In every way that matters mind, body, soul. And the sooner you accept that, the less it’ll hurt.”

He sat back, expression unreadable, as if he hadn’t just rewritten the rest of my life in a handful of words.

I turned away, blinking through the blur of tears at the fading city lights.

They melted into the night like everything I’d ever known and as his words sank deeper, wrapping around me like invisible chains, I realized with a cold, hollow certainty….

He wasn’t taking me to a new life.

He was taking me to my ruin.