Silk & Steel: A Mafia Romance | ENGLOT - ON HOLD

Prologue: Contessa

The acrid tang of stale sweat and desperation clung to Contessa like a shroud. Six years. Six years she'd been trapped in this fetid cage, a gilded prison where men with coin and malice purchased a sliver of her soul.

At nineteen, she'd arrived in Italy with a heart brimming with hope and a purse lined with the last money of her inheritance. Her quest: to find the father who'd abandoned her mother, a charismatic scoundrel who'd left behind nothing but a string of broken promises and an aching void in Contessa's life.

London's genteel poverty had been a suffocating cloak, but Rome had ripped it away, exposing her to a brutal reality. The man she'd spent years fantasizing about turned out to be a notorious card shark, his affections as fleeting as a gambler's luck.

One night, lured by a promise of reunion, Contessa found herself not in her father's arms, but in the clutches of his ruthless associates. Resistance was futile, her pleas swallowed by the darkness that descended upon her.

Now, at twenty-five, the youthful hope that had fueled her journey had curdled into a bitter acceptance. She stood before a cracked mirror, the reflection a stranger with haunted eyes and a cynical twist to her lips.

A raspy cough erupted from behind her. "You ready for tonight, Luna?" Mama June, the wizened proprietress of the Gilded Cage, stood at the doorway, a predatory glint in her rheumy eyes.

Contessa forced a smile, the practiced ease a shield against the churning despair within. "As always, Mama." The words tasted like ash in her mouth.

Mama June cackled, a sound like dry leaves skittering across a cobblestone street. "Good girl. Remember, a smile and a sway of those hips can buy more coin than tears ever will."

With a final, withering look, Mama June swept away, leaving Contessa alone with the suffocating weight of another night to endure.

...

The smokey haze of The Gilded Cage clung to Contessa like a second skin, mirroring the scarlet dress that felt less like an outfit and more like a cage.

The thumping bass vibrated in her chest, a counterpoint to the hollow ache in her stomach. Another night, another show. Every shimmy, every forced smile chipped away at a soul already teetering on the edge.

Tonight, however, a different kind of tension crackled in the air. Whispers skittered around the room like nervous rats. Even Bruno, the club's greasy owner, wore a sheen of sweat on his usually salacious face.

Contessa's gaze flickered towards the back entrance, a heavily curtained alcove that usually remained shrouded in mystery. Now, two burly men with faces like granite statues stood guard, a stark contrast to the usual muscle hired to herd drunken patrons.

Then she saw him. Damiano, second-in-command of the Corvi Neris, entered the room. The air crackled with his arrival, a tangible force that stilled the usual boisterousness of the club.

Contessa knew him from grainy security footage and whispered rumours - a man carved from stone, his beauty as sharp and lethal as the guns he owns.

Damiano scanned the room, his dark eyes like chips of obsidian cutting through the haze. Even from afar, Contessa felt a shiver crawl down her spine.

The man exuded an aura of cold command, a stark contrast to the desperate need in the eyes of the other patrons. Finally, Damiano's gaze met Contessa's.

For a fleeting moment, the world seemed to tilt on its axis. There was a flicker of something in Damiano's eyes, something alien to the usual coldness - lust? Curiosity? It vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by the stoic mask he habitually wore.