Bound to the Don

Chapter 27

(The chapter below is dedicated to my number one fan(not kidding) AmeliaAli12 ❤️please enjoy( I hope you do🥲).
Salma

I thought I was prepared to face my new reality. I told myself over and over that I was strong enough, ready enough, numb enough. That after everything I'd already endured, nothing could shake me anymore. 

But I was wrong. So very wrong. 

"The boss sent for you."

Five words. Just five harmless-sounding words. But to me, they felt like a death sentence. The moment they left her mouth, it was as though the ground beneath me cracked open. My stomach twisted, and my legs threatened to give out beneath me. A cold chill ran down my spine, and all I wanted to do was hide—crawl into a corner and disappear forever. 

How did it come to this? How did my life spiral into a nightmare I couldn't wake up from? 

One minute, I was an ordinary girl with ordinary problems. The next, I was tossed into a deadly game between two powerful men—both cruel, both calculating, both seeing me not as a human being, but as a possession. 

A prize. A pawn. 

Especially Armando Giovanni—the man who once looked at me like I was beneath him. The man who would've had me killed without blinking. And now, he was calling for me. 

Why? Why now?

I stood frozen in place, mind blank, heart hammering against my chest like it was trying to escape. The hallway blurred around me. I couldn't breathe. My ears rang. I couldn't even find the strength to ask why. Why he wanted to see me. Why I had to go. 

The maid, clearly growing impatient, rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers inches from my face. 

"Didn't you hear me?"she said sharply. "Armando has called for you. You better get moving... unless you're in the mood to die."

Die.

That one word cut through my fog like a blade. Sharp. Cold. Final. 

It snapped me out of my trance, jolting me like a slap to the face. My lungs filled with a shaky breath I hadn't even realized I was holding. I blinked, the world coming back into focus. 

And then the fear returned—stronger, deeper. 

Because now, I had no choice. I had to go. 

To him. 

To the one man I feared more than death itself. 

In my entire life, I could count on one hand the moments I had felt true, paralyzing fear. The first was the day Louis almost killed my brother right in front of me. That memory still shakes me to this day—it clings to my soul like a scar that refuses to fade. 

And the second time... is now. 

This moment. This slow, suffocating dread crawling up my spine as I'm summoned like a servant to face the one man who terrifies me to my core. I felt like I'd been called by the devil himself. 

A part of me couldn't help but wonder—what if I had never handed myself over? What if I had run, hidden, disappeared? 

But then... Omar would be gone.