I didn't exactly choose to be stolen at four years old.
But the French underworld isn't big on consent.
One minute I was Donatella Acardi, Mafia royalty. The next? Just another stolen kid bleeding in someone else's basement.
That's where I met Ami...
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Donatella POV:
The sun was up, and I hated it already.
It crawled through the window like an uninvited guest, brushing its pale, smug light across the floor, the sheets, and my bare ankles. I’d kicked the covers off halfway through the night. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t breathe. Definitely couldn’t think about Amir’s voice whispering *I want you too* like a goddamn line from a romance novel that I never asked to be a character in.
But now it was morning, and I had a full arsenal of guilt, tension, and a sore neck from sleeping on the edge of the bed like I was avoiding landmines.
I yanked myself up, ignoring the way my limbs creaked like they were made of cement. Amir was still asleep—flat on his back, arms behind his head, looking far too peaceful for someone who ruined my internal equilibrium. His hair was a mess. His mouth slightly open. One leg kicked out like he owned the mattress.
I grabbed my towel and left the room before I did something stupid. Again.
The bathroom was cold. I didn’t care.
I cranked the water hot enough to scald a demon and stripped out of my clothes, tossing my tank top across the sink with a grunt. My body was sore. My hand was bruised, still wrapped from the night I decided violence was an acceptable emotional outlet. The gauze was flecked with faint pink, the result of a punch I only half-regretted.
I stepped into the steam like a soldier entering battle.
Water hit my back, sharp and hissing, and I tipped my head back, letting it run through my curls, down my spine. For a moment, I didn’t move. Just stood there with my eyes closed, letting the heat burn the edges off everything I was trying not to feel.
I should’ve been thinking about the burner computer. The mission. The fact that Leonardo, my own blood, wanted Dimitri dead. The fact that Dimitri might’ve done something that made Amir and I collateral. That made me a pawn in some massive, blood-soaked game I hadn’t even realized I was playing.
But I wasn’t thinking about any of that.
No, I was thinking about the way Amir’s fingers brushed my jaw last night. The way he looked at me like I wasn’t a ticking bomb.
And that was worse.
Because I didn’t *want* this. I didn’t want to feel anything. Feelings were loud. Sloppy. They got people killed. They made you reckless and soft and stupid.
And yet here I was, having a full-on emotional breakdown under a showerhead like the tragic heroine in an overpriced music video.
I grabbed my shampoo like it had personally offended me and worked it through my hair with all the grace of a bar fight. Curls bounced under my fingers, springy and wild. I liked them that way. Unapologetic. Messy.
Like me.
I scrubbed hard. Rinsed. Repeated. Scrubbed again.
By the time I got to the soap, I was practically exfoliating my regrets off my skin. My ribs ached. My thighs were sore from pacing last night like I was haunted by a horny poltergeist.
