ANGEL
Hot, bitter tears scorched my eyes. A whole different country? Europe?!
"No! Fuck you, and fuck this!" I shrieked, shoving my chair backward so violently it hit the marble floor with a deafening crash.
If Vincenzo thought he could just dictate my life, he was dead fucking wrong. He always gave in to me eventually. Every single time. He was my Daddy, and I was his princess—I just had to push him hard enough to make him bend.
"I know what’s good for me! None of you can make me go away!" I spat, turning my venom directly on Jillian. "Don’t think you can get rid of me that easily, Mommy!"
Without waiting for a response, I spun on my heel and stormed out of the dining room, my heavy footsteps echoing up the grand staircase.
Tears spilled over my lashes, hot and angry, blurring my vision as I sprinted down the hallway to my bedroom. My chest heaved as I sucked in air, my fists clenched so tightly my nails bit into my palms. I wanted to turn back around and rip every strand of hair out of that bitch’s head.
Vincenzo was the only person I had left in this godforsaken world. I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t.
To the rest of the world, Vincenzo Hale was a lethal, merciless monster—the feared, ruthless leader of The Devil’s Runt, a secret underground syndicate. Everyone trembled at the sound of his name. But to me? He was everything.
I was only ten years old when my parents were slaughtered in cold blood. Vincenzo had been the one to find me, huddled in a dark closet, trembling while my family’s blood pooled beneath the door. He’d knelt down, gently covered my eyes, and told me to be a good girl and count to a hundred. He promised me that when I opened my eyes, everything would be okay.
And he kept that promise. After my parents’ house was burned to ashes, Vincenzo brought me to his mansion. He didn’t just shelter me—he became my whole world. My guardian. My Daddy. Mine. He was mine long before Jillian ever dared to put her filthy, manicured hands on him.
I used to be the center of his universe. I basked in every second of his devotion, his protection, his undivided attention.
Until Jillian ruined everything. And worse, brought her psychotic, brooding brother into our home.
Damien was a special kind of dangerous. Just like Vincenzo, he was high up in The Devil’s Runt. He moved like a ghost—silent, lethal, barely speaking a word. But those eyes... those intense, blind-looking grey eyes saw right through my innocent facade.
I remembered the exact moment I realized what he was. I’d caught him staring at my ass while I was bent over in tiny denim shorts. He hadn’t even tried to hide it—he’d slowly licked his lips, his gaze crawling up my legs. I’d seen the dark, heavy bulge straining against the front of his pants. He knew I saw it, too. He’d actually brought his hand down, deliberately dragging his palm over his crotch while staring me dead in the eye, looking like he wanted to pin me down and fuck the life out of me right there on the floor.
But I was Vincenzo’s girl. I was completely untouchable. Damien could only stare and fantasize from a distance, because he knew the rules. Vincenzo had once plucked the eyes straight out of one of his guard’s heads just for looking at me in a bikini by the pool.
Vincenzo was possessive. He was territorial over me. So why the hell was he trying to send me away now?!
I knew it had to be Damien’s doing. That silent, predatory freak was pulling strings in the shadows.
I threw myself onto my queen-sized bed, yanking my knees to my chest. I stared at the door, my lower lip trembling. I waited five minutes.
Vincenzo didn’t come.
Before he married Jillian, he would have been at my door in five seconds flat. He hated seeing me cry. Whenever I pouted or threw a tantrum, he’d do whatever it took to wipe the tears from my face and make his little girl smile again.
Now? I was sobbing in my room, and he wasn’t here to comfort me.
Angry tears spilled over my cheeks, and I wiped them away with the back of my hand, my heart burning with pure hatred for Jillian. She was so shrewd. From the minute she stepped foot into this house, she’d made it her personal mission to uproot me.
She didn’t realize who she was messing with. I was the crafty one. I was the one who always got rid of the other desperate whores who tried to crawl into Vincenzo’s bed. I was the one who tortured them.
The bitch before Jillian had been so naive. She tried to play sweet, buying me designer clothes and expensive jewelry every time she visited to win me over. Dealing with her was a joke. I simply scratched my own arms up, threw myself down a few stairs, and wept to Vincenzo, claiming she’d attacked me. Vincenzo had gone completely feral with rage— his eyes went wild, and he nearly put a bullet through her skull that very night.
He threw her out into the street, and I never saw her again. That night, I’d slid my hand into my panties, touching myself to the intoxicating memory of Vincenzo’s fierce, deadly protectiveness.
The whore after that had been a little more stubborn, so I had to get creative.
I did my research and found out she used to dance at a high-end strip club. How could a dirty, public slut think she was worthy of my Daddy? I contacted Kelvin, the club owner’s son, who had been trying to get into my pants since high school. Kelvin was more than eager to do me a favor if it meant getting on my good side.
We lured the bitch with an offer of fifty grand just to entertain a private VIP client at her old club for one night. The greedy whore took the bait instantly, betraying Vincenzo for a quick payout.
I paid the client double to film the entire encounter. Then, I anonymously sent the video straight to Vincenzo’s phone. And just to utterly destroy her, Kelvin leaked it onto a major adult site, where it went viral within hours.
When Vincenzo found out his fiancee was a cheating, lying whore, he didn’t just break up with her. He let his lieutenants have their way with her first, and then personally put a bullet right between her eyes.
After that, Vincenzo was only mine again.
Until Jillian.
Jillian was different. My life shattered the day I realized how deep her connection to Vincenzo went—they were childhood friends and long-time business partners in the underworld. She knew how the game worked. She studied me, calculated my moves, and struck before I even knew I was in a war.
The very first week she moved in, she stormed into my bedroom, yanked me off my bed by my hair, and slammed me onto the floor. Before I could even process the shock, her hand cracked across my face in a brutal, stinging slap.
No one had ever laid a hand on me in my entire life.
It turned out the last bitch—the one I’d set up with the viral video—had been a close friend of hers. Jillian didn’t care about replacing her dead friend in Vincenzo’s bed, but she was out for blood over what I’d done to orchestrate it.
I ran straight to Vincenzo, showing him the dark bruise blooming on my cheek, fully expecting him to execute Jillian on the spot.
But Jillian was ahead of me. She’d already handed Vincenzo full proof of my involvement—bank transfers, text logs with Kelvin, everything. She painted me as a manipulative, psycho monster.
That was the day everything changed.
The disappointment in Vincenzo’s eyes that night broke something inside me. When he asked me why I did it, I put on my best innocent face and told him I just wanted to test if she was truly loyal to him, that it wasn’t my fault she turned out to be a prostitute.
For the first time in my life, Vincenzo looked at me like he didn’t know who I was. Like he was terrified of his own baby girl.
He stopped believing my tearful lies after that. He chose Jillian. He married her. And to rub salt in the wound, he forced me to call her "Mommy," knowing I utterly loathed her guts.
Knock. Knock.
My heart took a violent leap into my throat. The anger vanished instantly, replaced by a surge of giddy triumph.
He came. I knew he couldn’t stay away! He came to comfort his princess, just like he always did.
I scrambled off the bed, wiping the damp tears from my cheeks, and rushed to the door. I yanked it open, a soft, pathetic pout already forming on my lips—
My heart dropped straight to my stomach.
It wasn’t Vincenzo.
Standing in the doorway, blocking the light with his towering frame, was Damien. His pale, dead-looking grey eyes locked onto mine, completely devoid of warmth.