The Price of Power

**Chapter One: The Price of Power**

I was never supposed to be anything but a shadow.

Born on the streets, I had nothing but my wits and a hunger for survival. My father wasn't around, and my mother—well, she was barely a memory before I even knew what it meant to have one. I grew up on the edge of the world, where no one cared if you lived or died, where survival was the only thing that mattered. There was no room for softness. No room for weakness.

I was seven when I learned the first lesson: *If you don't take, you'll be taken from.*

It was the day I watched a man die in front of me, his blood staining the alley like a warning. He was my first taste of how ruthless the world could be. How it could break you, leave you half-dead, just to prove a point. That lesson didn't take long to sink in. The streets didn't give you second chances.

I learned to be smart, to read people better than they could read themselves. I learned to watch, to listen, to play the game like a master, even before I knew what that meant. It wasn't just about fighting—though I was good at that, too—it was about control. People, situations, emotions—everything could be manipulated if you understood the strings that tied them together. And I did.

I spent my teenage years working my way up, slowly but surely. First, small-time jobs: running errands for people who had something I needed. Then, bigger jobs. Smuggling. Extortion. By the time I was twenty, I knew how to make money—and how to make people fear me.

That was the beginning of my rise. By twenty-five, I'd earned my first seat at the table, and by thirty, I had my own empire. People feared me, respected me, and if they didn't, they learned to. I didn't just survive in the mafia world. I thrived in it. I owned it.

But I wasn't the kind of man to trust easily. Trust was a weakness. It wasn't part of the plan. I knew what it felt like to have people use you. I knew what it meant to be expendable. So, I built a world around me where no one could touch me, where no one could see through the armor I'd built. Power, money, control—those were my only truths.

Love was never part of the equation.

Until I heard about her.

I didn't know her then, not by name, not by face, but I knew what she was. Another pawn. Another broken thing, sold to the highest bidder, like so many others. I knew the type—fragile, scared, desperate. Perfect for someone like me.

I didn't need her for myself, not at first. I didn't want a wife. I didn't want someone to soften the edges of my life. But when you run an empire, you learn that nothing stays in its place for long. The moment I heard her name, I knew I'd find her. I knew I could make her mine. It wasn't about love—no, it was about control. About shaping her into something I could protect, something I could mold. I could fix her. I could make her belong to me.

I didn't care about her past, not at first. It was irrelevant. She was a tool. An asset. But even then, there was something about the way she was described to me that caught my attention. They said she was broken. That she was *fragile*. Something in that word clicked. Maybe it was the fact that I'd seen too many people broken, too many people who had no fight left in them. Maybe it was the fact that I knew how to fix broken things.

It was a challenge. And I liked challenges.

They told me she had been sold by her own family. That she'd been used. Abandoned. It was almost too easy to picture—some girl, lost and afraid, abandoned by the world she'd trusted. The perfect thing for someone like me to take under my wing.

But even in the way they spoke of her, I heard something else. Something that made me pause, if only for a second. She wasn't just a victim. She was a survivor. And that was something I could respect.

She wasn't the first woman I'd seen broken. Hell, she wouldn't be the last. But she was the one I decided to fix. Or, at least, try.

When I think back on it, I know now that I wasn't trying to *save* her. I was trying to own her. I wanted to make her mine, mold her into something that belonged to me, something I could control. And that, I thought, was the greatest gift I could give her.

The world was a dangerous place. And I wasn't going to let her face it alone.

But as I watched her from the shadows, as I learned more about her, I couldn't help but feel something deeper begin to stir inside me. It wasn't love, not in the way people talked about it. No. It was possession.

I wasn't just going to protect her. I was going to keep her. She would be mine in every way.

That was the plan. That was how it was supposed to be.

I wasn't ready for what came after. Not ready for how she would make me question everything I thought I knew about power. About control.

But that was still far in the future.

For now, I would wait. I would watch. And when the time came, I would take her.

Because she belonged to me.**Chapter One: The Price of Power**

I was never supposed to be anything but a shadow.

Born on the streets, I had nothing but my wits and a hunger for survival. My father wasn't around, and my mother—well, she was barely a memory before I even knew what it meant to have one. I grew up on the edge of the world, where no one cared if you lived or died, where survival was the only thing that mattered. There was no room for softness. No room for weakness.

I was seven when I learned the first lesson: *If you don't take, you'll be taken from.*

It was the day I watched a man die in front of me, his blood staining the alley like a warning. He was my first taste of how ruthless the world could be. How it could break you, leave you half-dead, just to prove a point. That lesson didn't take long to sink in. The streets didn't give you second chances.

I learned to be smart, to read people better than they could read themselves. I learned to watch, to listen, to play the game like a master, even before I knew what that meant. It wasn't just about fighting—though I was good at that, too—it was about control. People, situations, emotions—everything could be manipulated if you understood the strings that tied them together. And I did.

I spent my teenage years working my way up, slowly but surely. First, small-time jobs: running errands for people who had something I needed. Then, bigger jobs. Smuggling. Extortion. By the time I was twenty, I knew how to make money—and how to make people fear me.

That was the beginning of my rise. By twenty-five, I'd earned my first seat at the table, and by thirty, I had my own empire. People feared me, respected me, and if they didn't, they learned to. I didn't just survive in the mafia world. I thrived in it. I *owned* it.

But I wasn't the kind of man to trust easily. Trust was a weakness. It wasn't part of the plan. I knew what it felt like to have people use you. I knew what it meant to be expendable. So, I built a world around me where no one could touch me, where no one could see through the armor I'd built. Power, money, control—those were my only truths.

Love was never part of the equation.

Until I heard about her.

I didn't know her then, not by name, not by face, but I knew what she was. Another pawn. Another broken thing, sold to the highest bidder, like so many others. I knew the type—fragile, scared, desperate. Perfect for someone like me.

I didn't need her for myself, not at first. I didn't want a wife. I didn't want someone to soften the edges of my life. But when you run an empire, you learn that nothing stays in its place for long. The moment I heard her name, I knew I'd find her. I knew I could make her mine. It wasn't about love—no, it was about control. About shaping her into something I could protect, something I could mold. I could fix her. I could make her belong to me.

I didn't care about her past, not at first. It was irrelevant. She was a tool. An asset. But even then, there was something about the way she was described to me that caught my attention. They said she was broken. That she was *fragile*. Something in that word clicked. Maybe it was the fact that I'd seen too many people broken, too many people who had no fight left in them. Maybe it was the fact that I knew how to fix broken things.

It was a challenge. And I liked challenges.

They told me she had been sold by her own family. That she'd been used. Abandoned. It was almost too easy to picture—some girl, lost and afraid, abandoned by the world she'd trusted. The perfect thing for someone like me to take under my wing.

But even in the way they spoke of her, I heard something else. Something that made me pause, if only for a second. She wasn't just a victim. She was a survivor. And that was something I could respect.

She wasn't the first woman I'd seen broken. Hell, she wouldn't be the last. But she was the one I decided to fix. Or, at least, try.

When I think back on it, I know now that I wasn't trying to *save* her. I was trying to own her. I wanted to make her mine, mold her into something that belonged to me, something I could control. And that, I thought, was the greatest gift I could give her.

The world was a dangerous place. And I wasn't going to let her face it alone.

But as I watched her from the shadows, as I learned more about her, I couldn't help but feel something deeper begin to stir inside me. It wasn't love, not in the way people talked about it. No. It was possession.

I wasn't just going to protect her. I was going to keep her. She would be mine in every way.

That was the plan. That was how it was supposed to be.

I wasn't ready for what came after. Not ready for how she would make me question everything I thought I knew about power. About control.

But that was still far in the future.

For now, I would wait. I would watch. And when the time came, I would take her.

Because she belonged to me.