Chapter 138 

Chapter 138 

Aria’s POV 

My back ached. 

My wrists were bound behind me, and my mouth was gagged with something rough that scratched against the comers of my lips every time I moved. A tight, suffocating pressure surrounded my head fabric. A bag. Thick. Smelled like sweat and metal and gun oil 

I was in a car. 

I could feel the way it jerked with every bump in the road, 

The way the tires groaned over gravel and uneven terrain. I heard muffled voices outside the bag, low and speaking in a language I couldn’t place. 

Russian, maybe. 

I couldn’t breathe right. 

The gag, the bag, the way my lungs felt like they’d been carved out of me. 

Panic clawed at my throat. I tried to shift, but the moment I did, I felt the press of something hard near my side, a gun pointed by someone seated beside me. A man, from the way their body is proportioned. 

I kicked out, blindly. I didn’t care if it made sense. I just needed to move. To breathe. To scream. 

The person beside me cursed in a harsh whisper and shoved me roughly against the car seat. My head hit the window, and the bag over my face made the pain bloom hotter. 

“Stay still, someone hissed from the front. 

I froze. 

I didn’t recognize the voice. 

I didn’t know who I was with. 

Or where I was. 

fears started to burn behind my eyes. I bit down on the gag, shaking as the car kept moving. Every second dragged longer than the last. 

Then the vehicle stopped. 

Doors opened. 

Boots hit the ground. 

The door beside me swung open, and I tensed, every muscle in my body ready to bolt even though I couldn’t see or speak 

or run. 

Fingers grabbed the hood and yanked it off. 

The world burst into light. 

I gasped, blinking against the sting of it, and the face that came into view made my stomach turn. 

Nico. 

His hair was slicked back. He wasn’t bleeding anymore. No dirt, no injuries like before. He looked composed. Polished Like someone stepping into power. I wonder how he feels when he stepped on the very person who had helped pull him from the trenches. 

I wanted to split at him. 

He looked at me and his lips stretched into a smile 

“My dear Aria,” he said, voice thick with satisfaction. “So beautiful. You’re finally awake.” 

I glared at him, heart thudding so loudly I could barely hear anything else. 

I tried to speak, but the gag muffled everything. I wanted to scream. To curse him. To ask him why–why the hell he did this, what he thought he was gaining, why I’d become a pawn in a game I never agreed to play. 

He didn’t remove the gag. 

He just leaned in, close enough for me to feel his breath. “You’ve got questions. I know. And I’ll give you answers… eventually 

I thrashed, the fury bubbling up, exploding in every part of me that still had fight. 

Nico didn’t flinch. He just nodded at one of the men standing nearby. 

1/3 

Chapter 139 

Two hands grabbed me from behind, pulling me out of the car. My legs nearly buckled, still weak from whatever he injected into me earlier. My knees scraped against the pavement as I tried to regain balance, but they didn’t care. 

I was hauled upright like luggage. 

Nico walked ahead of us. 

As my eyes adjusted to the night, I saw where we were. 

A sprawling mansion loomed ahead. It was darker than Dominic’s estate, older, more ominous in the way it stood like a beast with polished teeth. Wrought–iron gates surrounded it, crawling with vines. The windows were tall, cold, and reflected nothing but the black sky. 

This wasn’t a home. 

It was a fortress. 

One of the men shoved me forward, and I stumbled along the stone path behind Nico. 

I could barely think. 

I didn’t know what was happening, how long I’d been unconscious, if anyone even knew I was gone. 

Would Dominic come for me? 

The thought pierced something deep. A painful hope. But the doubt was there. He…wouldn’t. 

He had told me to leave. I blinked back the burning years as I tried to resist the push but unfortunately I couldn’t. 

They pushed me through the doors of the mansion. The inside was even worse than the exterior–marble floors, thick red drapes, gold–framed portraits of unfamiliar men with dead eyes. It smelled of old money, dust, and something sour beneath it all. 

We stopped at the base of a grand staircase. 

Nico turned. 

And finally, finally, he removed the gag from my mouth. 

I coughed, hard, my throat burning, lips cracked. “Go to hell,” I rasped. 

He chuckled like I’d said something adorable. 

“You’ll adjust,” he said. “You always do.” 

The click of shoes echoed from the second floor. 

I looked up–slowly, hesitantly. 

A tall man appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed in black, sharp–featured, a scar trailing down the side of his jaw. 

Mikael. 

I recognized him from the files Dominic had once shown me. The man whose name was whispered like a warning in every dark corner of the underworld. 

He descended the stairs slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. 

When he reached the bottom, he stopped directly in front of me. 

And smiled. 

It was the kind of smile that made my skin crawl. 

“My love,” Mikael said, voice too smooth to be real, “you’re free now.” 

He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear like we were lovers reunited after years apart. 

Before I could react, before I could lurch backward or spit in his face, another voice cut through the tension. 

Nico’s. 

“She’s not your love,” he said coldly. “Don’t call her that.” 

Mikael’s eyes didn’t move from mine, but his jaw tensed. “You forget who’s in charge here.” 

“No,” Nico replied, stepping forward, “you forget your place. She’s mine now. We agreed on this don’t think you can put your filthy hands on her. She is not yours and she is not whatever fantasy you’re playing in your head.” 

They spoke of me as if I was some commodity to be sold. It made me feel disgusted. 

I mumbled something through the gag, my voice muffled and low but I didn’t care if it made sense. My wrists burned from the bindings, and my entire body screamed to get away from both of them. 

“Take it off,” Mikael said with a flick of his fingers. 

One of the guards yanked the gag down. 

2/3 

Chapter 138 

I gasped, coughed, spit onto the marble floor at Mikael’s feet. My voice tore from my throat raw and loud. 

“Fuck you.” 

Mikael blinked, mildly amused. 

“Free?” I snapped. “You think this is freedom? You kidnapped me. Tied me up. Dragged me to this nightmare and–what- expect me to thank you for it? Speaking of me as if I am goods? Excuse you.” 

Nico didn’t say a word. He just watched me. 

I turned to him, rage burning hot in my chest. “Let me go. Let me fucking go.” 

But the ropes around my wrists said otherwise. 

My hands were swollen, my skin raw. 

And all they did was watch. 

“Get her out of my face before she starts biting,” Mikael said flatly, turning away. 

But then- 

Another voice rang out from the top of the staircase. One I didn’t recognize. Lighter. Young. But sharp with confusion. 

“What is this?” 

Footsteps followed. 

A woman stepped into view, brows furrowed, eyes flicking from me to the men in the room. 

“Why is she here?” she asked, gaze narrowing. “What’s going on?” 

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