Chapter 1

I took on a huge debt to save my fiancé's family, turns out he's the one who sent me to a mafia auction block.

After my heart stopped for the fifth time, I'm slumped inside a dog cage, oil still slick on my skin, eyes blown out and empty.

That's when I hear them laughing outside the door.

"This is rich. She really thinks she took on eighty million for Mr. Greco? That money's his own damn cash."

"Boss was scared she was a gold digger. Set the whole thing up to see if she'd bleed for him. He thought she'd be washing dishes back here — had no clue she's been strung up every night, passed around like a party favor."

The door swings open. The stink of blood hits them and they freeze, scrambling for their phones.

So that's it.

The loan. The debt. The "selling myself to save him." All of it — a stage play my fiancé paid for, just to test whether I'd bleed for him.

Iron floods my throat. The world goes black.

...

When I come to, I'm wearing nothing but shredded rags barely covering me. Whip cuts everywhere, some deep enough to see meat.

The iron door crashes open. A flashlight burns straight into my face.

I don't have the strength to lift a hand. I squint through swollen eyelids.

And there he is.

Matteo Greco. My fiancé. The man I bled eighty million for.

The man who handed me to this place.

His eyes hit my body — and freeze.

Behind him, my best friend Vanessa slaps a hand over her mouth, faking horror like she's rehearsed it.

"Oh my God! Cora, what happened to you? Matteo only had you helping in the kitchen!"

Her voice can't hide the thrill underneath.

Matteo walks closer. The reek of blood and whore-house oil hits him. He curls his lip.

"Cora. I just wanted to test you. See if you'd suffer a little for me." His voice is ice. "And what do you do? You throw yourself into a place like this. Selling yourself."

I look up at that perfect face. Something hot and the taste of blood floods my mouth.

I turn my head and spit a mouthful of black blood, chunks of something inside it, right onto the toe of his shoe.

Matteo jerks back two steps.

"Don't you dare play dead!" He stabs a finger at the marks on my body. "Look at yourself. Covered in this filthy oil like some cheap whore. I told you to suffer — I didn't tell you to crawl under those old bastards!"

I drag my mouth into something that might be a smile.

"Matteo." My voice is wrecked. Every word tears.

"Is the show over?"

"What did you say?" His face goes colder.

I lift my head. The eyes that used to look at him with love are dead now.

"I said. You make me sick."

His face turns to stone. Then his hand flies up — crack — and the slap snaps my head sideways into the iron bars.

"You think I'm disgusting?" He's shouting now. "You eat my money, you wear my name, and I'm not allowed to test you? You couldn't hold a damn line. You made yourself this dirty!"

Vanessa rushes in, grabbing his arm like she's the voice of reason.

"Matteo, don't. Maybe she didn't have a choice. Look at her — let's just take her home."

Her gaze drifts over the bite marks on my inner thigh. She knows exactly where every one of them came from. A sick little flicker of pleasure crosses her eyes.

Matteo inhales hard. Drags his glare across me one more time.

"Get her out. Take her back. Let's see if she's still got the nerve to call herself my fiancée."

A bodyguard steps in and rips the cuffs off my wrists.

The second the chain lets go, I collapse face-down into the pooled blood on the floor.