Escaping The Mafia Don's Golden Cage

I stood over the fresh dirt of my four-year-old son's grave. My husband, the Don of the Stark family, didn't hold my hand for comfort. He only adjusted his cuffs and checked that the diamond necklace he forced on me looked good for the cameras.

"Stop crying," he whispered into my hair. "You're making a scene."

Two days later, I woke up to the sound of shattering glass in the nursery.

A strange boy stood there, smiling over the broken remains of my son's favorite snow globe.

"This is Cody," my mother-in-law said coldly. "He's family. He stays."

When I demanded he leave, Eli looked at me with dead eyes.

"Material things can be replaced, Harper. The boy stays."

Suspicion led me to the library door, where I heard the impossible truth. Cody wasn't a distant cousin. He was Eli's illegitimate son.

And worse-while my son was drowning alone in the pool, Eli hadn't been at a business meeting. He had been in bed with his mistress.

I realized then that the silver bracelet he had gifted me wasn't jewelry. I pried it open and found the blinking red light of a tracker.

I was a prisoner in a cage of gold.

So, I decided to die.

I staged my suicide at the bridge, vanished into the night, and paid a shadow doctor to wipe my memories clean.

I became Avery. I was happy. I was free.

Until six months later, when a man in a black suit walked into my small-town cafe and looked at me with the eyes of a wolf.

"Harper," he growled. "Come home."

Chapter 1

Harper POV

I stood over the fresh dirt of my four-year-old son's grave, and the only thing I could feel was the suffocating weight of the diamond necklace my husband had forced around my throat this morning. He had insisted on it to ensure I looked presentable for the press.

The rain fell in sheets, soaking through my black dress and plastering my hair to my skull.

I didn't shiver. I didn't blink. The freezing water felt like nothing against the hollow, frozen wasteland inside my chest.

People say losing a child breaks your heart. They are wrong. It doesn't break it; it evaporates it.

It leaves you with a hollow cavity where an organ used to beat, echoing with the phantom sounds of a laughter you will never hear again.

A line of black SUVs rolled up the cemetery path. They moved like predators-silent, heavy, and inevitable.

The door of the lead car opened. A bodyguard stepped out first, snapping a black umbrella open with military precision. Then, Eli stepped out.

My husband. The Don of the Stark crime family.

He adjusted his cuffs, the movement sharp and practiced. His suit was impeccable, not a wrinkle in sight, tailored to fit the broad shoulders that carried the weight of a criminal empire. His face was a mask of solemn grief, but his eyes were dry. They were always dry.

He walked toward me, the bodyguard trailing to keep the rain off him. Eli didn't care that the water was drenching me. He stopped a foot away, his presence consuming the air around us.

"Harper," he said. His voice was low, a rumble that used to make my toes curl. Now, it just sounded like a cell door slamming shut.

He pulled me into his arms. It wasn't a hug; it was a claim.

He pressed my face against his chest, shielding me from the cameras lurking at the perimeter, but his grip was tight enough to bruise.

"It's time to go," he whispered into my hair. "You've been out here long enough. You're making a scene."

I let him lead me to the car. I was a doll. I was a ghost. I was whatever he needed me to be.

The ride back to the Stark estate was silent. Eli held my hand, his thumb rubbing over my knuckles in a rhythm that felt less like comfort and more like he was testing the structural integrity of a possession.

We arrived at the gates. The iron bars twisted toward the sky like spears. The mansion loomed ahead, a fortress of grey stone and dark windows. It was beautiful, and it was a tomb.

Inside, the air was warm and smelled of expensive lilies. I hated lilies. They smelled like death.

I walked past the living room, intending to go upstairs, to go to the nursery that was now just a museum of failures.

"Harper."

The voice stopped me. Florence, Eli's mother, sat in a high-backed velvet chair. She held a cup of tea like a scepter. She didn't look at my face; she looked at the mud on my hem.

"Go change," she said. "You're dripping on the Persian rug. We have guests coming to pay respects. Try to look less like a drowned rat and more like a Stark."

I stared at her. My son was in the ground. She was worried about the rug.

"He was your grandson," I whispered. My voice was raspy from days of screaming that had finally collapsed into silence.

Florence finally looked at me. Her eyes were hard, polished stones.

"And life goes on. We have a reputation to uphold. Grief is natural, Harper, but wallowing is vulgar."

I felt a pressure in my throat, a scream trying to claw its way out, but I swallowed it down. That was the rule here. Omertà. Silence. Swallow your pain until it poisons you.

"Oh, leave her alone, Flo."

Kasey walked in. She was wearing a black dress that was cut too low and fit too tight. She was the daughter of one of Eli's capos. She was also the woman who always seemed to occupy the room whenever I entered it.

Kasey walked up to me, her red lips curved into a sympathetic pout that didn't reach her eyes. She placed a hand on my arm. Her nails were long and sharp.

"It must be so hard," she cooed. "Knowing that if you had just been watching him a little closer... well. Accidents happen."

The words hit me like a physical slap. The guilt I lived with every second, the guilt that ate me alive, was now being weaponized by a woman who looked at my husband like he was a meal.

I pulled my arm away. "Don't touch me."

Eli walked in from the hallway. He was on his phone, barking orders about a shipment in the docks. He hung up and looked at the three of us. The tension in the room was thick enough to choke on.

He didn't ask what was wrong. He didn't defend me. He just walked over to me and pulled a small velvet box from his pocket.

"A gift," he said, opening it.

Inside lay a silver bracelet. It was delicate, beautiful, and cold.

"To remind you that you are cherished," he said, clasping it around my wrist. It clicked shut with a sound of finality.

I looked at the silver band. It felt heavy. Too heavy.

"Thank you," I said automatically.

Eli kissed my forehead. "Go rest. I have business."

He walked into his study and closed the door. I stood there, touching the cold metal on my wrist. I didn't realize then that this wasn't jewelry. It was a leash.

That night, I lay in the massive bed that felt like an ice rink. I stared at the ceiling. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw water. I saw Leo's small hand reaching up.

I sat up, gasping for air. I needed to know. I needed to know exactly what happened that day. Why the pool gate was open. Why the nanny was gone.

I reached for the bedside lamp, my fingers brushing against the toy boat I had taken from Leo's room.

Eli shifted beside me. He didn't open his eyes.

"Go to sleep, Harper," he commanded in the dark.

"Eli, the gate," I whispered, my voice trembling. "Who left the gate open?"

"Omertà," he said, the word final and absolute. "We do not speak of it. It is done."

He rolled over, his back a wall of muscle and indifference. I clutched the toy boat to my chest.

The silver bracelet on my wrist dug into my skin, a constant, biting reminder that I was trapped in a cage made of gold and silence.