Chapter 5

Alessia "Blake" Falcone POV:

The moment I stepped back into the penthouse, I knew.

The silence was a physical weight, so thick it screamed. They were waiting for me in the living room, my father standing, Karel perched on the arm of the sofa like a vulture awaiting the kill.

He had ways of knowing everything. Cameras, trackers, men who reported every move I made. I had been a fool to think I could operate in his city without him knowing. A rookie mistake.

His rage was a physical force, a wave of heat that hit me as I stepped out of the elevator.

He didn't speak, just strode to the kitchen counter. He picked up the coffee mug-my coffee mug, the one I used every morning-and hurled it against the wall, inches from my head.

A shard of ceramic whipped past my face, slicing a thin, hot line of pain across my cheek.

Karel let out a small, theatrical gasp.

"Clifton, darling, she's just a child. She probably frightened me more than anything."

Her feigned concern was another twist of the knife.

He grabbed my arm, his grip a steel vise on my bicep.

"You stole from me," he hissed, his face inches from mine, his breath hot with anger. "You stole my money. For her."

He shoved a piece of paper into my chest. A bank statement. It showed a wire transfer from a new account I'd opened to one of my mother's. I had gotten sloppy, desperate to get her the money quickly.

"I want it back," he snarled. "All of it. The money you gave that woman. And every dollar you have hidden in this apartment."

There was no point in denying it.

He dragged me to my room and watched with cold satisfaction as I pried up the loose floorboard and handed over the rest of the cash. He took my debit card and the two thousand dollars I had left in my school bag.

Then he frisked me, his hands moving over my body with a brutal, invasive ownership that made my skin crawl.

This was never about the money. It was about power. About reminding me who, and what, I belonged to.

My punishment was simple. Psychological. I was to stand in the living room, facing the wall.

I stood there for hours, my legs aching, my cheek stinging, as the city lights outside my gilded cage blinked on and the sky bled from dusk to deep, silent night.

He had taken my mother's lifeline. He had reasserted his dominance.

But as I stood there, staring at the blank wall, the cold hatred in my chest didn't shrink. It didn't even smolder. It solidified. It hardened from a burning coal into something diamond-hard, sharp, and unbreakable.