The Contract

I became more nervous when the clock read five minutes to eight. Nero left as soon as he told me to find a driver outside. When I came out of the bathroom, I had been shaken, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell my uncle what had happened.

Would I have to sleep with Nero? Would he hit me during sex? Was BDSM sex more painful than it was pleasurable? And most of all, what was I willing to do to get to the truth?

When I found myself walking towards the exit, I knew the answer—anything. My brother deserved closure, and so did I. We needed to be known as the children of a couple that taught them how beautiful love was.

Not how ugly it could get.

“Where are you going?” Viktor asked as he blocked my way to the exit. Three minutes were left. I couldn’t afford to be late and make a man who had put a knife to my throat angry.

I was already shaken as it was, and alcohol had done nothing to ease my fear.

“Not now, Viktor,” I snapped as I pulled my hand from his grasp. I immediately felt bad for snapping at him when his only fault was asking me a simple question.

“You’re shaking. Is everything okay? You don’t seem okay, and I would love to help you if you let me.” He said softly, making me feel even more like a dick.

“I’m just tired. I’ll text you later tonight.” If I could walk after Nero was done with me.

“Are you sure?”

One minute.

“I’m sure. Have a lovely night, Viktor. It was nice to meet you.”

I walked away before he could say anything. I didn’t want to be late. When I went outside, a car pulled up to the curb. I immediately knew it was Nero’s car based on the tinted windows.

The backseat door opened, and I stepped in. There was no one else inside but the driver and me. He didn’t speak to me or even look at me. He locked the doors as soon as I was in, like I was going to try and run away.

This was the opportunity Lily told me I needed to have to figure out the truth. Getting close to Nero would be difficult, but it needed to be done. I just hoped I could handle sex with him.

We came to a halt in front of the most luxurious hotel in all of New York. My door automatically opened, and I took that as a sign to get out. As soon as I was out, the door closed and the car sped away.

“Ms. Serena, I was asked to give you this key card. The private elevator is this way.” A man said.

He had a smile on his face, but I could smell his fear. He led me to the private elevator, and I used the key card to get in. It opened into the penthouse suite at the very top of the floor. It had floor-to-ceiling windows, glass walls, and an infinity pool.

It must have been worth millions. It probably cost more than my inheritance.

“You’re late,” Nero said.

He was standing by the minibar with a glass of an amber liquid in his hand. The jacket of his suit was off, and his sleeves were rolled to his elbows. I could see a sleeve tribal tattoo on his left hand.

I couldn’t deny how hot it made him look. The other arm was devoid of any tattoos except for a few Roman numbers on his fingers. Those long and powerful fingers had black rings.

He had a mafia vibe to him. Even the penthouse had dark walls and black leather couches.

“I wasn’t—”

“Don’t lie to me, Serena. It’s distasteful.”

If it was so distasteful, why was I in his penthouse? Besides, I was only two minutes late. He had serious OCD if he took offense to that.

“I’m sorry,” I said to keep the peace.

“Insincerity is also distasteful.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. He took an issue with everything, and it was honestly unbelievable.

He walked towards me with slow and deliberate steps that made me step back a little. I was afraid of what he would do. It dawned on me that he had asked me not to tell anyone where I was going.

Was he going to kill me?

When we were only inches apart, he grabbed my neck and pulled me close.

“That’s ten strikes with my belt on your ass. I don’t appreciate your attitude. Don’t roll your eyes at me, apologize sincerely, and when I tell you to be on time, don’t disappoint me.”

For some reason, the power in his voice had me nodding. And then I realized that he had promised to hit me on the ass with his belt.

Like a fucking child.

“I’m an adult. Why would you spank me?” I asked.

“I will forgive you this time because you don’t know me. I don’t like being questioned.” He said as he trailed his thumb up and down my neck.

He was running a strict programme like I was in summer camp, but the intensity in his eyes had me speechless. It was as though I had forgotten how to formulate any words. It must have been because of his commanding tone.

“Come,” he said as he let go of my neck and led me to the couch. “Sit.”

When I sat down, he sat down opposite me. Dominic appeared from nowhere and handed him some documents.

“Read the contract, and we can talk about it. You can either accept or decline if you want to be my property. Remember, if you decline, you have to explain to me what you were doing at my house last night.”

I saw the challenging look in his eyes. He was expecting me to back down because of the peculiar nature of the whole situation. The contract had to be at least twenty pages long.

However, he was offering a choice, which was not truly a choice. I could either tell him the truth or I could agree to sleep with him for the foreseeable future.

“Can I read the contract at home and then get back to you?” I asked.

There was no way I was going to be able to read it in front of him. Dominic had a gun in his holster, and I was afraid that saying the wrong thing would get me killed. There had to be a reason he asked me not to tell anyone about our meeting.

And yet, like the naïve girl I was, I did as he told me. I should have thought of the situation a little more critically, but he hadn’t given me a choice. After he left me in the bathroom, I had thirty minutes to decide.

“Okay. You have a few hours.”

“And if I decided to sign it?” I asked.

“I’ll find you, Ms. Marino. Don’t worry about having to track me down.” He stated. “Dominic will escort you out.”

I got up, eager to leave his place before he changed his mind and decided he wanted to kill me. He looked very dangerous. The man had a tattoo of a skeleton with a snake inside it on the side of his neck.

That was enough to tell me everything I needed to know about him.

“How did you know it was me?” I asked. I was sure my disguise had been solid. It had never failed me in three years.

“Have a good night.”

I watched him walk away and go up the stairs, probably heading for his bedroom. I turned and rushed out with Dominic accompanying me. He didn’t say anything to me or even acknowledge me, just like before.

He had probably driven a million women home from Nero’s penthouse.

The weird thing was that I didn’t even tell him my address, and he took me home. Of course, Nero knew everything about me, including where I lived.

I tried to open the door to leave the car, but he locked it. He handed me another document. It was an NDA.

“You leave this car when you sign this.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone—”

“Sign it.”

Judging by his tone, he was not playing around with me. He wasn’t going to let me leave until I signed the document. There was no telling what he would do if I refused. I was always outspoken and vocal.

But when it came to dealing with Nero, I suddenly went mute. I lost the ability to defend myself.

I grabbed the document from his hands and swiftly signed it. He unlocked the car, and I didn’t hesitate to get out and run as fast as I could to my apartment. When I got there, I locked the door and leaned against it, wondering what I had gotten myself into.

I lived in a small apartment in the middle-class parts of New York. I didn’t want to spend the inheritance I had received on luxurious things. I needed to make sure my brother made it to college.

I walked towards my bedroom and took out the contract. It had the words, ‘DOMINANT-SUBMISSIVE CONTRACT’ written in bold.

That alone was enough to send chills down my spine. When I finally got around to opening the first page, I almost died. I couldn’t believe a contract could have the most degrading words ever known to man.

There were rules on the first page that stated that I couldn't tell anyone about our arrangement, I had to do whatever Nero wanted, disobedience was forbidden, and I didn’t have a say on when and where Nero wanted to carry out our intimate dealings.

He was taking all my power and voice. If that’s what submission was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be submissive. And that wasn’t even the worst part.

Nero demanded that I shouldn’t have any sexual contact with other men in the duration of our arrangement. I wasn’t allowed to beg, cry, or be overly emotional unless he asked, I was supposed to accept my punishment obediently, and I shouldn’t develop romantic feelings for him.

As if I would ever fall for a sick man like him. He was backing me into a wall and all but forcing me to engage in his sick fantasies of what sex felt like. I felt like I was in Fifty Shades of Grey for crying out loud.

The worst of the worst came when I read the soft and hard limits of our arrangement. The soft limits were spanking, bondage, blindfolding, edging, teasing with implements such as feathers, ice, and wax, use of words like sir or master when addressing him in the bedroom, and no speaking without permission.

I was horrified that it was even a soft limit. It should have been a hard limit.

He also included light degradation and humiliation, role-play, and the use of toys on me.

The hard limits made me want to catch the first flight back to France.

They included blood play, branding, permanent body markings, breath play, suspension bondage, fisting, anal sex, dubious consent, monitoring of my movements outside the bedroom, and kneeling when I am addressing him.

It was all very degrading, even without all those acts. I wasn’t sure I could sign a document like that. He was treating me like a dog without any say in what she wanted and less like a human being.

The period of our arrangement was supposed to last for six months.

I was floored that people enjoyed that kind of thing.

I walked to my closet and opened a secret door there. There were pictures of all the DeLuca brothers and the people I thought were involved in my murder. A red string connected all of them.

I knew my quest for the truth would be hard, but I didn’t know if I was willing to sacrifice my body for six months to a man who would use it for his own pleasure and hang me out to dry afterwards.