Page 79 of Ruined By the Mafia Kings
“In this one,” Mr. Iceflare replied without hesitation. “The real one. Where you’re not ‘nobody’ but Ty Hart—the most stubborn, infuriating, captivating omega I’ve ever encountered.”
“The one who stands up to us even when terrified,” Mr. Enigma added. “Who uses humor as armor but shows glimpses of something softer underneath.”
“Who sees us,” Mr. Storm finished quietly. “Not just what we are. Who we are.”
I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the way their words resonated with something deep inside me. “This is emotional manipulation,” I said, but the accusation sounded weak even to my own ears. “You’re just saying what you think will get me to open the door.”
“Then don’t open it,” Mr. Iceflare said, surprising me. “Stay there if it makes you feel safer. But listen to us. Hear what we’re trying to tell you.”
I heard his chain shift as he moved, the sound coming from lower down now, like he’d sat or knelt.
“I’ve never begged for anything in my life,” he continued, his voice lower, more intimate. “But I’m begging now. Don’t shut us out, little mouse. Not when we’ve only just found you.”
A sound escaped me, something between a laugh and a sob. “Found me? I was literally delivered to you as a breeding omega. It’s not like you discovered me through a dating app.”
“The circumstances of our meeting don’t change what’s happened since,” Mr. Enigma argued. “What’s still happening, whether you hide behind that door or not.”
My body was betraying me, responding to their voices with eagerness. My nipples hardened against the thin fabric of my shirt. The fever-like symptoms were intensifying—skin hot, heart racing, a hollow ache in my core that had nothing to do with heat and everything to do with their absence.
“This isn’t normal,” I said, more to myself than to them. “This intensity, this connection—it’s too fast, too much.”
“Says who?” Mr. Enigma challenged. “What rulebook are you following that dictates how quickly people can form connections? How deeply they can feel?”
“Common sense,” I retorted. “Self-preservation. The basic human instinct not to get emotionally attached to people who’ve threatened to hunt me down and make me pay for my sins.”
“We were wrong,” Mr. Iceflare said, the admission clearly costing him. “About you. About your role in our captivity. We know you had no choice.”
“How convenient that you’ve changed your minds now that I’m useful to you,” I said bitterly. “Now that I’m the warm body getting you through your captivity.”
“Is that really what you think?” Mr. Enigma asked, genuine hurt in his voice. “After everything we’ve shared? The moments when it was more than just physical relief?”
I remembered those moments—Mr. Iceflare’s thumb stroking my cheekbone as he looked at me with something like wonder; Mr. Enigma holding my face as he kissed me like I was something precious; Mr. Storm’s hand over my heart, his quiet presence making me feel safer than I had in years.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I admitted, the honesty feeling strange on my tongue after so many days of defensive sarcasm. “This whole situation is so far beyond my experience that I don’t have a frame of reference. I don’t know what’s real and what’s just… circumstantial adaptation.”
“Then let us show you,” Mr. Iceflare said, his voice dropping to that register that seemed to bypass my brain and speak directly to my omega hindbrain. “Open the door, little mouse. Let us prove what we’re saying is real.”
I rested my forehead against the door, torn between the desperate need to believe them and the equally powerful urge to protect myself from inevitable heartbreak.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m scared.”
“Of us?” Mr. Storm asked simply.
“No,” I admitted before I could stop myself. “Of me. Of what I’m feeling. Of what happens when you’re free and realize these feelings were just a product of captivity.”
“That won’t happen,” Mr. Enigma promised. “What we feel for you isn’t going to disappear with these chains.”
I laughed bitterly. “You can’t know that. None of us can. This entire situation is so far from normal that we have no idea how we’ll feel once it’s over.”
“Then trust your instincts,” Mr. Iceflare urged. “What is your omega telling you about us? About our connection?”
That was the problem—my instincts were screaming that these alphas were mine, that the connection between us was real and rare and worth fighting for. But my rational mind, the part that had kept me alive and independent for years, was equally insistent that this was a trap, a biological trick, a road to destruction.
I pushed myself to my feet. My skin felt too tight, my temperature rising to uncomfortable levels. The physical symptoms of separation were intensifying, but it was the emotional turmoil that was truly unbearable.
“I need to think,” I said, though thinking was becoming increasingly difficult as my body rebelled against the alphas’ absence. “I need time.”
“We understand,” Mr. Enigma said, though I could hear the strain in his voice. “We’ll be here when you’re ready.”
