Your Little Plaything? I'll Be Your Nightmare

Leo's voice was heavier than I'd ever heard it.

"The Costello brothers are bad news. Both of them. I'll start with the younger one, Dante. On the surface, he's the family's Underboss, handling all the 'clean' businesses and Whirl Street investments. But in reality, he's the one running their overseas money laundering. He's darker than anyone realizes.

"The older brother, Luciano, is worse. Officially, he's the Capo in Crownpoint, in charge of the docks and smuggling. Behind the scenes, he's brutal. A few years ago, to take over territory, he personally dumped a rival family's Don into the Hatton River."

Leo paused. "This is the most important part. They're not twins, but they look so similar that they might as well be. They've switched identities before. Back in school, Dante took exams for Luciano, and Luciano went out to fight Dante's battles. For them, trading places is as easy as brushing their teeth."

Every word he said hit me like a sledgehammer, but that wasn't the end.

"The three million dollars your father owes was a setup from the start. The whole thing was a trap to get you, to make you the Costello family's property."

I clenched the phone so tightly that my knuckles turned white. So, from the very beginning, I'd been nothing more than a commodity, tagged with a price.

"Chiara, listen to me. Stay away from them. I'll get you out of Monvia," Leo said.

"No." I paused, then continued, "I'm not going anywhere."

After I hung up, I stared at myself in the mirror. My face was pale, but my eyes were unnervingly bright. Dante and Luciano wanted to turn me into a toy, huh? We would see who walked away winning in the end.

That night, "Dante" showed up again. He brought me a necklace.

"Did you have a bad day? Who upset you?" he asked, pinching my cheek, sounding indulgent.

I lowered my gaze, letting a faint, almost unnoticeable tremor creep into my voice. "Dante, I think… I think I saw your brother again a few days ago."

His hand stalled for a second as he fastened the necklace. Then, he smoothly clicked the clasp shut as if nothing had happened. "Don't mind him. He's just a psycho."

I shook my head, and my eyes instantly filled with tears. "He was waiting for me at the estate gates. He said… He said I'll be his sooner or later."

I looked up at him through blurry eyes. "Dante, I'm scared."

"Dante's" expression darkened in an instant. He set the jewelry box down, the atmosphere around him turning so cold it was suffocating. "He wouldn't dare!"

His possessiveness had been lit up with almost no effort. In his eyes, there was a viciousness I'd never seen before. This wasn't the gentle, refined Dante, the Underboss. He was Luciano, the ruthless Capo. While he was pretending to be Dante, he'd let Luciano's emotions slip through.

My heart turned ice-cold.

He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. The call connected almost immediately. "Dante" didn't say a word. He merely held out the phone to me, his eyes telling me what he wanted me to say.

I knew exactly what he was asking. He wanted me to tell "Luciano" myself to stay away. He wanted to savor the sting of his other self being rejected.

It was sick and ridiculous.

I took the phone and held it to my ear, speaking in a small and shaky voice, "H-Hello? Is this Capo Costello?"

There was absolute, dead silence on the other end.

I kept playing along with the script "Dante" wanted. "Please stop harassing me. The man I love is Dante. I'll only ever be with him."

As soon as the words left my mouth, I hurriedly handed the phone back, like it had burned me.

"Dante" smiled, satisfied. He ruffled my hair. "Good job. Don't be scared. You have me."

Right in front of me, he lifted the phone back to his ear and, in a voice that sounded like staking a claim, said, "You heard her. She's mine."

Then, he hung up. He didn't know that, in the split second before the call ended, I formed three silent words while looking at the phone—"I'll be waiting."