The Ruthless Don's Obsession: You Can't Run

I walked into the Thorn estate with another man's diamond on my finger, naive enough to think it could shield me from Marcus.

But the Don of the city’s underworld didn't even blink.

He called my engagement ring a "cute trinket" and introduced me to his own fiancée, Chloe, right then and there.

"Love is a fairy tale for children, Ellie," he sneered. "And you are far too old for fairy tales."

I tried to leave with dignity, but the knife twisted deeper. I found my mother’s silver locket—the one he swore to protect with his life—buried in the mud like trash.

He hadn't just rejected me; he had erased me.

Broken, I fled to Florence to marry a man I didn't love, just to escape the suffocation of the estate.

But I couldn't outrun the heartbreak. I collapsed in a foreign apartment, burning with fever, while my fiancé worried more about wedding seating charts than my life.

I thought I was going to die alone.

Until I woke up in a sterile clinic room.

My fiancé was gone.

Standing by my bed, looking like a vengeful god who had just burned down a city to get to me, was Marcus.

He trapped me against the mattress, his eyes dark with a terrifying mix of rage and possession.

"Did you really think you could run from me?" he growled.

"I returned the locket," I whispered, trembling. "We are even."

"Fuck the locket," he said. "You belong to me, Ellie. And I am not leaving without you."

Chapter 1

Ellie POV

I walked back into the Devil's playground wearing another man's promise on my finger, naive enough to think a cold diamond could protect me from the fire.

Four years.

That was how long I had spent in Italy, breathing air that didn't reek of gunpowder and expensive scotch.

I stood before the massive oak doors of the Thorn estate. My hand trembled, not from the biting cold, but from the weight of the ring David had slid onto my finger three days ago.

It was a shield. A declaration.

I was Ellie. Just Ellie. Not the terrified orphan Marcus Thorn had taken in. Not the bird he kept in a gilded cage.

I pushed the doors open.

The air inside was stagnant. It was a heavy silence that smelled of lemon polish, cedar, and buried secrets.

Maria was the first to see me. She dropped the linen napkins she was folding onto the mahogany table.

"Ellie?" she whispered.

I rushed to her. Her embrace was the only thing in this house that felt like home. She smelled of lavender and starch, a scent that instantly brought tears to my eyes.

"Look, Maria," I said, holding up my hand. The diamond caught the dim light of the foyer. "I'm engaged."

Her eyes widened. But instead of joy, I saw stark fear.

"Does he know?" she asked.

He.

There was only one He in this world. Marcus Thorn. The Don. The man