Warning: My Toy is a Mafia Boss

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I bought the most beautiful man in the city and kept him like a toy. I ordered him around, used him however I felt like it. Right up until the comments only I can see told me what he actually was: the most feared crime lord in Halcyon Bay, the man who, in the story I didn't know I was living in, slits my face open and drops me in the sea to feed the fish.

By then I'd been sending him across town in the August heat to stand in line for the croissants I liked. Making him carry my bags. Parking him at my elbow at dinners to take my shots so I'd stay clearheaded. At night I climbed on top of him and used him until I got bored.

This was the night I found out.

I was straddling him, my fingers just slipping the last button on his shirt, ready to help myself to my prey, when they started scrolling.

[girl. GIRL. that is not a kept man. you have been making a man like THAT carry your shopping]

[she's gorgeous though. shame the male lead carves up her face the second he meets his fated girl]

[RUN you idiot. you could buy any man alive and you reached for the live grenade]

My hand stopped, halfway to his throat.

Chapter 1

A thousand things were still pouring past my eyes. I caught four words and held on.

Crime lord. Halcyon Bay.

Even at the top of the food chain I'd grown up in, I knew that name. Everyone did. It was the kind you said quietly. The heir who owned half the city and the half that didn't have a name. They said he was vicious, that he never forgot a slight. That the people who crossed him stopped turning up anywhere you could look.

And what, exactly, had I been doing with him.

Sending him out in the heat to queue for my pastries. Drinking through him at parties like he was a designated liver. Climbing on top of him at night like he was something I'd ordered off a menu.

I hadn't been keeping a pretty man.

I'd been signing my own death warrant.

"Your hands are freezing."

His voice in the dark was the same as it always was. Flat. Not a trace of weather in it.

The hand that had been lying at his side was on the small of my back now. I didn't catch it moving. It was just there, and then it was drawing my frozen hand down, pressing it flat to his chest.

I met his eyes and went cold all the way through.

He wasn't a soft thing I could push around. He never had been. I just hadn't been looking.

He pressed, barely. My whole body folded down into his, my nose a breath from his.

"Tired already? We haven't started."

I held still and ran the numbers faster than I've ever run anything. Somewhere in all those days I'd been reading as obedience, there had to be a door. A way out.

The harder I looked, the more I kept landing on one fact. I was going to die.

"C-Caleb." My voice came back to me from a long way off. "I don't feel well tonight."

I tried to climb off him. The hand at my spine didn't allow it.

He laughed, low and soft. Turned us in one motion and laid me down into the sheets.

"You already paid for me," he said. "Seems like a waste not to get your money's worth."

His breath was warm against my cheek. I had never been so cold in my life.

[the comments are losing it]

[that's the exact position he snaps a rival's neck in. the EXACT position]

[girl SMILE. say something sweet. keep the apex predator happy or you're a body in the bay by Friday]

[I'm scared. I'm genuinely scared for her]

Chapter 2

I made myself smile.

I reached up with a hand that wouldn't stop shaking and pushed at his chest, the way I used to when I was playacting at being put out with him.

"So rough," I said. "Where's your sense of romance."

Whatever I was going to die of later, being good to him now couldn't hurt.

Something in his eyes gave. Those flat, deep-water eyes, loosening just slightly.

I filed it away before I'd even finished being afraid of it. He didn't take to a hard hand. He took to a soft one.

So I went softer. Struck while it was warm, pitched my voice low and weak and useless.

"I really don't feel well." I turned my palm up between us so he could see it. "Look. I'm sweating right through."

He lifted off me and looked at my hand. His thumb moved across my palm, slow.

"Not well." He said it back to me. The thing that had been crushing the air out of the room was gone from his voice.

I took the opening. "Mm. My head's spinning. My legs have gone to water." I shifted the leg he had pinned, for effect.

His palm came down on my knee and stopped it.

"Don't squirm." His voice had gone rough.

I went still as a mouse.

He studied me for a long moment. Then he rolled off the bed.

I hadn't even gotten the air back into my chest before his hand was at my back, easing me upright. The same hand the comments said had killed people. I sat very, very still and let it.

And then the most feared man in Halcyon Bay lowered himself onto one knee in front of me and looked up.

"Where does it hurt?"

The back of his hand settled cool against my forehead. The cold of it pulled a shiver out of me before I could think to stop it.

[I'm sorry. did the male lead just KNEEL]

[WHAT plot twist is this. he is on his KNEES. for the disposable side character]

[he's testing her. he has to be. checking if she's faking it]

"It's just my head," I said, choosing the safest symptom, letting it land small and wronged. "I don't have any strength."

He didn't answer. He just held me in that flat, steady look and didn't stop.

Every second of it crawled. I was certain he could read the lie sitting on my face.

Right as I was about to lose my grip on it, he stood and went for the door.

His back filled the doorway. I let myself breathe.

He stopped there. Turned his head.

"I'll get you a doctor."

"Don't"

I moved to get up and stop him, and my legs folded under me, the whole room tilting sideways. I'd sold weak so well I'd half-convinced my own body.

By the time I'd caught myself, the door had already shut behind him.

Done. I dropped back onto the bed and stared a hole through the ceiling.

[she played herself. she PLAYED herself]

[ladies. I have foreseen the ending]

[doctor finds out she's faking, male lead goes nuclear, mob-style ocean disposal to follow]

I have never wanted to slap myself awake so badly in my life.

It wasn't long before he was back, a doctor at his shoulder.

My pulse jackhammered the whole time the man pressed his stethoscope here and there. Finally he packed it away and turned to Caleb, who stood off to the side.

"She's perfectly fine. A bad fright, I'd say. Nerves wound a little tight." He snapped his bag shut. "Rest. Something calming. That's all she needs."

A fright.

Well. He wasn't wrong.

My pretty little kept man had turned into the most feared man in Halcyon Bay between one heartbeat and the next.

I sagged back against the headboard. My fingers, knotted in the blanket, let go by a fraction.

Caleb's eyes moved to my face and stayed there a long time. Then, finally, he gave the doctor a nod.

"Thank you for coming."

The door clicked shut.

Just the two of us in the room again.

The breath I'd almost let go climbed right back up my throat.

[that's it? he just believed her?]

[no. NO. I have read enough billionaire-romance in this life to know a calm before the storm when I see one]

[doctor: she had a scare. male lead, turning his head very slowly: scared by who.]

Chapter 3

"Did I scare you."

He sat on the edge of the bed and raised a hand toward my face.

I flinched back. Caught myself doing it and went still, scraping together a thin smile.

"I'm fine."

His hand landed on the top of my head instead, ruffled my hair, light.

"Do you still want me to stay tonight?"

I used to order him to stay. Bratty, certain, like it was owed to me. Now I didn't dare raise my voice at him, let alone hand him commands.

I turned my face away. "If you'd rather not, then don't."

He didn't say anything. He just lifted the blanket, lay down on his side, slid an arm under my neck, and folded me into him.

"Sleep."

The hand at my waist patted twice, soothing. Like he was settling a child who really had been frightened.

I didn't sleep well.

I drifted between a thick, churning dream and the cold of being awake. The old me, chin up, giving orders. Then the picture lurched. A face opened up bloody. A body going into the bay.

Somewhere between asleep and not, a hand put an electric toothbrush in mine, paste already on it. Still half under, I let his hand steer me, leaned into the hard plane of his chest, and started brushing on instinct.

Mint cracked across my mouth and thinned out some of the sleep.

Not all of it. I stayed sunk in the laziness of being looked after down to the last detail, let those arms keep me where they wanted me.

It wasn't until the foam built up that I jolted.

Wait.

My eyes flew open onto his face, inches away. His arm was locked around me. I was draped up the length of his body, head on his shoulder, toothbrush still in my fist, foam about to run over my lip.

Last night came back in pieces.

So did the comments.

[and there's the sugar-mommy attitude again]

[she's walking all over him already. guess last night was a fever dream]

[girl. GIRL. snap out of it]

I almost swallowed the toothpaste.

"What is it?" His voice came low, right above me. He turned his head, and his mouth grazed the side of my face.

This was how I used to start every morning. Make him carry me out of bed. Hold me through getting ready. I used to make him feed me, for God's sake.

Now I was doing it to the most feared man in Halcyon Bay. Poking the bear in its own den, half-asleep, foam on my chin.

"I I'm going to be sick," I said, and tried to peel myself off him.

The arm around my waist didn't move a millimeter.

"Then be sick."

I meant put me down. "Put me down."

I forced it out through my teeth, palms going damp all over again.

"Are you finished?"

He looked down at me.

I yanked the brush out of my mouth and nodded, hard.

Only then did his arm loosen. I scrambled down off him, and my legs buckled, the floor swinging up to meet me.

"Careful." His hand closed around my arm and held it steady.

"Thanks," I said, barely audible, not letting my eyes get anywhere near his.

He didn't answer. He just turned and pushed open the bathroom door.

"I'll check on breakfast. Come down when you're done."

"Mm." I made some kind of sound at him, desperate for him to leave.

The door closed, soft.

I let the breath out. It came shaking.

The man who'd just tucked the blanket around me. Who'd put the brush in my hand and caught me before I hit the floor. The same man who was going to open up my face and drop me in the sea.

Same man.

Chapter 4

[the OLD-MARRIED-COUPLE energy??? we were in a horror movie twelve hours ago???]

[she's not even fully awake, she's running on muscle memory. this is coded into her DNA at this point]

[is it just me or is he way too practiced at that. that was NOT his first time]

The comments wouldn't stop scrolling.

They knew the story. They knew who Caleb was. They might know more than that.

A thought climbed up the back of my neck.

The comments raced past. I tried it, low, out loud to the empty room.

"Can you... hear me?"

Silence in the bathroom. My own pulse went loud in my ears.

The comments stopped dead.

Then they detonated.

[?????]

[WAIT. SHE'S TALKING TO US???]

[she broke the fourth wall oh my GOD]

[WE CAN HEAR YOU. girl can you SEE us???]

"So Caleb really is him. The Halcyon Bay one." My voice dropped. "And I'm really going to be"

The screen drowned me out.

[YES. one hundred percent yes]

[the face. the ocean. it's real, we are not messing with you]

[you're in real danger. BUT the story's already bending a little, thanks to your "I don't feel well" last night]

It scrolled too fast to catch all of it. But I caught the part that counted. The face. The ocean. Even braced for it, the bottom dropped out of me.

"Then what do I do?" It came out barely over a breath. "Is it too late to be good to him?"

[being good to him is non-negotiable]

[but you want him INTERESTED in you. not interested in revenge]

[play soft. play sweet. do not go toe to toe with him]

I let the rest of the noise blur. Somebody saying run. Somebody else saying there's nowhere on earth a man who owns half the city can't reach you. Something about a charity gala and a fated girl, here and gone before I could catch it. I pushed past all of it.

"Hold on. Hold on." I pressed two fingers to my temple. "Forget what I do for a second. Tell me this. In the original, why does Caleb hide who he is and let me keep him at all?"

The comments slowed.

[honestly? weird. the book never explains it. one line and it moves on]

[the whole book is you digging your own grave, then him cleaning house once he meets the fated girl]

[author left it a mystery or just forgot the setup]

[whatever it is, it is not good news for you]

No explanation.

Somehow that landed worse than the cruelest reason they could have handed me.

Chapter 5

"Who is she. When does she show up."

[Ophelia Frost. the best fake-innocent in the business, all wide eyes and trembling lip. she turns up three months from now, working a charity gala as a temp server]

[he steps in when a drunk businessman corners her. that's the night it happens]

[she cries. that's the whole game. one tear and he's gone]

Three months.

So I had time. Time to figure out what Caleb actually wanted from me.

Because last night, and this morning, none of it added up. None of it matched a man who felt nothing.

"Then why is he like this now?"

[honestly? we don't know. in the book he doesn't feel a single thing for you]

[okay this is just me. but. I think he might actually like you?]

The comments went strange and quiet after that one. A long pause. Then they came back slower.

[+1]

[yeah. the way he looked at her this morning. that was indulgent]

[he likes that she leans on him. you can SEE it]

[wait. is this the butterfly effect? she can see us now. maybe that's what changed him]

[because none of this is in the book. this feeling is not in the book]

I watched the words slide past, and the whole shape of it clicked into place on its own.

If the script had already slipped, if he was off the page doing things the author never wrote, then its grip on him wasn't absolute.

And if he felt something. If there was even a crack of it.

Then playing dead was the wrong game.

"I'm done hiding and hoping," I said. To the mirror, to them, to myself. "Hiding is just waiting to lose. Sooner or later the act slips and I'm a body in the bay anyway."

[go on]

"So I stop being the side character he's supposed to throw away." I watched my own eyes harden in the glass. "I make myself the one thing he can't stand to lose. Past the point his fated girl ever shows up. I become the thing he wants too badly to follow the plan."

A beat of silence on the screen. Then it lit up.

[SHE GETS IT]

[turn the apex predator into a man who can't sleep without you. YES]

One comment drifted by with the gallows humor of someone who'd already made peace with the worst.

[and hey. worst case, if you're going down anyway, at least the view's good?]

A laugh punched out of me before I could stop it.

It wasn't wrong. That face had been the start of every disaster in my life. I might as well make it the end of one.

I held my own eyes in the mirror until my jaw set.

If I was already here, I wasn't going to sit still and wait to die.

I was going to play.

[that's our girl]

[your comment section rides at dawn]

[GO. turn the dark king of Halcyon Bay into your lapdog]

I finished getting ready fast.

By the time I made it out to the living room, Caleb was already waiting at the table.

Chapter 6

"What took so long. Still feeling sick?"

He pulled my chair out and set warm milk and oatmeal in front of me, steam still coming off it.

I looked at the breakfast I hadn't touched and glanced up.

"Sorry. Why didn't you eat first?"

His hands stopped. He turned his head and met my eyes.

The look in them was openly puzzled, like the apology was a thing that didn't compute.

"Waiting for you isn't a hardship."

Flat. Not a trace of effort in it, like he was telling me the weather.

[ma'am he has no feelings for you. and I will eat my own head]

[I'M MAGNETIZED. put me down for a head too]

[the book version of him would NEVER say something that loaded]

I took a small sip of the milk. Caleb had already sat down beside me.

That was when Mrs. Tuttle came over with her tablet.

"Miss. Maison Devereux's fall pieces are in. Shall I have them hold a private suite for you?"

I loved Devereux. I always made an event of it, a whole production, Caleb hauled along every single time.

Let's go, come look with me almost left my mouth on reflex.

I shoved it back down. No more of the old spoiled-brat routine. Not with him.

But Caleb set down his napkin, wiped his mouth, and stood without a word.

"Where are you going?"

He glanced back. "You're heading out, aren't you. I'll change."

He started to move. I caught him fast.

"I don't really feel like going today."

He turned and came back to me. His hand settled at the back of my neck, light.

"Not well?" His breath stirred the hair at my temple.

I didn't dare move. My voice came out muffled. "No. Just lazy. Don't feel like moving."

His palm stayed at my nape a moment. The second it lifted, the invisible weight in the room went with it.

He looked over at Mrs. Tuttle.

"Have them send the entire fall couture line here this afternoon. Samples, all of it." A small pause, the kind that didn't leave room for an answer. "And the head designer. In person, with her team. To fit her."

Mrs. Tuttle glanced at me and nodded. "Of course."

I stared at him.

He'd already looked away, settled back beside me, face giving away nothing as he moved food onto my plate.

"You don't want to move," he said. "So they'll move."

By that afternoon I couldn't focus.

None of the cuts or colors held me.

[okay the powder blue. that's YOUR color]

[no. the black velvet. a little sexy without being too open. that's the one]

[this man is just alpha-CEO incarnate, huh]

I'd just reached for the black velvet gown, half on the comments' say-so, when my phone lit up on the side table. DAD, flashing across the screen.

I put it on speaker and tossed it back down.

Regretted it a second later.

"Sweetheart. There's a business-association reception tonight. Put in an appearance."

He hung up before I could get a word out.

The old man didn't even leave me the room to say no.

Chapter 7

Since Caleb, I'd brought him to every one of these.

A few glasses and I was a puddle on the floor. He drank like it was water.

Now I stood there turning it over. Whether to bring him at all.

"I've got something tonight." His voice came from behind me. "I can't go."

I turned. He was watching me, and he didn't explain.

I gentled my voice. "Then go do what you need to."

His eyes stalled for a second. His brow pulled, fast, and let go.

He didn't say anything. He patted the top of my head.

"Go easy on the drinks. I'll come get you as soon as I can."

[I'm sorry. WHAT did I just hear. go easy on the drinks???]

[he's worried. he's actually worried]

[the quiet little control-freak energy of that one line. I'm UNWELL]

[that was real concern. PLAN IS WORKING. girl, he is watching you]

I stared at the tablet in my hands, but every part of me was on the comments.

The corner of my mouth tugged up where he couldn't see it.

Halfway through the reception, my father vanished again.

Told me he was off to the men's room. Translation: a quiet corner, hiding from his own party.

Even with him supposedly running cover for me, I'd had to put a few away. My head had started to swim.

I was hunting for a couch to sink into when I saw Mr. Ashcroft cutting toward me with a young man in tow. One of my father's business contacts.

I wanted to bolt.

"Vivi, sweetheart."

I rolled my eyes, then turned with the smile already on. "Mr. Ashcroft. Hi."

"This is Brett." He nudged me toward the young man, warm and pushy. "Just back from overseas. Finance. Started a very promising little venture of his own. Sharp kid. Hungry. Not afraid of a long day."

His eyes ran back and forth between me and Brett. The wheels turning behind them were not subtle.

Brett produced a smile he clearly thought was suave and put out his hand. "Miss Linden. I've heard a lot about you."

I didn't take it. Gave him a small nod instead. Took in the suit. Bought for tonight, you could tell, the cut still a touch tight across the shoulders. Then I went back to Mr. Ashcroft's beaming, crinkled face.

I swirled the champagne in my glass.

"Are you scouting talent for my father?"

Mr. Ashcroft laughed, big and easy.

"You've got high standards, I know. But those Wall Street trust-fund boys, none of them are reliable. Brett here is a real up-and-comer. Knows how to make a woman happy. He'll make you the kind of husband who hangs on your every word."

The air around us went quiet for a second.

Glances drifted over, light as anything.

I pushed down the flare of being handled like an idiot, and the swim of the champagne under it. When I lifted my eyes again, the smile on my face was pure Linden heiress.

"Mr. Ashcroft." A little spoiled, a little entitled, like it was simply owed to me. "I have money. My father is glad to keep me. I could lie on a couch for the rest of my life."

I tipped my head.

Looked Brett over, head to foot. His face had already begun to set.

"When I pick a husband, he ought to be able to keep me too, don't you think? I can hardly go falling for some broke nobody." A pause. "What would I even want him for?"

I lifted one finger. And started counting.

Chapter 8

"The rented one-bedroom out past the city line, the one without its own closet? Or is it the part where he plays startup founder while he bleeds my father dry, then talks my trust fund out from under me on the way out?"

My gaze drifted, pointed, across Mr. Ashcroft's stiffening face. Then back to Brett, stranded somewhere between white and red.

"People respect strength, Mr. Ashcroft. Money. That's just true, isn't it."

I set my glass down and let out a small sigh, like the whole thing genuinely disappointed me.

"If I actually fell for something like that, my father would slap me into next week. Wouldn't he."

Quiet.

Mr. Ashcroft's mouth worked. Nothing came out of it.

Brett went red, then white, his fingers picking at the seam of his brand-new trousers.

Somewhere close by, a laugh got swallowed. A whisper, then another one.

I carried on like I couldn't see a bit of it.

"I'm going to go make my rounds. You two enjoy yourselves."

I didn't wait around to watch it land. I turned for the quieter end of the room, out toward the terrace.

The cool night air moved over my hot face and carried off a little of the champagne.

[OH she went FERAL]

[the output. the OUTPUT. zero survivors]

[that's how it's done. every stray in the city thinks he can just walk up to you]

[she said the words "bleeds my father dry" out loud and Ashcroft turned GREEN. I'm deceased]

[some people don't get a soft landing. flawless]

The comments scrolled past, delighted.

The wind had teeth in it. I wrapped my arms around myself without thinking.

And then a jacket, still warm from a body, came down over my bare shoulders.

"I'm taking you home."

The car rolled into the garage and the whole world went quiet.

The champagne kept rolling over me in waves, the delayed kick of it catching up. I caught the light changing, stairs, a room. The master bedroom door opening, then closing.

Caleb didn't turn on the overhead lights. Just the one floor lamp in the corner.

He set me down on the mattress, careful. The soft give of it under me was familiar.

I sighed and tried to curl up, and felt the weight of him settle in close.

A thumb, faintly rough, moved over my cheek. It tickled. I turned my face to get away from it, and he caught my chin, light, and brought it back.

I dragged my eyes open. Everything swam. Just the shape of him, close.

I blinked, half a beat behind.

Then my mouth went sulky. "Caleb. You're keeping me up."

The words came out thick, slurred, soaked in champagne.

Something like a laugh moved through him. His thumb brushed my lower lip.

It left me restless in a way I had no word for. The drink had my whole body running hot, and his fingers were cool, and the cool felt good against it.

I leaned into him without deciding to. My hand found a fistful of his shirt and pulled, clumsy and sure of itself, trying to drag him down to me.

"You're hot too," I mumbled, fingers going for his buttons, missing them, fumbling, a frustrated little sound climbing out of me when they wouldn't give.

His hand closed over both of mine and stopped them.

Careful. Like he was lifting something already cracked.

He folded my hands off his shirt and held them flat against his own chest, where they couldn't do any more damage. His other hand caught the strap of my gown and slid it back up my shoulder.

"Not like this."

It came out of him in pieces.

I made a thin, frustrated sound and strained up toward him anyway. He let me get close. Held me there, a breath short of his mouth, close enough that the heat poured off him and the air between us went thin. I strained that last fraction of an inch toward him. He held it, held the line exactly where crossing it would have ended us both, and didn't let me fall the rest of the way.

"Not while you're like this. Not when you won't remember it was yours to give."

Chapter 9

He closed the gap and kissed me.

Whatever sound I made got lost in it. My fingers found his shoulders and held on, no strength in them, just holding. The kiss went deep and went slow, unhurried, his mouth learning mine like he had two lifetimes to do it in and meant to use every second. It reached my teeth, the soles of my feet. Somewhere inside it the champagne began to thin, the edges of the room coming back into focus.

Then he pulled back.

Not away. He kept me against him, forehead dropped to mine, both of us breathing like we'd run a distance. His arms stayed locked around me. There was nothing gentle in how he held me, except that he was doing nothing else with it. Just holding. Like the second he loosened his grip I'd be gone.

The fog kept burning off. By the time my head was clear, I was clear enough to know it. Tucked into the heat of him, his heart slamming under my cheek. Much too fast for a man doing nothing at all.

And some reckless, half-asleep part of me opened my mouth.

"Is there something you're not telling me?"

I meant all of it. The crime lord. The city. The whole second life of his I'd blundered into.

Through the haze I thought I heard him answer.

I'm in love with you.

My eyes came open. His were already open. Just as stunned as mine, like the words had gotten out without his say-so.

Whatever was left of the drink was gone. Every drop of it.

I frowned up at him, trying to work out whether I'd dreamed it.

"I..."

His lips barely moved.

"I'm in love with you."

The tears came with the words. They slid down and printed cool against my neck, soaked into the sheet.

I hadn't caught up to any of it when he said the rest.

"Two lifetimes, Vivi."

"I finally got to say it."

Chapter 10