Claimed By The Mafia Don (Ariella and Asher) novel Chapter 205

ARIELLA

Later that night, I went back into my bedroom, the silence of the house weighing heavier than it had all day. I had realised something....no, accepted it.

I couldn’t change what was coming.

I couldn’t stop the inevitable.

But that didn’t mean I was going to let it happen quietly. He wasn’t going to get to walk all over me, not this time. If he wanted a fight, I was going to give him one.

I reached for the doorknob, bracing myself for the stillness of my bedroom, the solitude I’d been clinging to. But the moment I pushed the door open..... I froze.

There was someone sitting on my bed.

I let out a sharp squeal, my heart immediately jumping to my throat. And when I realised who it was, who it really was, I stopped that squeal from turning into a scream.

It was Asher.

Just sitting there.

Like he belonged.

Like he hadn’t dropped a bomb and vanished.

My hand trembled against the door. My breath stuttered. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t stand. Didn’t even blink. Just sat there, elbows on his knees, looking at me like he’d been waiting all day.

I took a deep breath. Something told me that this was it. This was finally it.

The end. Or the beginning of it. Either way, whatever happened next would change everything. I closed the door behind me slowly, my hand lingering on the knob like I wasn’t sure whether I should bolt or face him head-on. But I didn’t run. Not this time.

He still hadn’t moved. Just sat there, watching me like I was a puzzle he’d already solved and was waiting for me to catch up.

“Asher...” I said, my voice cracking, barely a whisper, half a plea, half a wound. I wasn’t ready. Not for this. Not for him. Not now.

I had just stopped crying, barely stitched myself together with trembling hands and hollow hope. And here he was, sitting like the calm before a storm, like my breakdown hadn’t just rewritten the walls of this house.

“I thought you would want to talk,” he said,

The discussion downstairs in the kitchen earlier had still been smouldering, and now it felt like the fire had followed me here. I stood there frozen. I didn’t know whether to walk toward him or away from myself. So, I stood.

And then I said it.

“Okay,” I breathed. “Just say it. Just tell me to stop unpacking. Tell me we’re leaving tomorrow. Tell me you’re taking me back. Tell me you’re caging me again, putting me in prison. Just say it, Asher. Get it over with.”

He swallowed hard. His jaw clenched, and then he nodded. And that was it. That nod was the confirmation I didn’t know I was waiting for, but it shattered me anyway.

I swallowed thickly, but the tears were already coming. I could feel them welling, choking, rising from somewhere too deep. I knew then, I was going to kneel. I was going to beg. I was going to cry and promise anything and everything—

As long as he didn’t do this to us.

As long as he didn’t do this to Leon.

Not again.

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