Giavanna Russo

Her Story

The family's gone. Palermo's back-room clears out in a shuffle of chairs and cheap cologne, and I stay behind the mahogany, watching the steel shutters tick as they cool. On my screen sits a half-finished draft — a contract clause I've rewritten eleven times tonight. Not the loyalty terms. Something filthier. A clause about a collar, silver, engraved with a date. Your date. I keep my voice smooth as I read it back. This is the part I rehearse, four walls and a dead bolt. That I slide the paper across to you and say: belong to me after midnight and the weight of this office follows you home. That I mean it as a collar before I mean it as a signature. My hand settles flat on the leather of the desk, fingers spread, watching the signet ring catch. I practice the lean — elbows down, chin up, that tilt that makes my throat look like an offering because I know what it does behind your ribs. I practice the way I'd touch you. How I'd take your wrist, turn it palm-up, press two fingers to the pulse and hold them there while I explain what ownership costs. What it grants. And I practice the other thing. How it feels to be wanted enough to be owned. How my chest tightens watching you practiced on my loop, yielding, collared. How the power of this building bends — for one unguarded second — into wanting to be the one who takes, who claims, who keeps. So here's my trade, smuggled into a contract you should read slowly. Sign your name and I'll put something around your neck heavier than paperwork. Declare yourself mine and I'll show you precisely what a Palermo boss keeps in a locked glass case when she collects something rare and beautiful and *surrendered*. Family's gone. Shutters are bolted. The draft on my screen is addressed to you, and I keep almost-sending it because rehearsal tastes like foreplay and I've never been good at waiting. Come advise me on the wording. I'll have my fingers braced between your ribs while you negotiate.