HOUSE OF SKIN | 🔞 18+ KIDNAPPING BRATVA DARK ROMANCE

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING & READER DISCRETION ⚠️

HOUSE OF SKIN is an 18+ dark romance. It is NOT intended for readers under the age of 18.

Before you continue, please read this warning carefully.

This book exploresdark and disturbing themes, including:

🔞Non-consensual sexual situations⛓️Dubious consent / coercion🔒Captivity and being held against one’s will🖤Sexual violence and discussions surrounding rape🍑Anal sexual content🔫Guns, violence and criminal activity🩸Mafia/Bratva themes🧠Obsession, manipulation and psychological control⚠️Toxic and morally reprehensible behaviour

The hero of this story isnot a good man.

He does bad things. He makes terrible choices. His behaviour is toxic, possessive, controlling and, at times, unforgivable.

That is intentional.

This is a dark romance. The toxicity is not an accidental character flaw that slipped through the editing process. It is part of the story and part of the character’s journey. There is a redemption arc, but redemption does not erase what happened before it.

So if you already know that themes of rape, coercion, captivity or morally reprehensible heroes are something you cannot enjoy reading about in fiction,please do not read this book.

If you found yourself unable to read books such asHaunting Adelinebecause of their darker themes or because the morality of the characters made you uncomfortable,this book may not be for you either.

And if you enter this story knowing exactly what it contains, please don’t spend the entire book telling me that the hero is toxic, that he is a terrible person, or that his behaviour is unacceptable.

I know.

That’s the point.

Please read the warnings, understand what you are choosing to read, and then decide whether this story is for you.

🚨 ONE VERY IMPORTANT DISTINCTION

Nothing in this book is intended to suggest that these behaviours are acceptable in real life.

I do not condone rape, coercion, abuse, captivity or non-consensual relationships in any form.

Coercion is not consent.Non-consensual sexual contact is sexual violence.Abuse is not romance.

A fictional story exploring these subjects doesnotmake them acceptable in reality.

Dark romance is fiction. The characters, situations and relationships exist within a fictional narrative, and readers should be able to separate the fantasy of a story from the reality of abusive behaviour.

Never romanticise real-life abuse.

If someone violates your boundaries, coerces you, threatens you, or touches you without your consent, that is not a dark-romance fantasy. That is a real-world violation, and you deserve safety, support and respect.

Read dark fiction knowingly.Know your boundaries.Know your triggers.Know when to put the book down.

And most importantly:

Never let fiction teach you that something harmful in real life is romantic.

🖤Read the warnings. Know what you’re entering. Then decide if you’re ready to enter the House of Skin.

PLAYLIST

CHASE HOLFELDER- ANIMAL

SO BELOW SOUND-BONE

OZZIEMUSIC-OVER YOU

FLOWER FACE-MAYBE

TEFLON SEGA- DEMONS

REED WONDER- FATAL ATTRACTION

TEFLON SEGA- SINNER

ARYAN SHAH- DISSOCIATION

ALLEGRA JORDYN- MINE

ARI ABDUL- TASTE

LUNA NOIR- NO GENTLEMAN

ZAGREB, CROATIA

I have been driving for two hours. The road out of Zagreb thinned forty minutes ago into something the GPS stopped recognising. Asphalt cracked and buckled, weeds pushing through in pale green threads. I didn't mind. I had a handwritten map from a botanist I met at a conference in Split last year, an old man who smelled of pipe tobacco and said, "Medvednica has pockets no one bothers with anymore. Too steep. Too many stories." He'd winked when he said *stories* and I'd assumed he meant poachers or wild boar.

The air changed.

That is the part I can never explain to anyone. Not properly. The car windows were down and the air went from summer dust and diesel to something cold and wet and alive. Decaying leaves. Moss. Something floral underneath that I couldn't name yet. The kind of scent that makes my fingers itch for a specimen knife. I'm a botanist. This is what I do.

I pulled over where the road gave up entirely. Gravel crunched under the tyres and then silence. Real silence. Not the city kind with traffic humming underneath. Forest silence. The trees here were old. Beech mostly. Some oak. The undergrowth was dense and undisturbed and my heart was already beating faster in that specific way it does before a good find.

I checked my face in the rearview mirror. Habit. Wavy dark hair falling in tendrils around a face that doesn't quite belong anywhere. Half Parsi, half Australian, Zoroastrian by birth, which means every time someone asks and I answer, I get the same blank look followed by *what the hell is a Zoroastrian.* My university roommate Rhea used to call me a nerdy Disney princess. I still don't know if that was an insult. Dark brown eyes that look too big for my face. She said that too. *Comical.* I snapped the mirror back into place.

The satchel went over my shoulder. Tweezers. Three specimen knives of varying sizes. Glass vials with cork stoppers. A small trowel. Torch. Raincoat. Compass on a keyring clipped to the zipper. I have done this enough times to know what to bring and what to leave.

I stepped off the asphalt.

The temperature dropped immediately. Maybe five degrees. The ground was soft under my boots. Not muddy. Just yielding. Like the forest floor hadn't been compacted by anything heavier than deer hooves in years. I walked slowly. This is the part that requires patience. You don't rush a virgin site. You let it reveal itself.

Henbane first. A small patch near a fallen log. I knelt and took photographs before collecting. Always document before you disturb. The leaves were healthy. No sign of pesticide drift from the agricultural lands to the south. Clean samples.

I moved deeper.

The fog came in slowly. I didn't notice at first because I was crouched over a cluster of what might have been wild angelica, trying to confirm the stem structure. When I stood up, the trees twenty metres ahead were half gone. Swallowed in grey. I checked my compass. North was still north. I had been walking for maybe forty minutes. Not a problem. I could retrace my steps.

Except when I turned around, I couldn't see the path anymore.

The fog had filled in behind me too.

I walked north. The compass said north. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. The ground sloped downward in a way I didn't remember from the walk in. I stopped. The forest had gone quiet. Not silent. Quiet in the wrong way. No birds. The crickets had stopped.

A raven cawed somewhere to my left. Single sharp sound. Then nothing.

I blinked and the fog shifted and there was a clearing ahead.

That shouldn't have been there. The terrain wasn't right for a natural clearing. The tree line was too uniform. And in the middle of it stood a tent. Circus tent. I don't know what else to call it. Tall and peaked. Deep green and black stripes. Canvas. Old canvas, the kind that has been weathered and patched and weathered again. It billowed slightly in a breeze I couldn't feel on my skin.

My feet stopped moving. My brain said *run.*

I am a scientist. I have handled belladonna with my bare hands. I have walked alone through forests in three countries. I know what a bad situation looks like.

I walked into the clearing.

I don't know why. I still don't. I can tell you that my heart was slamming against my ribs and my palms were wet and every instinct I have was screaming at me to turn around and walk and keep walking until I hit the road. But my legs kept moving. Like something had hooked me behind the sternum and was pulling.

The tent flap was parted. Just a slit. Maybe half a metre wide. Darkness inside.

I heard the creek then. Water over stones. Close. Behind the tent maybe.

I pushed through the opening.

The smell hit me first. Perfume. Heavy and floral and expensive. Underneath it, sweat. Human sweat. Fresh. And something else. Earthy. Muck. Like a stable that hadn't been cleaned.

I turned on my torch.

The beam hit the ground. Footprints in the packed dirt floor. Bare feet. Boot prints. Something dragged. I swung the light up.

A man stood three metres away.

Bare chested. Oiled. The light caught the sheen on his pectorals and stomach and arms. Arms that were thicker than my thighs. He wore dark trousers streaked with mud and grass stains. Boots caked in dried muck. And his head.

His head was a pig.

I dropped the torch.

It hit the dirt and rolled and the beam spun and I saw the rest of them. Bodies everywhere. Standing in the darkness. Waiting. Men in animal masks. Boar. Stag. Fox. Wolf. Something with antlers that branched up into the dark where the light couldn't reach. Women completely nude except for masks. Bird masks with long beaks. Some wore leather harnesses that crisscrossed their torsos. I saw machinery. Metal chairs bolted to the ground. Ropes hanging from the tent poles. A table with things on it I didn't want to look at.

The pig-headed man walked toward me.

I couldn't move. My body had stopped belonging to me. The torch beam rose as he bent to pick it up. He straightened. He was enormous. Six five at least. I am five two. I had to tilt my head back to look at his face.

The mask wasn't a mask.

I saw where the skin met his neck. No seam. No edge. Just flesh blending into flesh. I don't know what I saw. I still don't. My brain rejected it. Offered me *it's a very good prosthetic* like a gift.

He shone the light directly into my eyes.

I flinched and looked away and when my vision cleared I saw the women more clearly. Their skin was real. Human. Goosebumps on one woman's arms. A tattoo on another's hip. A third was breathing too fast. Her ribs showing with each inhale.

I looked back at the pig.

I tried to speak. My mouth opened and closed. Nothing came out. I swallowed and the sound was so loud in the silence.

"I'm sorry." My voice came out thin and high. "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. I'll leave. I'm sorry for trespassing."

I started backing up. My satchel was on the ground. I didn't remember dropping it. I didn't care.

"I'm so sorry. I'm leaving now. I'm so sorry. I didn't—"

He reached out.

His fingers closed on a tendril of my hair. Just one. Thumb and index finger. He rubbed it. Slowly. Like he was testing fabric.

"You cannot leave."

The voice was deep. Too deep for a human throat. Baritone. Clinical. Like a doctor delivering a diagnosis.

"What?" I whispered.

His head tilted. The pig snout dipped to one side. The torch was still aimed at my face and I couldn't see his eyes behind the mask. I didn't want to see his eyes.

"You walked in freely." He let the hair slip from his fingers. "One does not leave the House of Skin once they walk in."

My mouth opened. No sound.

Behind him, the others shifted. A woman with a crow mask laughed softly. It wasn't a cruel laugh. It was worse. It was sympathetic.

The pig-headed man turned and walked back into the darkness. The torch stayed on the ground now, pointing up, throwing long shadows against the canvas walls.

I stood there.

My feet still wouldn't move. My specimen vials had spilled from the satchel. Little glass tubes glinting in the torchlight. Wild angelica. Henbane. All of it meaningless now.

The tent flap behind me had closed. Or been closed. I didn't hear it happen.

I heard the creek again. Closer now. And footsteps. Soft. Bare feet on packed dirt. Someone was walking toward me from the direction of the machinery. I couldn't see who. The torch was pointed the wrong way.

"Karina."

My name. Someone said my name. Or maybe I was hallucinating in fear. Or maybe it was the wind.

I hadn't told anyone my name.