Dread fills me. No college?
I graduated from High School a few weeks ago, and my friends and I have plans for college. We were going to live in an apartment together. The dread only grows when Father's other words sink in. He can't watch me twenty-four seven. So what does that mean? Who is going to do the watching?
"I spoke to Giovanni and Roberto Giordano this morning. Thankfully, they think that our families merging will be in both our best interests, and Roberto has generously agreed to marry you."
Warning eyes land on me the moment I open my mouth to protest.
"I won’t do it," I declare, setting my chin because it feels like the only thing I have that’s still mine.
My father laughs spitefully; it’s low and dangerous. A sound that rolls out of the back of his throat and takes the room with it. He sinks back into a chair like a king settling into a throne. Angelo’s smile is a slit of satisfaction. The study smells of old money and punishment.
“Don't even think Marcello will save you,” my father says, slow enough to make it land. “Marcello’s in Sicily, sweetheart. Exiled, do you remember? He’s been scraping by for months, living off favors and the pity of men who keep their hands clean.” He leans forward, and the light catches his eyes in a way that strips any softness from them. “You think you can run to your brother and hide? You would drag whatever’s left of his life into the street.”
Angelo steps in before I can form a protest. “You run to Marcello, and you mark him."
My stomach drops. For one ragged second, I let myself imagine Marcello, the only man who ever treated me with something like care, dragged into whatever this would become. I taste bile. I had been ready to run tohim because I believed he’d hold me, unblinking and unjudging, but the room closes around the truth like a fist: going to him would only make his life more miserable.
My father’s hand taps the desk—a metronome of inevitability. “If you go, you don’t just put yourself at risk. You put him at risk.” There is no softness in it, no negotiation. It is a verdict wrapped in the tone of a man who knows how to make people vanish without messy drama.
The words are blunt, ugly, and effective. Guilt folds over me, hot and immediate. I see Marcello’s face—the way he ruffled my hair when I was little, the way his voice was a warmth that didn’t barter—and I can’t pretend it won’t matter what I ask of him. Running wouldn’t be brave. It would be selfish and dangerous.
So I swallow. The defiance is still there, a coiled thing, but it curls into something quieter. I am afraid for myself, and I am afraid for him, and for the first time I taste how tightly the world around me is stitched: every escape I imagine ropes someone else in. The choices are not just mine.
“I won’t run,” I say, and there is a truth to it, but not the whole of one. My voice is steady because I need it to be. Inside, the fight is still burning, but for now I fold it into the silence of the study, where men in suits decide how girls like me are traded, and where love, if it exists, is the most dangerous contraband of all.
My father’s face is a slate I can’t read. He leans forward, fingers steepled, and every word he says makes the room appear smaller.
“No contact with your friends,” he announces. “They are not to call you, visit you, or send messages. Not for three months. Any man who approaches you without our approval will be treated as an intruder.”
Angelo’s grin is a knife that slides across the skin of the room.
“No phones. Your line goes dead until we say otherwise,” Daddy Dearest continues. “There will be a party soon. An announcement. Your engagement will be presented as a unity between houses, stability for the family. If you want any privileges back—your phone, your outings, the company of friends—you will toe the line. You will behave. You will be pleasant to your fiancée.” He lifts his eyes to me, the glare of a man who believes mercy is a currency he spends when he feels like it. “Be nice to Roberto.”
Angelo laughs softly, the sound like someone warming his hands over a future bonfire. “Remember this, Sophia: you will smile. You will keep your mouth shut. You will accept what’s given. Or you will learn what it means to be a lesson.”
The words land like weights on my chest. My throat tightens. There’s a dull, buzzing in my ears, part fear, part a fury that tastes metallic. My friends—Gigi, Cammie, Izzy—their faces flash through my head fora second like photographs: Gigi's reckless grin, Cammie's tight jaw, Izzy's steady hum. They’ll be kept away. They’ll be told to stay away. I hear the echo of Gigi’s guard swearing under his breath, furious, and I know that they will enforce it.
Marcello sits in the back of my mind—that warm thought that had been a rope I almost reached for—until my father’s words flattened it. If I run to him, I drag him into the crosshairs. If I defy them, he'll be at risk too. He’s already had to deal with the consequences of our father's wrath; he's just starting to put his life in order. I can't burden him with mine, too. The choice tightens into something ugly and immediate: sacrifice or isolation.
My hands curl into fists in my lap until the knuckles go white. The warmth left in me from the SUV, from Raffael’s hand, the kiss, feels like contraband. Someone has put a seal across that part of me and stamped it with a warning. I'm not allowed to have any allies, no excuses, no small rebellions. I'm supposed to smile at a man I don’t want to marry and play the dutiful daughter in front of an audience that will measure my obedience.
“Do you understand?” my father asks.
I swallow and nod because I need to buy myself minutes, breaths, any small mercy to figure out a way around this. My voice is a thread when it comes. “Yes.”
Angelo’s eyes glitter. “Good. See that you learn quickly.”
They discuss dates and guests for a few more minutes, covering what needs to be said publicly, and make plansas if they were arranging furniture. I walk out of the study with my phone gone, my friends ordered away, and a party looming over me like a storm. The house feels different, every corridor narrower, every laugh in the distance a reminder that the world outside my room is being rearranged without asking me.
Alone in my room later, I press my palm to the place on my arm where the man grabbed me in the alley—the bruise throbs. My chest still hums. The absence of Raffael is a hollow I am not allowed to fill. I tear a strip of fabric from a towel and bind the bruise because moving feels better than thinking. Outside, the household begins choreographing the announcement. Inside, my heart makes a small, private mourning for the life Imight have had.
It’s been four days since the alley. Four days since the screams and the gunshots and the blood on my dress. Four days without seeing him. He's been recalled from being my bodyguard and put in charge of security for the house. A promotion to show Daddy Dearest's appreciation for the man who saved my life. It’s late afternoon, the sun stands low and golden, the mansion's yard is silent except for the distant clack of someone’s heels on tile. I’m standing on the second-floor balcony when I spot him in the yard. Patrolling, casual but alert, one hand resting near his hip where I know his gun sits.
Raffael.
I know I shouldn’t. My brother would kill me. My father would do worse. But I go anyway. Down the stairs, across the courtyard, and finally catch up to him by the fountain. He doesn’t stop when I approach, just slows enough that I can walk beside him.
My heart is still hammering in my throat, and on my lips, I can still feel him, the ghost of his mouth, warm and impossible. I’ve been pacing like a caged thing, not sure why I wanted to find him, maybe because he saved me. Maybe because I want him to say it again: that he’ll keep me safe. Maybe because some ridiculous, furious part of me thinks he’ll take me away if I ask.
