“Shoot!”
I pull the trigger.
Miss.
His hand cracks across the back of my head. “Useless. How do you expect to ever be Don if you can’t shoot a fucking standing target?”
“I’m sorry—”
“Again!”
Another miss. Another hit to the head.
My eyes burn, but I don’t let tears fall. He hates tears.
“Pathetic,” he mutters. “Your cousin Dante would have hit it by now. Maybe he should be Don one day.”
Something sharp twists in my chest. One more try. One more shot. I hit the target. Barely. Low and to the right.
He scoffs. “Still not good enough.”
I flinch as he grabs the back of my neck and drags me deeper into the warehouse. My feet stumble over broken concrete. We stop in front of a heavy metal door. When he swings it open, the metallic scent of blood hits me. A man sits tied to a chair inside—face swollen, shirt torn, blood dripping from his mouth. I freeze.
“Shoot him,” my father orders.
My stomach drops. “N-No. Please—”
“You want to be Don one day? You need to do this.”
“But I don’t—”
“Enough!” he roars, shoving me forward. “Don’t be weak. Don’t be soft. If you can’t pull the trigger, you’re nothing. You’ll never be strong. Never be worthy. Never be Moretti.”
I stare at the man. I don’t know him. I don’t know what he did. But he looks back at me with terror in his eyes. Tears fill mine.
“Papa, please—”
“SHOOT HIM!”
I lift the gun with shaking hands. My vision blurs. The man’s breathing quickens. “Don’t make me do this,” I whisper.
My father steps forward, fists clenched—
“Do it now or I will make sure you never lead a single man in this family—”
“Alessandro.”
The warehouse disappears. The cold. The gun. My father’s rage. Gone.
I shoot upright in bed, chest heaving, every muscle tight.
A hand is on my cheek. Small. Warm. Soft. Her hand. And her voice—sharp, fierce, filled with a strength she doesn’t even realize she has—cuts through the nightmare. “Alessandro.”
My eyes snap open. She’s kneeling beside my bed, hair falling over her shoulder, worry blazing across her face. Instinct takes over. I grab her arm— not hard, but fast—pulling her closer without thinking. Her breath catches. The world thunders in my ears. Her touch. Her voice. Her nearness.
Chapter 21
Ihadn’t expected this. To miss him. To want him. Not because he is my husband—not because it’s my duty—but because something inside me aches when he is too far away. Because every day with him, he becomes less the ruthless underboss I was warned about and more… the man I feel myself falling for. I brush out my hair in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection. I’m wearing the silk nightgown Gia convinced me to buy. A deep emerald one that I never would have dared chose before. I bought it because of Alessandro. Because I wondered what his eyes would look like if he ever saw me in it. Heat rises up my neck at the thought. I crawl into bed, but sleep dances just out of reach.
