“Is it bad to admit both?”
He inclined his head and then glanced toward the window.“Love asks for a choice.Power does not.”
When he was gone, the study grew too small.I stood and crossed to the maps pinned.Borders marked in red string, pins for supply lines and loyalty and hazard.I traced the line where our world rubbed raw against the other families, the thin seam in the south where Russo used to press hardest.Quiet now, yes.For how long?Quiet has a way of hiding teeth.Did our last attack kill him or was this all a facade to make me think so?
I found the pin that marked Moretti territory and the lighter red line that had always been there between us, called respect when it was convenient and truce when it was not.Last night, I’d stitched that line shut in front of every eye that mattered.The city would call it peace.It was not peace.It was a promise of violence deferred, and it was a vow I intended to keep.
I thought of my father again, of the way he would have celebrated—a cigar, a woman on his knee who wasn’t his wife, men pounding his back with congratulations.He would have liked what I did and hated why I did it.He would have called Mia beautiful and useless.He would have told me to give her diamonds but keep her silent.
I had a different vision in my head for what a wife was.Not a portrait.Not a prize.The question that wouldn’t leave me alone was simple: would she ever choose to be anything more with me?The doorknob turned.I didn’t look up right away; I knew the weight of footsteps in this house better than I knew my own pulse.Marco again.He closed the door with his hip, carrying a tray I hadn’t asked for.Coffee, black.Toast I would not eat.
“You’ll need it,” he said, setting it down.“She’s awake.”
The cup paused halfway to my mouth.“And?”
“She’s in the east room of the gallery.”
I set the cup down.The urge to go to her was immediate and stupid.“Say what you’re going to say.Then leave.”
He peered at the window, at the slit of color pushing past grey, then back at me.“Let her come to the study.”
“You think I should sit and wait like a teenager.”Marco might be single, but this advice made sense.The last thing I needed to do right now was smother her.
“I think you should take your hands off the board and see if she moves a piece on her own.”
Control was everything to someone like me.And relinquishing that even to my wife… difficult.“I’m not sure that can be done.”
He shrugged.“On the business front, there’s talk already.”
“Let them talk.”
“There’s talk about Catrina,” he corrected.“Some men think she tried to stop the ceremony.Some think she didn’t try hard enough.”
“I will handle Catrina.”
He nodded once.“Handle her as our sister, not your soldier.”
“That depends on whether she remembers which she is first.”
He didn’t bother to hide the look.
“Go,” I said.“And keep the perimeter tight.”
I took the chair behind the desk—the one my father had sat in when he taught me that men are easiest to control when they believe they have a choice.It wasn’t lost on me that I had forgotten his lesson at the exact moment it mattered most.The second hand on the clock above the bookcase moved slow.I could win wars.I could wait for her to come to me.Ten minutes.
Nine.I thought of the dress she wore last night.The diamonds at her throat.I wanted to take it off her with my teeth.Instead I’d pressed my mouth to her knuckles in front of men who paid hired killers to make less bold declarations.
Eight.The window at the end of the gallery faced east.She would be standing there with her hands braced on the sill because that was how a woman stood when she intended not to cry, and I had no business knowing that.I’d taken her like property.
Seven.The way my father’s voice could make a room smaller.I’d used that voice on half the city, but when I used it on her, the room shrank.
Six.The coffee tasted like ass.So I called for a fresh batch to be made.
Five.The house woke—footsteps on the back stairs.
Four.I thought of asking for flowers for our room.
Three.Who did I want to be now that I had everything I’d said I wanted?
