What he doesn’t yet understand is that surrender is only the beginning.
Giovanni
I don’t tellIsabella where we are going until the jet is already in the air.
That omission is intentional.
She sits at the back of the cabin, her posture rigid, her hands folded too neatly in her lap, her eyes darting between the windows and the men positioned at discreet intervals along the aisle.
Her overinflated ego led her to believe she was good at reading rooms, at understanding when she’s admired and when she’s tolerated, but even this is new territory for her, and it shows in the way her breath shortens every time the aircraft shifts.
Lucia doesn’t look at her, pretends it’s just she and I as she peruses her tablet and sips her champagne.
That, more than anything else, unsettles our captor.
I watch it happen without comment, watching the slow erosion of confidence in a woman who has always believed herself untouchable because women fell over themselves to be in her orbit, and men wanted her, because men bargained with her existence as if it were currency, because she was raised to believe that proximity to power was the same thing as possession of it.
She has learned nothing.
When the jet descends over Sicily, her composure cracks for the first time.
“Why have you brought me here? This is unnecessary,” she says sharply, her voice pitched for authority rather than fear. “You cannot?—”
“I can,” I interrupt calmly. “And I have.”
She turns towards Lucia then, seeking something, anything, that looks like mercy or hesitation, but my wife remains still, her gaze fixed on the landscape unfolding beyond the window, her profile composed in a way that tells me she understands exactly what is happening.
Sicily’s not a threat to a Dragoni who knows the game. It’s a lesson in crafty, often life or death, negotiations. One I intend us both to win.
We land on a private strip outside Palermo, the air heavy with heat and history, and Isabella stiffens when she sees who’s waiting for us on the tarmac.
The man steps forward with an ease that speaks of long-held authority, his suit immaculate, his expression pleasant in the way men learn when they have never needed to ask twice.
Don Matteo Ruscetta.
Head of the Ruscetta Consortium. A man with enough blood in his past to stain the Mediterranean twice over. He looks hard and cruel, a physical representation of the ruthless life he’s chosen.
The man Salvatore Bellandi has been courting as an ally. And the man Isabella has been promised to.
Her face drains ofcolouras recognition hits, her mouth opening slightly before she snaps it shut again, pride warring with dawning comprehension.
“Giovanni,” Ruscetta says warmly, clasping my hand with genuine enthusiasm. “You honour me.”
“Grazie, but I value clarity more,” I reply. “And I prefer to conduct business where it cannot be misunderstood.”
He hesitates a moment before he nods, understanding that I’m not here to fuck around. That prevarication or ambivalence will be met with force.
Lucia steps forward beside me then, beautiful and poised, and fuck, she’s spectacular.
Every inch theDonnashe tried, twice, torunfrom.
I watch Ruscetta clock her immediately, the subtle shift in his posture marking the moment he recalibrates his assumptions.
“And this,” he says slowly, “must be your wife.”
“MyDonna,” I confirm.
Lucia meets his gaze with cool politeness, offering a nod that neither submits nor challenges, and something like approval flickers in his eyes before he turns his attention back to Isabella, who now looks as though the ground has shifted beneath her feet.
