He steps closer. I don’t retreat because I’ll be damned if I give him the satisfaction.
But inside, my thoughts have already betrayed me, skidding wildly in a direction I don’t want them to go.
Isabella Bellandi.
The name lodges in my chest like a splinter, scratching and burrowing deeper with every second.
He was supposed to marry someone else. Someone with a sexy-sounding name I’m sure goes with a killer body and appropriate personality.
Someone… not me.
I don’t know why that matters or why my brain fixates on it now, of all moments, when bloodthirsty men in suits with guns are circling and my life has apparently become a chess piece.
But it does.
I imagine her before I can stop myself.
Tall. Elegant. Dark hair perfectly styled. Raised in marble hallways instead of cramped Queens apartments. The kind of woman who knows which fork to use without ever having to ask. The kind of woman who understands Giovanni’s world because she was raised in it.
A woman who would never have run.
The thought hits my belly like a physical blow, and a sick, heaving sensation, sharp and unwelcome, like rejection manifesting as nausea.
Someone else in my place.
In my place.
In shoes I’m not even sure I want, but the idea of her wearing them makes my chest burn, and my belly churn in disgracefully pathetic ways.
Giovanni is still talking.
I know he is because his mouth is moving and his voice is steady. But I can’t hear him over the roar in my head.
Would she have accepted it?
His violence? His blood? His careless ruthlessness and certainty that the life he was born into is the right destiny for him? For them both?
Would she have looked at him and seen a crown instead of a cage?
“And therefore,” he says.
The words snap through my spiral like a whip. “We leave tomorrow.”
I blink. “What?”
His jaw tightens. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
“Repeat yourself,” I demand.
“We leave tomorrow,” Giovanni says, impatience creeping into his tone. “Emerald House is secure, but it is not defensible long-term. I will not have you here while Bellandi decides whether making you disappear will embolden him.”
Before I can respond, Caterina enters quietly with dessert.
A small porcelain plate is placed in front of me: limoncello panna cotta, pale and glossy, topped with sugared citrus peel.
Coffee for Giovanni. Black. Strong.
He pauses, turns his head, and thanks her in Sicilian for the meal.
