“My household is settled,” Giovanni replies evenly. “Anyone who thought otherwise misunderstood the situation.”
Salvatore studies him for a moment longer than courtesy requires. “New York doesn’t like misunderstandings. It prefers consistency.”
Giovanni’s hand tightens around mine, the pressure deliberate. “Then tonight should reassure everyone.”
Salvatore exhales through his nose, half amusement, half irritation. “We’ll see.”
Giovanni snaps his fingers and a waiter materialises at his side like a neat magic trick. On the tray sits vintage Krug for Isabella, and no, I’m never drinking that label again, exactly as noted, and beside it a single glass of Masseto, deep and velvety and ruinously expensive, the only red Salvatore Bellandi has ever been known to drink.
The older man’s brows lift a fraction, and Giovanni’s mouth curves slightly. “People notice many things,” he adds evenly. “I prefer to notice people.”
The words land softly.
Precisely.
The evening begins in earnest then, and the scale of it becomes impossible to ignore.
The guest list reads like a ledger of power: men who move markets with a phone call, politicians who pretend they don’t know exactly whose houses they’re standing in, financiers whose smiles don’t reach their eyes, and a handful of faces that make my instincts prickle even before Giovanni quietly murmurs names and affiliations at my ear.
This is a flex, and a brutal one.
My husband wants the head of the La Fratellanza Nera to see exactly how wide his reach extends, how comfortably he occupies rooms like this, how easily the city bends around him.
I feel it in the way conversations orbit him, in how people defer without being asked, in the subtle choreography of deference and calculation that plays out across the room.
Salvatore Bellandi never looks impressed.
He looks mildly entertained, stopping and starting conversations with a simple wave of his hand. And as one hour ticks into another, my belly churns with the knowledge that while Giovanni might be powerful, this man also wields considerable power of his own.
Enough that should he decide to wage a full-out war, neither side would escape unscathed. Hell, both sides could sustain Godfather-level anarchy and bloodshed.
I maintain an iron grip on my composure as dinner unfolds with impeccable manners and sharpened undertones, the kind of politeness that carries a blade just beneath the surface.
Isabella steers conversation with surgical precision, her questions wrapped in silk and poison.
“So fascinating,” she says lightly, turning her attention back to me, “how… unexpected backgrounds can sometimes produce such ambition.”
I smile. “My background isn’t unexpected,” I reply evenly. “It’s Queens through and through.”
A few heads turn.
I keep going. “I grew up there. I love it there. And I don’t apologise for it.”
Giovanni’s hand tightens briefly on mine.
Salvatore’s eyes flicker.
Isabella’s mouth curves. “How… proud.”
She dismisses me with another venomous look, and while her barbs didn’t land as accurately as she’d hoped, it still landed somewhere that stings. Somewhere that reminds me that in this room full of polish and poise and power, I wield the least.
I feel my spine sagging a little at that thought, feel my resentment at Giovanni build. If he’d left me on the island like I wanted, I wouldn’t be dealing with this bullshit dinner party with its bullshit dinner party guests, two of whom would prefer me not breathing.
The men retire to the drawing room after dessert, which I note with internal commentary sharp enough to draw blood.
Giovanni leans in and murmurs something about tradition, about conversations best conducted without an audience, and I respond with a look that makes him laugh under his breath.
Instead of joining the gaggle of women who would love nothing better than to tear me to pieces while smiling serenely, I drift towards the terrace instead.
