I pick up my glass and swirl it around. “She’s not a toy,” I reply, homing in on him with a deadly gaze.
He clears his throat. “No, I know that.”
“Did he look like he was in an awful amount of pain?” I ask.
“Definitely,” Franco replies.
I nod a few times, satisfied with the answer.
“What are you going to do with the girl?” he asks.
I stare at the ice cubes in my scotch. “For now, she’s just my wife. That’s it. She’s my wife. End of story.” I let out a breath.
“Do you want to annul the marriage?”
“Che cazzo. No, I don’t do that type of shit. Marriage is sacred in our family, Franco. You know that.”
“Right.”
“But still, I have no clue what to do with her. I think she hates me.”
He shrugs. “Does it matter? She’ll come around.”
The girl in the club was so eager to cast Lucio’s gift aside out of spite just to taunt him, just to say “fuck you, I hate you” … and now I’ve done the same thing to her as he did.
I shake my head and take another sip of my drink. “I don’t think so. She despises being trapped. I know that. It was obvious from the start when she threw those pearls over the balcony of Club Triton.”
He frowns. “Wait, you met her before?”
I nod. “Before the meeting. She was angry as hell. Still is, and rightfully so. I stole her freedom away from her, and I gave her nothing in return, except a gilded prison.”
I take another sip, but the burn doesn’t compare to how painful her hostility will feel deep in my bones. When I first saw her, I was impressed by her brazenness and her sass. That look of malice in her eyes taunted me. Made me want to kiss her and take her with me.
But I never imagined our first kiss would be at the altarof my goddamn enemy, and that she would curse the ground I stand on, probably for the rest of her life.
I didn’t even know her name until I put that ring on her finger. But I took those goddamn vows, and I don’t take them lightly. She is my wife now, and I will make this work.
“Are you going to let her go, then?” Franco asks.
I look him dead in the eyes and say, “No. She stays. Even if she hates me, she’s my wife, until death do us part.” I slam my drink down on the table. “And someday, she will understand too.”
STELLA
I pickup the nearest vase and throw it at the wall, screaming out loud as the petals fall to the floor, but nothing drowns out the noises in my head. I pick up a lamp and chuck it at the wall too, shattering it into a million pieces. I don’t stop, not until everything has been torn asunder. I’m so goddamn angry, but nothing helps to rein in my rage.
I let this man barge into my life, steal me away, all under the guise of being safe from Lucio, while being transported to an actual prison of my own making. I should have known better than to trust this Mafia don. Now I’m locked up in this gilded room, staring at the glass pieces scattered all around me. God, what a mess my life has become.
I sink down to the floor as it suddenly becomes hard to breathe. My throat clamps up, my heart rate shoots up, and Iclutch my waist to attempt to ground myself. It doesn’t work. My breathing comes in faster and faster, and nothing helps to control it.
“Oh God, no, not now. Please, not now,” I beg to myself.
But my body doesn’t listen to me. I lean forward and focus on the floor as everything begins to spin, while it literally feels like I’m dying inside.
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
My lungs suck in air, but it feels like the oxygen is escaping me. It’s a panic attack.
Come on, Stella, breathe slowly, you can do it.
