“All of us live in cages, Cecilia. Mine is made of iron; yours is merely a product of your own mind. Both are every bit real, keeping us from doing the things we want.” With those last words, he glides his fingers across the thin lace, circling the outline—not touching what’s beneath, but close enough that my body mistakes it for contact.
What am I doing? How can I let him wander off so much?
“You think you know so much about me…but you don’t. I have lived, I have lost, and I understand what hell means and what my prison looks like,” I say.
“I know enough to know when you’re lying. Like, for example, when you came to me desperate and needy at the first hour of light. The last time we met—remember?”
My breath stills.
“I wonder, how many times did you make yourself come thinking of me that night?”
“That isn’t—I didn’t—” I breathe out.
The dream. Does he know about my filthy dream? Or is he implying something else?
“You’re not going to answer?” He pouts. “And here I thought we were opening up…”
Shame floods my mind like water in a sinking ship, suddenly making me self-conscious of everything I’ve done, everything I’ve allowed him to do.
“Your fifteen minutes are up,” I say. “Get your hands off me.Now.”
And, to my surprise, he does. His hand snakes out of my dress, the other one freeing my throat. I turn to him, but before I back away, he catches my wrist, lowering his lips to my flesh.
“One day, Cecilia, when I taste you, you’ll come on my tongue as many times as I want.”
10
Mikhail
Minutes turn into hours, and hours turn into days that never end. I pace the small space of my cell, fingers brushing the iron bars as I turn. What the fuck is taking Antonio so long?
Upstairs, heavy footsteps trudge across the floor. Gruff voices rise in volume and then grow quiet again. The usual.
Despite the bullshit party he organized, Antonio is clearly not giving Cecilia away to some randomCapo,and for good reason. Her shrink’s file from years ago—a dark little secret hidden from the public—told me everything I needed to know.
My future wife is a murderer. Like father, like daughter, I suppose.
I lean against the wall, flipping the piece of glass I retrieved from her broken caviar bowl. It flies into the air before landing in my palm upside down. I smile to myself, thinking about the way her world flipped since she committed the crime.
When she was six, Antonio found her covered in her mother’s blood, a knife dangling from her hands. The file said she’d snuck into the master bedroom one night, took a letter opener from the vanity, and plunged it into the woman’s heart for no apparent reason.
Cute. I’ve dreamed of doing that to my mother too, but I never got the chance. Maybe because mine is a special breed of psychopath.
The event was so traumatic, it has completely disappeared from Cecilia’s memory. Now, she only has to deal with the constant nightmares. Poor thing has no idea where they come from.
Like most girls born into a criminal organization, she’s been sheltered and raised in isolation. Antonio keeps her on an even shorter leash, thinking she might one day attempt another murder. So far, she hasn’t, but as much as he wants to pass his daughter over to someone else who can hold that leash, he can’t.
If Cecilia ends up killing her future husband, Antonio will be dragged into another war—this time, within his own circle. He could even lose his throne over the whole thing.
That’s why my proposal is so fucking brilliant.
I watch through the minuscule window—a hole in the wall—my eyes tracing the path of the rose-infested garden I walked the night I came here. They don’t even know who helped me with the address. I intend to break that news later, once the marriage is sealed.
Things had to be done this way. If I’d come armed, or with backup, no one would’ve believed I’m serious about peace. The only real choice Antonio has here is to make Ceciliamywife. Because if she somehow ends up killing me? Our families are already at war. No downside.
He knows it, I know it, and now, he’s just prolonging the inevitable to prove a futile point. Otherwise, my woundswouldn’t be healing. He hasn’t sent anyone else down here to give me fresh cuts.
Only, his daughter came crawling to me like a needy pet. My cock twitches at the way my skin remembers hers. Fucking hell, that girl. What the fuck was that all about?
