“Page ten,” Dante says.
I glance up at him, hatred turning everything inside me bitter.
“I’m giving you a generous allowance,” he says. “You won’t need for anything.”
Except love.
Except being appreciated for who I am and not for what I can bring to the table.
“You’ll find the agreement more than fair.” Dante squeezes my fingers around the pen. “Now sign. You’re mine, Tatiana. It’s time the whole world knows it.”
It still feels like a death sentence when Dante brings my hand to the paper and places it over the dotted line. It feels as if I’m signing my life away when I make the big cursive T of my name, but what choice do I have? Dante will make me sign, whether I want to or not, and his lawyer and his men don’t give a damn if my signature is forced.
Tears I don’t want to shed slip free and roll over my cheeks. They fall in fat blobs on the paper, smearing the ink as I initial each page.
I’ve barely put the dot behind my name on the final page before Dante snatches the stack of papers away as if it’s the most valuable possession he owns. When he takes the pen, his fingers brush over mine, and his gaze holds mine for a moment too long.
I break our eye contact first, not wanting him to see the defeat in my eyes.
He initials each page in turn and signs his name next to mine before handing the contract to the lawyer. “Take care of that. I want certified copies in the safe.”
The lawyer slips the papers into a folder. “That goes without saying.”
As if he’s some kind of gentleman instead of a heartless monster, Dante offers me a hand. Ignoring the gesture, I stand on wobbly legs. My head spins. The room goes in and out of focus. My steps are unsteady, but I refuse to show Dante and his men more weakness than I’ve already showed them. Crying in front of them is mortifying enough. Even though I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek, I can’t control my tears.
Holding my head high, I walk to the door. Reino rushes forward to open it for me but I reach it before him.
Somehow, I find the strength to balance my weight on the high heels as I push the door open and exit into the hallway. A sensation of suffocation closes in on me, but I just keep on moving, ignoring the tightness in my chest and the tears that won’t stop falling. Those tears blurring my vision are born from helplessness and anger, but mostly, they come from a deep-seated notion of grief as I mourn the loss of more of my dreams.
My mother raised me on fairy tales and happy endings. Maybe she did that because her own life was so unhappy. Whatever the case, I dreamt about rings, a white dress, and a knight in shining armor. I wanted the big wedding, the loving husband, and the babies. I spent hours imagining every detail of what my wedding would be like. I even planned the whole damn ceremony in my head, right down to the three-tier cake.
Yet this is how it’s going to be—a forced marriage in which I have no say. There won’t be tears of happiness, Dante going down on one knee, and wedding invitations going out from my parents on a gold-trimmed card.
Now, as Dante’s future wife, it feels more as if I’m walking toward a guillotine.
Chapter
Fourteen
Dante
* * *
Tatiana doesn’t say a word on the way back to the house. The tears she quietly sheds next to me in the back of the car must be tears of regret. I bet she wishes she never ran into me outside their condo on the day she did, the very same day her father told her who she’d marry.
Bumping into her was a coincidence. I like to think of it as fate. But the reason I was in her neighborhood wasn’t. I was there for her, intent on stalking her until I got my way. One way or another, I was always going to make her mine.
I look at my fiancée’s beautiful face. With the golden light of the sinking sun that highlights her flaxen hair, pale complexion, and full pink lips, her Slavic heritage is evident. Those jade green eyes glitter all the more brightly with her tears.
She’s too perfect. I want to reach out, grab that image, and grasp it in a fist like I used to catch fireflies when I was a kid. Back then, I’d let those little insects go to watch their light disappear in the darkness of the woods where I was camping with my friends.
Now, I don’t want to let go. Ever. I want to cling to the memory of how she looks today so badly that I risk snuffing the life right out of it and snapping every bone in my fingers. Because today marks a huge milestone—the achievement of everything I set out to do. It’s the beginning of the end for Leander Teszner and only the start of us. No matter how it came about, they’re my family, she and Noah, and nothing can change that for all eternity. My name will be carved into their gravestones. We’ll be connected in the afterlife, in history, and into forever.
A hundred years from now, someone may stand in front of those graves and wonder who those people were. Our memories may be long forgotten. But everyone will know Tatiana was a Morici, that she was my wife, mine to protect and provide for, and that Noah was our son.
The thought of being bound together in this life and the next brings me a measure of peace. I twist the ring Tatiana gave me for my birthday around the L of Lee’s name that’s tattooed on my finger. I put the first letter of his name right there, under her ring, so it could remind me every day what I was fighting for. What I’m living for.
It’s a handsome ring. A coil of silver rope runs around the middle, flanked by iron bands. The gesture was sweet at the time. I wonder if she knew how symbolic that rope would become. It’s tied around her neck like a noose now, barely allowing her space to breathe. She’s my prisoner in every way that matters, chained to my bed and tied to me by blood. Soon, she’ll be locked up in my house. I’ll put a ring on her finger, one I won’t allow her to take off. And then I’ll give her my surname before putting another baby inside her.
