Elena would never stay quietly caged. Not for long. I know her too well to delude myself into thinking that. If she didn’t find a way out through sheer defiance and force of will, she’d do it covertly. She’d talk, negotiate, beg if she had to. She’d wear down my staff, find the cracks in their discipline, plant doubtwhere loyalty should be. And if that failed and that door stayed locked and every guard stood firm, she’d turn those same tactics on me.
The worst part? They would eventually work. She has always known how to reach me, how to slip past my defenses when no one else could. How to make me hesitate like no one else in this world can.
If by some miracle she did accept imprisonment and agree to stay hidden and silent once I made it abundantly clear nothing she said or did would be able to change my mind, it would only confirm what my enemies already suspect. That I’m ruled by obsession. That I let emotion cloud my judgment and Elena Vitale is not just a vulnerability but a leash held tight around my neck, ready to yank at a moment’s notice.
I scrub a hand down my face, feeling the weight of inevitability settle in my bones. Some part of me wishes I never found her. Life would certainly be easier with her still gone. Then again, what’s to say madness wouldn’t still creep in? Either by obsessively wondering where she went or spending the rest of my days trying to find her.
“I need to marry her.”
Leo’s brow shoots up. He stares at me like I’ve finally lost my mind. “What?”
“It’s the only way,” I continue, the decision crystallizing in my mind now. “If the world knows she’s my wife and that the child is ours, no one will dare touch her or the boy unless they want to start a war.”
Leo opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “I… suppose that’s one way to solve the issue…”
It isn’taway, it’s theonlyone. A Don’s wife is untouchable, sacred in the eyes of allies and enemies alike. Any man foolish enough to lay a hand on her signs his own death warrant, and everyone knows it. The rules are old, absolute, and enforced without exception.
The same cannot be said for a woman with no title. A mistress, a former lover, is a liability. Elena as my wife becomes protected by fear and tradition. Elena as anything else becomes a target.
This isn’t about pretending the past never happened. It’s about survival for the both of us and the child she refuses to name as mine.
I lean back against the couch, the weight of the choice pressing heavily over me. “I’ll make it clear to her that this isn’t a request.”
Leo studies me for a long moment, then exhales. “She’s not going to take that well.”
A corner of my mouth lifts, not in humor but in grim acknowledgment. “That’s too bad.”
She will understand in time. She’s the one person who will always understand what’s at stake. If marrying me is the price of keeping her son alive, she will fall to her knees in an instant to pay it.
I have her brought to my study the next morning.
I know if I hesitate now, I’ll lose what little resolve I’ve managed to build overnight. So I sit behind my desk, papers already laidout in precise order with my jaw locked tight enough that it aches.
She walks in with her shoulders rigid and her face pale. Despite that, her eyes remain furious. The first thing she does is ball her hands into fists when she stops in front of my desk.
“Is there a reason you separated me from my son again?” she demands.
Ourson, a voice reminds me darkly.
I feel it then, the instinctive flare of anger clawing its way up my throat. The urge to snap back and remind her that she is not the wronged party here, thatsheis the one who disappeared all those years ago and kept him from me, and it is not a transgression that I will easily forget or forgive.
If I ever do in the first place.
“He’s safe with the staff. Nothing will happen to him while you and I are having a conversation,” I say evenly.
She fires back instantly. “He’s a child, Dante. He woke up crying this morning when your guards came in with breakfast. Do you know how scared he is right now? He’s in a place he’s never been before with people he doesn’t recognize surrounding him.”
And whose fault is that?The words almost escape me. I bite them back hard enough that my teeth grind together audibly. Losing control now would serve nothing. All it would do is show how easily she is able to get under my skin. That her influence over me has never truly gone away.
I refuse to hand her any more power than she already has, even unknowingly.
“Sit down.” The command is quiet but absolute.
She doesn’t at first. For a long, stretched moment, we stare at each other from across the room. I let the silence do the work for me. One minute passes, then another. I don’t look away. I simply wait.
Finally, she relents.
With a loud sigh, she grabs the chair positioned beside my desk and drags it forward. The legs scrape harshly against the hardwood floor, the sound grating on my already frayed nerves. It echoes too loudly in the quiet study. She drops into the seat stiffly, her hands clenched in her lap.
