I lean forward slowly, resting my forearms on the edge of the table, and let my voice drop to something quiet and lethal. “Watch your mouth, Lucania. You’re in a cage. I’m not. Think very carefully about what you say about my woman, or I’ll make sure you never speak again.”
The threat hangs in the air between us. I could see to it that he bleeds out naked in the showers by dusk. A payment to the right guard, the right inmate, and Rafiel’s days on this earth would be over.
Rafiel’s whole body vibrates with barely contained violence, and I’m curious about what’s driving it. If he’s in love with Ariana, shouldn’t he be happy that I’ve thrown her aside?
“You had everything handed to you,” he snarls. “A woman like her, beautiful and loyal and willing to marry you. A future most men would kill for. And you threw it away like yesterday’s trash.”
“It was trash.” I meet his dark blue eyes. “To me.”
The tendons in his neck stand out like steel cables pulled to breaking point.
Does she know he loves her? Does she return it?
Trying to picture perfect, polished Ariana with this criminal is laughable. Then again, some women have a taste for chaos and violence. I wouldn’t know anything about that, because my Mina is the sweetest, gentlest woman who ever lived. Maybe Ariana likes it rough and dirty. Maybe she visited him here, sat acrossfrom him at one of these plastic tables in a low-cut top, and let him believe he had a chance. Maybe she thrives on attention from a caged, violent man.
“How long have you been in love with Ariana Barone?” I ask, genuinely curious now. “How does it feel to be sitting in this concrete box, hearing about her life unfolding on the other side of these walls, knowing with certainty that you’ll never touch her? Never fuck her? Never be anything more to her than a criminal rotting in a cage?”
“Shut up.” The words come through clenched teeth.
“A Barone and a Lucania.” I shake my head slowly. “It was never going to happen. Even if you weren’t locked in here counting down the years, she was always going to marry someone like me. A better man. A richer man. Someone with the right family name, the right connections, and enough money to keep her in the lifestyle she’s accustomed to.”
“I said shut up.”
“I was supposed to marry her, and I didn’t even want her.” I let a smile curve my lips. “That must be eating you alive, seeing me throw away a woman you could never dream of having for yourself.”
“Shut. The fuck.UP.”
“Tell me, does she visit you here? Does she sit across from you in a tight dress, letting you look at her but never touch? Does she get wet knowing you go back to your cell and jerk off to her?” I glance around at the other inmates. “There are fifteen, twenty men in this room. There’s your dear old dad as well. I bet they all jerk off imagining your precious little ice—”
Rafiel comes across the table like a freight train jumping its tracks. His fist connects with my jaw in an explosion of pain and light.
I stagger back, catching myself on the chair.
The whole room erupts. Inmates shouting. Guards rushing forward. Metal chairs scraping across concrete.
I touch my jaw where Rafiel’s fist connected. My fingers come away bloody. He split my lip.
I start to laugh as blood runs down my chin. Rafiel’s just earned himself solitary confinement. Lost privileges. Maybe even months added to his sentence.
Perfect.
Recompense for him calling Mina a whore.
Rafiel is still coming at me. He gets a fistful of my collar before the guards reach him and drag him back. His feet scrabble against the linoleum, but he’s still shouting.
“Arrogant piece of shit! How dare you talk about her like that!”
Three guards wrestle him toward the security door. He’s fighting them every step of the way, his face twisted with rage. I smile from ear to ear, watching him go.
“You had everything!” he shouts at me. “You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve anything.”
The security door buzzes and slams shut. A guard is still shouting at the other inmates to sit down. Someone is laughing. The fluorescent lights flicker overhead.
Gabriel Lucania is still watching me from the corner. While his son gets dragged away screaming, the father hasn’t moved a muscle. Silas Cross should have suggested I meet with the don instead. He at least seems to know how to put a leash on his temper.
I wipe the blood from my chin and walk out.
On the other side of the security doors, my belongings are returned to me in a plastic tray. The guard with the contemptuous eyes watches me go without a word.
