Page 62 of Claimed Through Deception

I wipe my mouth, flush the toilet, and stand up on shaking legs.

I pick up the plastic test and wrap it in layers of toilet paper, shoving it into the bottom of the trash bin.

I look at the stack of hundred-dollar bills Niccolò casually tossed onto the dresser yesterday. He never tracks the cash. It is pocket change to him. He leaves money everywhere, in his suit pockets, on the nightstands, in the study.

I will take a few bills every day. I will hide them inside the lining of my old canvas bag. I will hoard the money until I have enough to vanish completely. I know how to disappear. I know how to survive on nothing. I did it for years before he found me.

The physical pain of the decision tears my chest open.

I love him. The realization is a bitter, agonizing pill to swallow. I fell in love with his possessiveness, his rare moments of vulnerability, the way he touches me like I am the only thing in the world that matters. Walking away from him will rip my soul to shreds.

But I cannot save him. And if I stay, he will ruin this child.

I wash my face. I reapply my lipstick. I stare at my reflection. The terrified girl is gone. The iron wall is back, fortified with a protective instinct I have never felt before. I am a mother now. My survival is no longer just about me.

I walk out of the bathroom. I will go back downstairs. I will smile at his guests. I will let him kiss my jaw. I will play the perfect, devoted queen.

And the second I have enough cash, I will run.

22

Niccolò

The party was supposed to be a fucking victory lap, a statement to the Chicago outfit and the rest of the eastern seaboard that the Severato syndicate hadn't skipped a beat since I ripped the crown from my father’s head. Instead, it became the exact moment I felt my woman slip right through my bloody fingers. Livia walked down the grand staircase in that silver silk gown, smiling for the men who kissed my ring, but the light in her eyes had completely burned out. She played the perfect, devoted queen for the rest of the evening, letting me pull her against my side and press kisses to her jaw, yet she felt like a ghost haunting my own ballroom.

In the weeks that followed the celebration, her emotional withdrawal has mutated into a suffocating paranoia that gnaws relentlessly at the edges of my sanity. She still sleeps in my bed, yielding to my touch whenever I reach for her in the middle of the night, but her compliance feels hollow. She is retreating behind the same impenetrable titanium wall she built when she was just a maid scrubbing my floors, hiding whatever the fuck is running through her head. My twisted, possessive mind supplies the only logical answer: she regrets submitting to a monster, and the reality of being tied to a violent mobster is finally making her sick to her stomach.

I am standing by the sprawling bay windows of the war room, staring out at the manicured grounds of the estate, when Enzo walks in and shuts the oak doors behind him. He doesn't carry his usual stack of ledgers, he carries a tablet displaying the latest surveillance photos from the northern shipping routes, dropping the device onto the center of the conference table with a sharp clack.

"The Falco family is moving weapons through the narrows," Enzo states, his icy blue eyes fixing on my back. "They are mobilizing their soldiers, Niccolò. Roberto’s exile and the broken engagement humiliated them, and they are preparing a massive retaliation to reclaim their honor. We need to strike the northern warehouses before they get the chance to flank us."

"Then send Alessio with a strike team and burn the fucking warehouses to the ground," I snap, turning away from the window to glare at my Consigliere. "I don't need to micromanage a simple arson job, Enzo. Handle it."

Enzo doesn't flinch at my tone. He simply crosses his arms over his tailored suit, refusing to back down from the frustration rolling off my shoulders. "I will handle it, but I cannot handle the massive fucking blind spot you are developing right inside your own house. You are distracted, Niccolò. You are missing shipment reports, ignoring calls from the Chicago bosses, and pacing the hallways like a caged animal because you are too busy watching the security feeds to see what your woman is doing."

"Watch your fucking mouth," I warn him, closing the distance between us until I am looming over him. "Livia is none of your business."

"She is my business when she makes the Don weak," Enzo counters ruthlessly. "The men see it. They see you losing your grip on the operations because you are obsessed with a girl who looks like she wants to jump out of a moving window to get away from you. The Falcos will use that distraction to slip a knife right between your ribs, and if you don't snap the fuck out of this pathetic paranoia, you are going to get us all killed."

I grab Enzo by the lapels of his suit jacket, slamming him backward against the edge of the conference table. The violent urge to break his jaw sings through my veins, but the objective truth in his eyes forces me to freeze. He is right. I am losing my mind over a woman who treats my affection like a prison sentence, and my enemies are sharpening their knives while I stare at her on the surveillance monitors.

"Nobody touches her," I growl, releasing his jacket with a violent shove. "You double the perimeter security. Put two armed guards on her at all times, even inside the house. Track her every fucking move. She doesn't take a breath without me knowing about it."

Enzo adjusts his lapels, his expression completely unimpressed. "Suffocating her will only make her hate you more."

"I don't give a shit if she hates me, as long as she is safe and she stays exactly where I put her," I bite out, turning my back on him to pour a glass of bourbon from the crystal decanter. "Get the men in place. Now."

My command backfires with spectacular precision.

The moment the extra guards materialize at the end of the hallways, shadowing Livia's steps through the estate gardens and standing outside the kitchen while she makes her tea, her withdrawal accelerates into a frantic, barely concealed panic. I watch her from the balcony overlooking the courtyard, nursing a glass of liquor while she paces the stone pathways of the greenhouse. She looks over her shoulder every few seconds, her hands trembling as she pulls her cashmere cardigan tight against her chest, treating the men meant to protect her like executioners waiting for the order to strike. I wanted to build an impenetrable fortress around the woman I love, but I have inadvertently locked her in a maximum-security prison, accelerating her desperate need to flee my suffocating orbit.

It is past two in the morning when the boiling frustration finally explodes.

The estate is silent, and the guards patrolling the outer walls, but I am wide awake in my study, staring blindly at a stack of syndicate contracts. The door clicks open, and Livia slips inside, wearing a thin silk robe over a pair of cotton shorts. She doesn't look at me, her gaze fixed firmly on the floorboards as she walks toward the bookshelves to grab a novel, acting as though the massive man sitting behind the desk is completely invisible.

"Why are you pulling away from me?" I demand through the quiet room.

Livia freezes, her hand hovering over a leather-bound spine. She slowly turns to face me, her expression is a flawless mask of blank indifference that makes my blood boil. "I don't know what you are talking about, Niccolò. I am just looking for a book."