Page 54 of The Kingpin’s Bride

When he finally pulled out, the loss was sudden and filthy. Cum immediately leaked down the insides of my thighs in thick, slow trails. He did not let me move. He simply adjusted the white dress back into place with the same care he used for the cream, and turned me to face him.

His eyes were a darker gray than usual.

“You’ve been mostly good,” he said. “I’d like my wife to be a little sweeter to me. I treat you well, don’t I?”

I stared back, unable to answer, making him sigh..

Once we were in my bedroom, I looked down at the place where the Camilla photograph was hidden under the edge of the mattress. It was peeking out. My heart pounded. Before I could pounce and hide it, Matteo was next to me, and he saw it, too.

He did not reach for it.

He did not ask.

He only said, voice low enough that it would live under my skin for years, “Whatever is under there stays under there until you decide to put it in my hand. But understand this, wife. Every day you keep the secret is another day Dario remains useful. The moment he stops being useful, the moment I decide the risk outweighs the leverage, he disappears.”

He turned off the overhead light. The city glow through the windows painted cold bars across the bed. I closed my eyes.

“Wait… Please.”

Chapter Fourteen

Matteo

Morena Caruso was the most beautiful thing I had ever put my hands on. And she was lying to me by silence.

Except it looked like she was finally ready to tell me the truth.

“Her name is Camilla,” Morena whispered, pulling the photograph out from under her mattress. She pointed it at me. “She’s my little sister.”

Camilla.

A little girl in a red shirt, sitting on a dingy carpet. Looking straight at the camera.

I stood slowly and turned. Morena’s face had gone white. Her blue eyes locked on the photograph in her own

“She’s four. Dario took her the night I refused the private rooms,” Rena went on. “He uses her to keep me dancing. To keep me from running. Every photo. Every threat. Every night on that stage. It was all about her. That’s why I begged you not to kill him. If he dies and she’s with him, or if the people he knows take her…”

Her voice cracked. She pressed her lips together hard enough that the color drained from them. I looked at the photograph again. Small hands. Dark hair. The same eyes as the woman standing in front of me, only softer.

Dario had not simply sold Morena. He had used her little sister as a leash. He had kept the only pure thing left in Morena’s life as leverage while he put a knife to her throat and tried to take what belonged to me. And she had protected that secret. Even after two hundred lines of ownership written in her own hand while tears dripped onto the page.

I set the photograph on the dresser with deliberate care. “You kept a child from me.”

The words landed like a blade laid flat against skin. Morena’s shoulders curled inward. “I didn’t know what you would do with her. You’re not soft. You bought me for a womb, didn’t you? I thought if I told you, you might use her the same way he does. To get something from me.”

I stepped closer. My free hand rose and caught her chin, forcing those wet blue eyes up to mine. Tears gathered at the corners but did not fall yet.

“You belong to me,” I said. “Every secret. Every reason. Every piece of the life you lived before I put my ring on your finger. That includes Camilla. From this moment your sister is under my protection. Dario is dead. He just hasn’t been told the day yet. But you will never hide anything from me again. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Say it properly.”

“I understand,” she whispered. “I won’t hide anything again. And… thank you.”

I released her chin and stepped back. The pain pulsed hard enough that I had to clench my jaw against it. The photograph of the little girl sat on the dresser. The wall of Morena’s face watched from the living room. The diary with its blacked-out confession waited on the table.“Dario remains breathing for now. Not because he deserves air. Because the child is with him or with people he controls, and I will not risk her disappearing into the places men like him know about until I have her location confirmed and secured.”

“Okay,” Morena said. “I can help you.”